Statoil Chooses Wingårdhs Building Design

 Statoil (STO)’s architectural competition for the planned new building at Forus West was won by the Swedish architects’ office Wingårdhs with the project proposal “E = mc²”.

“Wingårdhs’ project proposal stands out as the best solution for Statoil. In our view this project provides us with the best land utilization, best economy and the best architectural and functional solutions,” said Arne Sigve Nylund, executive vice president, Development and Production Norway (DPN), and location manager in Stavanger.

The project proposal locates the new building close to the entrance section of the existing building and the planned collective axis towards Vassbotn. This strengthens the urbanization of the area aimed at, e.g., by the Forus Vision. The building has an elliptic layout that is slanting from the 16th floor towards the north to the 1st floor towards the south, which gives the building a distinctive appearance. Due to a highly area-efficient building shape and office solution, the gross area is far smaller than the other project proposals in the competition.

The possibilities for later construction stages are also outlined, showing a total of three buildings of the same shape, but different sizes. The existing building at Forus West can be maintained until a third building is established, if relevant, which makes the concept very flexible.

As architectural competitions differ from ordinary project procurements in Statoil the National Association of Norwegian Architects (NAL) has been involved as advisers in the process.

“The architectural competition was announced and performed as an international project competition. This has been successful, and has resulted in a high-quality winning proposal. Statoil has combined internal processes and best practice in the architecture sector, and implemented this competition in an exemplary manner,” said Per Rygh, competition secretary for NAL.

Statoil will now mature its plans for the new building based on Wingårdhs’ project proposal, and clarify important regulation issues prior to deciding the further progress.

“When the company reduces the investment costs for 2014-2016 compared with former plans, this also affects office building projects. The project's progress plan will therefore be postponed by 12 months in relation to the original plan.  We must now clarify issues related to parking and other important regulation issues before we proceed with the project,” said Hans Birger Thomseth, project leader in Statoil.