Sparebanken Vest
The Jonsvoll quarter is the award-winning building for Sparebanken Vest. The building is part of the city's cultural axis in a transformation area between small wooden houses on one side, and larger modernist town buildings on the other side in the center of Bergen.
Sparebanken Vest has gathered its seven subsidiaries with more than 700 employees and currently holds the largest financial professional environment outside Oslo. With its 10 floors, it has been important for Sparebanken Vest to create an open and inviting facade for both the city and users. Through local engagement, good cooperation and high ambitions, the Jonsvoll quarter has resulted in a building with high architectural quality.
The façade is inviting and breathes transparency and openness. The architecture enters into dialogue with the surroundings with the nature of the Norwegian west coast and Norwegian materials, while at the same time giving the building its own identity. Wooden materials and proximity to the water have been an important choice as a metaphor, and are well reflected in a wave around the facade that breaks down to a human scale and create openness and invites you to the entrance. It is Arkitektgruppen Cubus, in collaboration with Brandsberg-Dahl Arkitektkontor, which is responsible for the overall development of the building.
In the modern building, new forms of work have been central and the seven companies are now gathered in an activity-based office that will contribute to interaction. The interior architect IArk is behind the decor and has ensured the holistic thinking further into the office and harmonizes with the building’s other material use, while at the same time the needs and working methods are taken care of.
The decor is planned around the architectural staircase and the atrium, which constitutes the building’s core with common areas for the spontaneous and informal meetings between staff. The active and social zones surrounds the core and the further away from the core one moves, the quieter the environment becomes with zones of concentration and focused work. The atrium is designed with strong associations with Norwegian nature with mountains and crevasses, where the light is let in through the roof and changes with the changing weather.
The core of the activity-based interior design is to choose a workplace according to the task to be performed. Variation in the work and design according to Sparebanken Vest’s needs, with many meeting rooms and areas for interaction have played a central role in the interior design planning. All work zones are connected to a support room equipped with tools for interaction, while the workplaces are optimized for different needs. The employees have a cabinet for personal storage in the work zones that are equipped with RFID locks so they can use the same card in the access control as otherwise in the house. Input interior has delivered furniture and interior for workplaces, meeting rooms, social zones and to the canteen.
