The city centre of Hamar has changed greatly in the recent years, most noticeably through the development

of the main square. As a celebration of the new playground planned next to the square Sparebanken Hedmark's

art-trust held a limited art-competition for an art installation to be given Hamar Municipality.

 

Our chosen location is one that gives the installation an added quality since it serves as a link between the surrounding areas, the square, the playground, the park and the cafe. The small site was intended for a small orchard to be enjoyed by everyone. A beautiful idea that inspired us to think of both baskets used to harvest fruit and of the pinecones lying all over the forests that surround Hamar.

 

The individual sculpture serves as a place to stay, perhaps as a personal free space, but when more are placed together they also allow for other spatial variations and connections across the structure, a meeting place. An asymmetric shape, where one side opens and the other is pinched together at the top, provides two very different ways of sitting in each pinecone.

 

The pinecones are made out of lamellas of Norwegian spruce. Snekkeriet in Verdal performs processing using a 5-axis CNC machine. Wooden plates are milled out, and then fastened together through steel spacers and a steel construction set between the lamellas, at the bottom of the pinecone.