I do this recording on a corner along Stålverkskroken in the Ensjø area of Oslo. Urban renewal is ongoing here, and by 2030 “Ensjø City” will have up to 7,000 new apartments.1 The transformation manifests visually, almost as a timeline, on this street. To the left are new condos. To the right is a construction site, quiet during the weekend with no activity. I record next to a fence toward the construction site. The brook Hovinbekken runs by. The river bed appears to be newly designed, with plants added just a few weeks ago.
Hovinbekken became a hidden waterway in the 1950s, but now it is brought back to daylight.2 I went for a walk a few weeks ago, following the brook from Hasle metro station to the Ensjø metro station. I retrace that route today, wanting to do some recordings along the way. There are many locations where I choose not to stop, as I get too close to housing complexes. Recording can take on an element of surveillance or stalking, picking up on conversations from balconies or the park areas, something I want to avoid. Most of the path is away from traffic, and the sound of running water dominates, masking out other sounds of the city. Visually, the brook is vital to the landscape architecture between buildings and contributes to flooding protection.3
Several parallel processes become appearant here. The urban densification responds to expected population growth in Oslo. Cooperation between governance and private actors also serves the interests of investors, aligning with how “Lefebvre predicted that society was going to be irreversibly urban as the production of urban space was becoming the central process through which capital was accumulated”.4 The transition of Ensjø from being dominated by car dealers to becoming a residential area1 is part of the development towards a more environmental-friendly city, where inhabitant increasingly depends on public transport. The road where I record only leads to a parking lot in the basement of the nearest condo. Relative to the number of apartments, I get the impression that there is limited parking. Only a few cars pass, and most of them are electric. At low speeds, I only hear the sound of tires against the gravel. The exception is a motorbiker entering from the basement and stopping nearby to interact with a smartphone.
Oslo Municipality describes the transformed Ensjø as “naturban”. I google the term. It makes sense that most entries relate either to Ensjø or to urban development projects in Sweden, as the plan for Ensjø, with a local centre by the metro station, resembles the organisation of many residential areas in Stockholm.
(Please use headphones when listening.)
1 Oslo kommune. “Ensjøbyen.” Oslo kommune, February 13, 2017. https://www.oslo.kommune.no/slik-bygger-vi-oslo/ensjobyen/.
2 Nilsen, Karsten Sølve. “En før og nå-vandring langs det gamle bekkefaret fra fjorden til marka.” Hovinbekken (blog), October 9, 2013. https://hovinbekken.org/vandring/.
3 Oslo kommune. “Kvalitetsprogram for Ensjø. En felles satsning fra kommunen og utbyggerne.” Oslo, NO: Oslo kommune, 2010. https://www.oslo.kommune.no/slik-bygger-vi-oslo/ensjobyen/#toc-7.
4 Keil, Roger. Suburban Planet: Making the World Urban from the Outside In. Urban Futures. Medford, MA: Polity, 2018, p. 6