Nygaardsplassen: A New Public Piazza in Fredrikstad, Norway

Nygaardsplassen is a mixed-use complex of buildings designed by Mad Arkitekter for previously run-down area the city center Fredrikstad, Norway. A square dating from 1800s surrounded old wooden buildings, some them listed log structures, and postmodern brick had over time turned into an ill-defined neglected open space, constituting rear surrounding urban fabric. The new filling it have provided with layout including lively piazza street, restaurants cafés on ground floor apartments above. massing, detailing, façades align existing context, providing coherent humanized whole which has proved hugely successful.