Cultivated landscape : the architecture of 3RW

3RW was established in year 2000 as a young and independent office, strongly rooted in Bergen s art and cultural scene. The founding partners of 3RW were all educated (and later, also taught) at the independent Bergen School of Architecture or BAS, a school founded by Svein Hatløy, who oriented the institution towards the philosophy of open form.

Open form seeks to create an inclusive architecture. It conceptualizes architectural language as a democratic expression – one which allows for meaningful social transformations. Designs are to be based on and interactive with their context, material and immaterial; of the landscape and climate.

3RW architects regularly work on the completion of diverse sociocultural site analyses, also using this site-oriented methodology in other participation processes, both in the fields of planning and architecture. 3RW s starting point for carrying out sociocultural place analyses is supported by the understanding that a place is not reducible to its physical components, but is an ensemble made of local inhabitants experiences, memories, values and feelings.

These analyses help 3RW to identify the many understandings, interests, differences, wishes and needs of an area-bound population. Such analyses critically contribute to the dimension of social sustainability of projects; their purpose is to unearth the relevant aspects of the socially constructed place .