The customer for this unusual project was the Gjøvik Care Center - the Gjøvik center for helping adolescents in difficult life situations. One of the main activities of the center is work with underage immigrants, who are provided with psychological and legal support, as well as, if necessary, medical assistance. Future Norwegian citizens can eat here, and spend their free time, and master the skills of some useful profession. Actually, the arboretum was conceived as one of the means of vocational training by the leadership of the center - a place where children could learn to take care of plants and feel completely safe.
A part of the inner garden of the Jovik Center was allocated for the creation of a tree nursery. In order to visually separate the arboretum from the rest of the garden, the architects raised it to a relatively high platform.
This stylobate is sheathed with light wood on the outside, while the inside is filled with soil and gravel. And since the Norwegian climate is not very favorable for many plants and, in general, different trees need different conditions of maintenance, it was decided to create separate “nooks” for each of them.
In the plan, each of the cells has the shape of an equilateral triangle, and the architects do not hide that they chose this geometric figure for a reason - the triangle as a symbol of harmony and balance seemed to them the most appropriate to the goals and objectives of the object being created. As one of the images that inspired them, the authors also call the crystalline model of the Earth, in which a ball is made up of many triangles.
Located next to each other or even partially connected to each other, triangular arbors symbolize the unity and at the same time the dissimilarity of cultures, because in each of them trees grow that can exist only in a certain soil.
Each of the cells has high walls. Made from dark wood planks, they not only protect the plants from wind and part of the rain, but also provide the necessary privacy for those who care for them. Here teenagers can be alone with themselves, read or just relax - comfortable benches are designed in each of the gazebos.
