The C-building is one of three buildings in the DnB NOR complex situated in Bjørvika at the waterfront of Oslo. The C-building by Dark Arkitekter has within a surface of 12.000 m2 fifteen floors containing both offices and public services. The project will be completed in 2012. Thirteen generic office floors give the bank 500 workplaces. The two top floors contain a public restaurant and a bar with a 360 degree viewpoint area on the roof terrace. An inclined panorama elevator connects the viewpoint and the restaurant/bar on the top to the ground level restaurant at Dronning Eufemias gate, the new main boulevard of Oslo.

At street level the building has a mix of retail and commercial establishments, in addition to one of several dining lounges in the DnB NOR complex. A two story high public passage penetrates the building, as a part of a public short track through the Barcode site, leading to the Oslo central station.

The stair-shaped volume, with each step two stories tall, faces south towards the fjord. The fifteen stories tall north façade faces the railroad tracks and the city. Green landscape terraces provide outdoor areas with a spectacular view. These “pocket parks” are connected to the indoor social areas, where the height of the story is doubled. The floating between the inside and outside responds to the Norwegian climate of cold winters and pleasant summers, thus providing flexibility in the use of the social areas during the shifting seasons.

Effective generic office floors are facing the terraces and the social areas. An internal 15-floor straight flight of stairs runs alongside the public panorama elevator, connecting the different office levels. Entering these stairs is like entering into a different world, leaving the big and busy office floors behind. A narrow diagonal room runs with the staircase where art adorn the wall at one side, the elevator passes in the glass tube on the other side, and above; the sky appears through the glass ceiling. The mixed feeling of being outside the building and entering a semi-public space creates a unique atmosphere.

The access to the typical office floors happens through the main core in the north. Meeting rooms, think tanks and other support rooms are placed along the east facade, facing the main bank building. The large open office areas without columns run in the north-south direction, ending on the terraces facing the waterfront on the lower levels. At the mezzanine levels you are overlooking the two story tall common areas, having the terraces and their sea view as a curtain behind.

The façade materials are mainly glass and dark grey glassfibre reinforced concrete cassettes. The cassettes of modules 0.9x0.9, 1.8x1.8 or 2.7x2.7 cm and the different depth of 10cm, creates a mosaic of square shapes, visually adding solidity and massiveness to the building volume. The glass is placed towards the south and the format follows the same modules as the cassettes.

The DnB NOR C-building responds to the needs and demands of an effective modern office building – and at the same time serves the public. The public program and roof access add functions to the Barcode area and to the Barcode cityscape. The building itself strengthens the identity of the bank and the Barcode area.