RAVINEVANDRING
23 & 26 September 2026
Meeting place: Tonsen Kirke
Oslo Arkitekturtriennale 2026
Norway is on of the largest mass producer and exporter in Europe. Its booming construction industry around the capital, Oslo, has driven a mass management sector to rise. As the capital builds at an unprecedented pace, from housing to infrastructure to logistics parks, generating millions of tonnes of excavated rock, soil, and debris every year. Approximately 10 to 12 million tonnes of construction minerals must be managed annually in the region alone. Since the municipality of Oslo has no treatment or storage facility within its limits, these masses must travel, sometimes for hours, to be deposited or processed in neighbouring municipalities.
This is a massive and highly lucrative business. Yet there is little to no oversight by public authorities. Once materials cross a municipal boundary, tracking is effectively lost. Today there is no comprehensive public record of where the masses come from, where they go, or what they contain. The state monitors large projects; municipalities manage smaller ones. This opacity has created situations ripe for misuse: ravines filled with unknown materials, neighbourhoods built on contaminated ground, and communities whose concerns have not been heard.
You can see more at : www.dirtybusiness.no
This project aims to respond to this public information gap by building a publicly accessible database of mass reception facilities, landfills, and the companies that operate them.
“No dumping – Oslo Public Roads Administration“. Old furniture and rubbish placed on a loop in Raschs vei.
Bekkelaget, Oslo, Norway.
Photograph by Arbeiderbladet, March 1963.
Municipal road construction that has never been fullfilled as the works provoked a landslide of quick clay were 3 workers are still buried under.
Asak Massemottak, Frogner, Romerike.
Photograph by Paolo Ricci, © Laboratory for Urban Boundaries
Asak Massemottak, Frogner, Romerike.
Photograph by Paolo Ricci, © Laboratory for Urban Boundaries
Photograph by Leif Krohn Ørnelund (1969).
Oslo Museum / DigitaltMuseum.
Moss, Norway
Photograph by Paolo Ricci, © Laboratory for Urban Boundaries
Asak Massemottak, Frogner, Romerike.
Photograph by Paolo Ricci, © Laboratory for Urban Boundaries
Asak Massemottak, Frogner, Romerike.
Photograph by Anne Marte Aure, © Laboratory for Urban Boundaries
Asak Massemottak, Frogner, Romerike.
Photograph by Paolo Ricci, © Laboratory for Urban Boundaries
Oslo, Norway.
Photograph by Ørsted, H. (c. 1983–1984)
Oslo Museum / DigitaltMuseum.Oslo, Norway.
Photograph by Kim Hart (June 1992). Oslo Museum / DigitaltMuseum.
What is more concerning about this subject is that a significant volume of masses is deposited outside any formal monitoring framework. To address this gap, we are developing a detection method based on the subtraction of successive Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) produced by Kartverket (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021). This technique, known as DEM of Difference (DoD), computes the volumetric change between two terrain surfaces over a given time interval, identifying areas where material has been added to or removed from the terrain. The chronological analysis of these models allows us to locate, quantify, and visualise mass movements that are otherwise undocumented, as shown in the map below.
Digital Model of Difference
Topographic changes between 2018 and 2021, around Skedsmokorset and Frogner.
Map by : Laboratory for Urban Boundaries.
Data source : Karvertket, NGI
In blue are the areas where material has been extracted and in green/red where it has been deposited. The topographic analisis has a resolution of around 3 m, so any movement over this threshold is normally seen. You can see clearly in the map the Asak Massemottak on the right, as well as Skedsmopukkverk on the left. As well as the different logistic and industrial parks.
False color representation of the surface topographic change, in orange what has been added and in blue what has been taken.
Satellite imagery overlayed to the topographic change
When public institutions lack the capacity to monitor and document processes that threaten social and ecological justice, civil society must step in, with information, analysis, and collaboration.
This is a work in progress, and we are currently looking for partnerships for this project. If you are interested in collaborating please reach out.