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education of architects is often synonymous with focus on digital
design and scale modelling. in this course, full scale building
for a client is incorporated as an educational tool. the intention
is that by developing their own architectural design and then
constructing it in full scale, the students achieve an in-creased
insight in the inherent properties of materials, structures,
workmanship, production and erection of structures, as well as
collaboration and communication. the project in 2015, presented
in this book, is a stargazing structure located in rindal.
the courses worked out this year where almost full-time and
16 weeks in duration. during the first 6 weeks, the 17 students
attending the course designed their own individual concept pro-
posals as “paper on the wall projects”. this period included sem-
inars with lectures both by students and teachers, three short
excursions, meeting with the client and a site visit. during the
subsequent 2 weeks, the teachers selected 5 of the proposals for
further development by student groups. the students could not
work on their own project and had to switch to another selected
project. both in the beginning and at the end of this period, the
5 concepts were presented to the client. after the last presenta-
tion a discussion was held between the client and the teachers
resulting in one project being chosen to be more modified and
built. the working phase with the chosen project lasted for six
weeks. three weeks were allotted for ordering components and
project modification and completion; after which, the building
process began. the trusses, the cladding and the platforms were
then prefabricated. during this week the client produced the
foundations at the site using student drawings. the stargazing
structure was then built on site throughout the subsequent week.
introduction
during the final week, the students produced a report
and a video documenting the projects and processes. the
report which remains unchanged follows this introduction,
and describes the 3 phases in the course.
the project chosen for realisation this year looks simple to
build from the outside, however when studying it further,
you discover that most of the intentions to achieve the
increased insights mentioned in the beginning of the intro-
duction are challenged. let us read the book and listen to
the student’s experience.
we wish to thank the municipality in rindal for their sup-
port and collaboration. special thanks to sivert dombu,
bjørnar nordlund and bård magne sande for their involve-
ment and excellent way of following up. without them, the
stargazing structure would not have been build. we also
wish to thank all of the 17 students for their achievement.
the project would definitively not exist without them. our
colleagues carla carvalho and Filippo Frontini have given
an invaluable contribution by establishing the blog for the
course and assisting with the structural design – thank
you. at last but not least we want to thank our sponsor tal-
gø and our suppliers who have sold us affordable materi-
als and components. You are indispensable for rindal and
us in making the project possible to carry out.
trondheim 2015
Jan Siem, Bjørn Otto Braaten and Arnstein Gilberg