"The architects at Helen & Hard and Saaha have designed a magnificent building and SR-Bank placed an early emphasis on environmentally friendly and sustainable solutions"
SpareBank 1 SR-Bank's goal was to gather the employees in one building. With this in mind, Finansparken saw the light of day. The building, with its 22,800 m2, is one of Europe's largest commercial buildings with a wood bearing structure. "Entering Finansparken feels nice, it smells good and has soothing ambience." says Pia Fischer, project manager of the building. Finanparken is environmentally classified as BREEAM nor Outstanding. BREEAM-NOR is a comprehensive tool that measures the building's sustainability, for the benefit of the user and the environment.
A project task force was formed with a representative for architect, SR-Bank, Senab Eikeland Stavanger, designer Lars Tornøe and selected representatives for the Norwegian furniture and textile industry. SR-Bank was adamant on using Norwegian design and local furniture manufacturers.
Fora Form was one of the furniture manufacturers SR-Bank invited to create value with them. The result has been a beautiful building, with unique qualities and a new sofa family in Fora Form's product portfolio.
For "Finansparken", Lars Tornøe has designed everything from wool textile in Innvik, to special solid wood furniture manufactured at Jæren and the sofa family Tind produced in Ørsta.
Designer Lars Tornøe lives in Stavanger and had previously been involved in the rehabilitation of SR-Bank's office at Domkirkeplassen. Lars was given a bigger role in the Finansparken project. For Finansparken he has designed everything from textile weave in Innvik, to special solid wood furniture manufactured at Jæren at Eikund. Lars Tornøe designed a new sofa family as a development of the Fjell Chair from Fora Form with production in Ørsta. In this way, Finansparken has become an arena for value creation in a number of Norwegian companies.
The Tind sofa designed by Lars Tornøe was designed specifically for Finansparken.
The sofa series is now part of Fora Form's standard collection.
Fora Form created areas where the employees of SpareBank 1 SR-Bank could "Work together", "Eat together" and "Connect together".
Clint Cover
How could SpareBank 1 SR-Bank preserve the financial and environmental benefits of re-upholstering Clint chairs they would reuse?
The result was an upcycling initiative we now call Clint Cover.
In the project, SR-Bank had focus on reusing furniture. The project wanted to reuse some Clint meeting room chairs that all had different textiles and colors. Functionally, the chairs were 100% usable, but in a new building colors and expressions would not vote in the new premises. Could these chairs be re-upholstered? The economic and environmental benefits would disappear if the chairs were to be sent to the factory in Ørsta for reupholstery. The solution was to create a cover that could be pulled over the existing chairs and upcycle the chairs so that the aesthetic expression of the chairs was upgraded. The result was a upcycling initiative we now call Clint Cover.
Lars Tornøe has through the Finansparken project made several new designs for interaction that is now a part of Fora Form`s collection. Tind sofa series and lounge chair, which was designed specifically for the project, has already become popular with architects and dealers. Maybe it will be tomorrow`s furniture classic? The sofa is used for informal meeting zones, where the rounded back provides soft interaction between the people and the architecture. Fjell meeting room chairs have been developed with a shorter backrest and the possibility of using it as a projectchair with high lift was added. Kvart table series has been expanded to include wider tables, and larger diameter in meeting room tables and we even added wheels for project meeting rooms. SR-Bank wanted to reuse Clint meeting room chairs, so a Cover was designed to easy re-upholster the chairs, so they fitted in the new colour-scheme. All functionality aside, Finansparken has a good atmosphere, and staff enjoy the new work surroundings.
Thank you, SR-Bank and Senab Eikeland Stavanger, for your faith in us and a big thank you to the talented Lars Tornøe.
