The timber – almost brutalist – proposal respectfully ads to the 2 existing adjacent museum buildings in form, scale and material. From a distance the form looks monolithic almost brutalist. From close the form looks fragmented and lightweight.

The building symbolises the architectural transition from concrete to wood with respect to the brutalist concrete heritage which often shows the timber formwork boards, like in Sverre Fehn’s intervention next to the building. We wanted to achieve the same quality but instead of using wood for the formwork we used it directly for the cladding.

The rational appearance from the outside contrasts heavily with the “irrationality” and softness of the museum inside; a giant “cloud”. The art is exposed inside the cloud. The art is freestanding. The visitor can dwell (or “float”) around the art in the cloud.

The building is (almost) completely made from wood (storing tons of kg carbon). The saw tooth roof provides lots of natural light in the museum area and prevents “museum fatigueness”. On the sloping side of the roof there are 507 solar panels placed. Our ambition was to make the building carbon neutral by using a ground heat source pump, heavy insulation (including triple glazing) and the 507 solar panels.