In September, several of our students went to Norway to (re)-build an old farmer's barn into a new one as part of an Erasmus+ workshop.  
 
The P5/O5 programme 'The lifecycles of trees and timber' by Machiel Spaan and Gilbert Koskamp focused on how local timber can play a meaningful and sustainable role for the longest possible time in more or less the same place. 
 
On a beautiful site next to the little village of Eggkleiva close to Trondheim in Norway, 50 students from 5 international schools* deconstructed the last remains of a 100-year-old barn. The -at first sight- ravished barn still held surprisingly useful material. It was the start of a labour-intensive week of true building! 
 
In six days, the students harvested, cleaned, de-nailed, gathered, selected, improved, chiselled, cut, assembled and constructed a new gravel-stone and beam foundation, timber portal structures, roof trusses, facades, a timber floor, cool ventilation hatches, windows, and a roof.
 
A special project within the timber barn was the building of a rammed earth wall. The massive task of gathering, drying and sifting the local clay and gravel, building the formwork, and finally ramming the earth resulted in a beautiful centrepiece holding a historic reclaimed and reworked piece of green natural stone from the local cathedral in Trondheim. This wall will accumulate and return the solar energy coming into the barn. 
 
The barn will be used as a chicken shed, a greenhouse and a folly for the morning coffee as it is the perfect place to take in the beautiful location at the lake. We look back on an amazing week and fantastic achievement! 
 
Participant schools: The Academie van Bouwkunst Amsterdam, the NTNU Faculty of Architecture and Design Trondheim from Norway, Universität Liechtenstein, Universiteit Antwerpen and the University of Thessaly from Greece. 
 
Participant builders, students, and teachers: 
Fernanda Bittencourt, Nigo Farida Atta, Emma Diehl, Maelle Turgeon, Babs Hofland, Jeroen de Rooij, Mauricio Rodriguez Glaudemans, Nadèche Westrus, Machiel Spaan, Gilbert Koskamp and Jeroen van Mechelen. 
 
Photography: Jeroen van Mechelen