Halvor Weider Ellefsen, Fredrik van der Horst and Marja Folde are a part of the exhibition Mission Neighbourhood – (Re)forming communities with the project The Peripheral Neighbourhood.

With the project The Peripheral Neighbourhood architects and academics Halvor Ellefsen and Marja Folde explore the notion of spatial justice defined as the “fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and opportunities to use them” in the everyday urban landscapes of Norway: The vast and shapeless habitats along and in-between infrastructures, logistical installations, and agricultural areas. The work includes case-studies in European cities that have “rescaled” infrastructures and reconnected neighbourhoods, aiming to increase social integration across barriers.

The work features an ongoing exploration of a particular peri-urban condition in Bærum Vest outside Oslo, questioning the challenges – but also the potentials – hidden in the fragmented and dispersed, and exploring what spatial models and approaches are needed to secure “spatial capital” as social sustainability-strategy in peripheral neighbourhoods.

The Oslo Architecture and Design (AHO) research group Norwegian Urbanism explores the specificities of the Norwegian urban condition, framed within an European discourse of urban- and landscape form. Trough in-dept case studies and close collaboration with private and public stakeholders, the group bridges academic research, education and disciplinary practice, with a particular focus on replanning, transformation and strategic, urban projects. Currently, the group collaborates with Bærum municipality, where 85 architecture- and landscape students from AHO explores the urbanism of peripheral neighbourhoods.

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Marja Skotheim Folde, Architect, Master in Urbanism
Halvor Weider Ellefsen, Architect, Associate Professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Fredrik van der Horst, Diploma student, Landscape Oslo School of Architecture and Design