Desire line
Krekke is a place to stop for a rest along the main road through Gudbrandsdalen, but it’s also a park area for the local community of Fåvang, Ringebu. The service functions are placed inside an embankment that works as a noise barrier between the park and the highway. Daylight is admitted down to a protected sitting area inside the embankment through a prism-shaped skylight, which protrudes from top of the barrier as a signal to passers-by.
The park and recreational areas slope from the embankment down toward the river Gudbrandsdalslågen, and a path – a ‘desire line’ - lined with light poles leads directly from the service area down to the river bank. Gudbrandsdalslågen floods the park area on a yearly basis, but the light at the top of the poles are always above safe water level. In the event of a flood, the row of lights will continue in a straight line out into the streaming river, indicating the flood level.
The noise barrier is supported by concrete walls, cast in site using vertical wooden formwork with inlaid laths at varying intervals. The walls are folded inward into the embankment to make room for the small building with service functions. Four toilets and a small storage space are placed behind a screen wall of coned pine poles, next to a sitting area with a drinking fountain and a small sitting amfi. The path to the river bank consist of precast concrete slabs embedded with local slat stone, and the light poles are corten steel.
The project is a teamwork between PUSHAK and Lala Tøyen.
All photos by Ivan Brodey