Oslo Airport City: a jump in the future

Norway continues its journey to a sustainable future. Oslo Airport City (Oac) could become the most innovative and sustainable city in the world: energy autonomy, electric mobility and smartness will be its main features. The project, recently revealed by Haptic Architects and Nordic Office of Architecture, describes a city set up on the ONU Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.

Tomas Stokke, director of Haptic Architects, states: “Using robust city planning strategies such as walkability, appropriate densities, active frontages and a car free city centre, combined with the latest developments in technology, we will be able to create a green, sustainable city of the future.”

Design a new city from scratch

The city will arise between the Oslo Airport Gardermoen and Jessheim, and cover 4 million-square-meter (988 acre) . In the last few years the so called Ullensaker Municipality, with 34000 inhabitants, catch commercial and industrial interests. It is a business friendly, flexible and young municipality. With about 27 million travelers, the Oslo Airport Gardermoen is Scandinavia’s second largest airport. Moreover, it is the most “digital” European airports. Today, the airport directly employs approximately 23000 people but this number will be doubled towards 2050. Oslo Airport City will offer accommodation, commerce/service, logistics/transportation and recreation to travelers and inhabitants.

Innovation in the Oslo City Airport

The main innovative features of the city will be:

• No cars: the city will be made for “humans”. Its citizens will never be more than five minutes away from public full electric transport.
• Smart city: not only public smart mobility, but also auto-lighting and smart for waste and security.
• No fossil fuels: Oac aims to be the first energy positive airport city with the capacity to sell surplus energy to surrounding buildings, communities and cities. However, we don’t have information about the kind of technology that could be employed to produce energy.
• Green spaces and sport: the city will include green spaces to satisfy the Norwegian passion for sports and outdoor activities, such as run, cycling, canoe.

Construction is expected to start in 2019 and the first buildings will be completed in 2022.