Marius Andresen is a professor at the Høgskolen i Hedmark. He came to Stortorget with his students to participate in a workshop about public space. We really enjoyed his company and creativity and apparently it was mutual. Just read what he writes about dreamhamar!

“Born 24.10.1971. I originally come from Starum, Østre Toten situated on the other side of Mjøsa, now living in Oslo. I am married and I have two daughters.

I studied industrial design in Oslo at The Oslo School of Architechture and Design in 1993-1998, with an exchange in 1996-95 at Les Atelier, ENSCI in Paris, to study design.

In 1998 two classmates and I started K8 industridesign AS, and now I am he only one left running the company with two employees and new interns every 6 months. We focus on sustainable design and design for self reliance. Historically, K8  has developed products for a lot of different types of companies, with an emphasis on health and medical products (patient lifters/hoysts, electric wheelchairs, emergency stretchers, etc.)

Our slogan is: fun and play are the only way, and we spend alot of time on products and challenges we enjoy working with and find meaningful.

Our last K8 fun-and-play baby is a solar driven LED lamp for those 1,8 billon people who use kerosene and candles for light. From that project there is now established another company who will work with environmentally focused products for people living off the electric grid so they can live a healthier, safer and better life. K8 will continue to work for this company as their design partner.

When I heard about Dream Hamar it was natural for me to connect the students at Høgskolen i Hedmark to the project to make them contribute to the process, to get a feeling of the international level of the project and also for the students to start reflecting on a very real task, with real problems, but with plenty of possibility to unfold and create new visions for Hamar. The topic ”Light Instalation”  was pretty open, and I think the groups managed pretty well to explore different directions and ideas given the limited time they had.

dreamhamar is one of the most ambitious social-interactive-democratic-development-design-transforming-process-projects I have seen, and I’m very inspired by the spirit of the project and the people running it. BRAVO! I hope the people of Hamar understand how lucky they are, and that they have used this golden opportunity to particpate changing their own future. For me the result almost does not matter anymore, since I have had such a kick from the process!

When I get older I will come and do an internship at EU (EcosistemaUrbano)“

And you’ll be very welcome, Marius!