GULSKOGEN BICYCLE HOTEL | mmv architects

This bicycle hotel is configured in the freight house at the station, which opened in 1868. It was important in the design to build with a high conservation value and preservation through new uses, without making major changes. To preserve as much as possible of the existing has been important in shaping the concept of the hotel. The area to the east gable wall has been rebuilt to mark a change of use. The hotel offers parking for 134 bicycles, of which two can be used by bicycles with trailers. There are also four charging points for electric bikes and a floor-mounted air pump for filling the tires. Through an app on your mobile phone, the hotel unlocks easily in and out. Bikes were left where ever around the station, and many people did not dear to park their bikes because of thieves and vandalism. The “Bike hotel” is video monitored and only accessible to those who buy access, so the bike hotel becomes a more secure place to leave your bike. The design is inspired by local history and the imagery of a forest on a sunny summer day, where light penetrates between the branches. The Gulskogen bicycle hotel continues the design in Drammen Station and the bicycle hotel there. The perforated metal panels with patterns are inspired by the local beech forest, becoming a feature and a recurring element that helps to create a coherent expression of stations in the Drammen Municipality. In the early days of Norwegian railway history from 1850, all railway buildings was built in timber, and were first built in the style called “Swiss style”. This style was developed in Norway from the French “Empire” style, mixed with a Swiss and German traditional building style, and with inspiration from the old Norwegian Stave churches from the middle age. The reason for choosing such a style while establishing the railroads was with a mission to build the new national state Norway that was free from Sweden since 1814, buy using a kind of new national style. The “Swiss” style was from around the 1870’s followed by the even more “Viking” looking style called “Dragon style”. At the end of the 18th Century the national train authorities decided to change the old station buildings in wood into more fire safe stations in brick. So now the style was a more international inspired style, in Norway called “Jugend” style, which is similar to what in the US would be called Art Nouveau. The building was once the main station building at the train stop Gulskogen (“The Golden Forest), but has been kind of emptied from original use since the end of the 18th century, and the old wooden station building ended up just being a storage house. Our idea was to reuse the old building and reprogram it, rather than tearing it down. We wanted to take care of and keep the extraordinary wood construction, to let people see in their everyday life how beautiful building traditions our nation was built on, and let people get a glimpse into a historic space. We even wanted the building to smell like in the old days, so we have used the old tar smelling oil products to take care of all wooden surfaces. So when you get inside the building, you really get a feeling of the old days.