PLANETARY BOUNDARIES - rethinking Architecture and Design

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This week is your last opportunity to see this important exhibition because Planetary Boundaries at the Royal Danish Academy on Holmen will close on Friday 5 April 2024.

The concept of Planetary Boundaries is a method for assessing the environmental state of our planet within nine areas that regulate the Earth's stability and balance. Humans have been successful because, over thousands of years, we have adapted to survive in a remarkable range of habitats from frozen tundra to parched landscapes with barely any vegetation and we have done that through the ways we have learned to exploit a huge range of natural resources. However, there are limits to those resources and limits to how much we can pollute the land, and the water and the atmosphere of Earth with waste before that has a serious impact. Mining, the generation of power and the consequent production of waste from industrial processes are all pushing those boundaries close to and, in many environments, way beyond those limits.

Shown here, is work from 25 research protects, that have looked at new materials or at new approaches to design and manufacturing and at changes in our building methods and planning policies that could control our demands for energy and reduce global emissions of CO2 and pollutants from mining extraction and from large-scale agricultural and industrial processes ... processes that have had such a detrimental impact on our rivers and seas and our atmosphere.

Manufacturing is responsible for over 50% of global energy usage and is responsible for 20% of global CO2 emissions.

A UN report from 2022 showed that construction work is now responsible for 34% of global energy demands and 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

So now, as the impact of climate change is becoming a reality, if there are not major changes to what we build and how we build, current predictions for the release of CO2 indicate that emissions from the production of building materials alone are set to double by 2060.

We have to to be rational and look at the materials we use and change how we use materials in building construction and in manufacturing.

Some of the new materials shown in the exhibition - such as fungi - or suggestions about how to use raw materials more efficiently or ideas about how to reuse salvaged materials have been proposed before but here there is a clear move on from theory to practical applications that have been or are being tested at scale.

For policy makers - now focused on making changes before we reach irreversible tipping points in global warming - these ideas may well be obvious and, for them, it is about when and how these changes are implemented but they will only be successful if a large number of people - the customers who are buying and using the products and the citizens who are living in and working in what could be very different forms of building - understand the reasons and are on board with those changes.

One project in the exhibition has looked at experiments in communal living with reduced personal space but increased shared space for shared facilities in housing and another project looks at increasing the density of housing in the suburbs of Copenhagen by building new houses on back plots and between existing buildings but such major change can only proceed with wide-spread consent.

The exhibition presents what are still options so the next stage should be broader and informed debate about how we use materials; about what we manufacture and how and about how we build and what we build in our cities in the future.

PLANETARY BOUNDARIES
Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler
for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering
Danneskiold-Samsøe Allé, 1435 København K
21 Sep 2023 - 5 Apr 2024 

Six of the projects will be shown at Form, the design center in Malmö. 

PLANETARY BOUNDARIES
Form Design Center
Lilla torg 9, Malmö, Sweden
13 April - 2 June 2024

Papirøen / Paper Island

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from the north west looking across to the opera house
and to the new apartment buildings beyond

It's a year since I last posted about the new apartments under construction on Papirøen or Paper Island at the centre of the harbour in Copenhagen.

The main blocks are all up to their full height and, in the last couple of months, high cranes cross the site have been taken down so you can now see clearly the scale and the full impact of this large development. 

There are high, wedge-shaped blocks of different heights grouped around a courtyard and they are all faced in pale yellow brick with long sloping roofs but with slightly different arrangements of closely-spaced windows and balconies. There are also large slabs of concrete in place now for the cross walls of what appear to be a short row of houses on the north side of the island, facing towards the opera house, and a second row of seven houses across the south side of the island facing towards the canal and the inner harbour bridge. However, without their roofs or windows, it is still difficult to assess how these lower buildings will have an impact on the whole group although they should disguise and reduce the apparent height of the apartment blocks as they will appear from the level of the quay.

The elongated and tapered shapes of the individual buildings mask their overall height - the tallest block has twelve floors - and, to some extent, the sloping shape reduces the deep shadow that will be cast by the buildings.

There will be a swimming complex at the north-west corner of the island but little of the upper structure or the pyramid-shaped roof of that building is yet in place so, again, it is difficult to assess the visual impact on the harbour when the scheme is seen from the north, where the harbour, until now, has been dominated by the striking roof line and strong silhouette of the opera house.

Temporary, opaque-plastic sheeting over the phenomenal number of balconies has protected the interior from dirt and debris while the major construction has been completed but now, as the interiors are fitted out, much of this protection has been removed and it certainly gives a better impression of the final appearance of the blocks. The plain long slopes of pale brick had made the blocks look like narrow wedges of cheese stacked on end but the balconies are deep with what appear to be dark framing to the windows that are set back - the balconies are 'internal' rather than being cantilevered out - and these form a strong pattern of shadow and light across the slopes that relieves the otherwise massive but bland slopes.

Obviously, it is still difficult (and unfair) to judge the design at this stage - when it is still without the broad walks around the perimeter and still has a clutter of builders cabins and scaffolding and small cranes - but what is clear is that the massive scale of the development will have an impact on the harbour. The development looms over the important 18th-century buildings of the Arsenal to the east and the buildings are so tall that they can be seen from Knippelsbro to the south and from the quays as you approach the inner harbour bridge from that side and has a marked and not obviously good impact on the harbour when seen from the north. The buildings now close the view down the important open space of Sankt Annæ Plads, on the opposite side of the harbour, immediately north of the theatre, and can now be seen as the most distinct feature on the skyline rising above the trees when looking towards the city from the south from as far away as Kløvermarken.

COBE, the architects for the Papirøen development, in their own distinct but quiet way, are one of the most adventurous and most interesting architectural studios in the city and I find it difficult, normally, to be critical of their work. In a clever and well thought-through way, they challenge or push against conventions but generally stop short of being overtly controversial.

At Krøyers Plads, a development of apartment buildings just south of Papirøen, they helped Vilhelm Lauritzen, the main architects, negotiate a controversial scheme through difficult planning objections that had been mired in controversy for decades. Ironically, the apparent impasse was resolved by going for much lower buildings where high-rise towers had been proposed in earlier schemes. COBE completed a careful assessment of the streets and quays that form the wider setting of that development and went back to the silhouette and arrangement of historic warehouses along the harbour as their starting point for the design but then played with the forms and angles of roofs and the arrangement of balconies to produce an interesting and generally well-received development.

On Frederiksberg Allé, COBE designed a new apartment block over the new metro station that played with historical conventions to produce a very sophisticated design on a very sensitive site and, in complete contrast, at Orientkaj, their new metro station in brutal concrete is uncompromising but is appropriate as a homage to the earlier industrial forms of the buildings there when the area was once the dock of a busy container port.

However, here at Papirøen, on such a crucial site at the centre of the old harbour, just down from the opera house and immediately opposite the national theatre, when you get up onto such an important stage, you have to be completely sure of the value and quality of the scheme that will be there for fifty or a hundred or, probably, more years.

The popular food halls that were in the concrete warehouses here in the years immediately before building work started, are set to return, so the site could become well used again and the buildings, even unfinished as they are, looked good at night when they were illuminated for the Copenhagen Festival of Light but will that be enough to compensate for the obvious and justified criticism that this is a massive development that really should mark a nadir for the rampant exploitation and gentrification of the historic harbour.

new apartment buildings on Papirøen 2 March 2022

COBE on Papirøen

from the quay on the south side of the national theatre looking across the harbour to the west side of Papirøen

the south side of the new buildings from the quay at the east end of the inner harbour bridge

view from the north from the side of the canal opposite the opera house … the temporary cabins on the right are for the construction of an underground car park and a new park on the island between the opera house and Papirøen

from the south west with the buildings of the Arsenal in the foreground

from the quay on the city side of the harbour looking north towards the inner harbour bridge with the dark brick ranges of Krøyers Plads on the right (also by COBE) and the new apartment buildings of Papirøen beyond the bridge

from Lille Langebro looking north … from this distance the the new apartment buildings are tucked back on the right beyond Knippelsbro

new apartment buildings on Papirøen at the centre of the inner harbour

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On Papirøen - Paper Island - the new apartment buildings designed by COBE are now rising rapidly and beginning to dominate the inner harbour.

The square island is in a prominent position opposite the entrance into Nyhavn from the inner harbour and opposite Skuespilhuset - the national theatre - and  just north of the inner harbour bridge and just south of the opera house and the new opera park that was also designed by COBE.

The recent growth spurt of the construction work on the apartments is easy to understand. Massive excavations, for foundations and piling to support the new buildings, seemed to take a very long time but now, having reached the level of the quay, it has simply been a matter of bringing in all the slabs of concrete and the ready-formed balconies and the facing panels of fawn brick and lifting them into place.

It's the ubiquitous method for building now ....
drop off and slot in building.

But now most of the blocks are close to their final height, you get a sense of just how much this massive development will dominate this part of the harbour.

The distinct tapered silhouette with, what are in effect, abnormally extended roof slopes, cannot disguise the fact that the main block, set above a very high main floor, rises to the equivalent of 12 floors and on the east side, the side away from the harbour, the new buildings now swamp the 18th-century naval buildings of the Arsenal and the mast sheds beyond.

It is now even more difficult to appreciate the overall scale and the importance of the naval buildings that, over a distance of more than 700 metres, would have formed such an impressive backdrop to the vast area of open water where, through the 18th century, the great Danish naval fleet was anchored.

What is now called Papirøen actually had a second mast crane on the west side, towards the city, but otherwise seems to have been relatively open and was where naval officers arrived as they came by boat to join their ships ... coming over from the administrative buildings of the navy and the main ship yards that were then north of the royal castle in the area of the city between Holmens Kirke and Nyhavn.

the 18th-century warehouse of Nordatlens Brygge from the south west with the development of Kroyers Plads, also by COBE, to the right and the site of the Papirøen development to the north of the warehouse to the left of this view

COBE, on their web site, imply that the main inspiration for the new buildings came from looking at the old warehouses along the harbour although the new blocks have none of the dignified and restrained grandeur of, for instance, Nordatlantens Brygge just to the south of the Papirøen site and the very deep balconies framed by concrete uprights and the slightly odd shifting across of the position of windows and balconies on alternate floors across the south side - to create a slightly restless chequerboard effect - are closer in visual effect to the large development on Dronningens Tværgade from around 1950 that were designed  by Kay Fisker. Certainly not a bad model but possibly not a good one as Fisker was clearly and openly proud of his tall blocks whereas the Papirøen blocks are trying to disguise their height and, to some extent, must be trying to mitigate the shadows these very large buildings will throw across surrounding properties and across the courtyard at the centre of the development. 

the new apartments looking across the harbour from Skuespilhuset - from the board walk of the national theatre - two views from the Holmen side of the harbour - from the north east and from the south east - and the development from the south west - from the inner harbour bridge with the opera house beyond

the west side of the devlopment with the opera house beyond and (below) the apartments at Dronningens Tværgade by Kaj Fisker

the south side of the new apartments (above) and the north side of the square at Dronningens Tværgade by Kaj Fisker (below)

Newspaper printing works in the city stored their paper in the post-war concrete warehouses here - hence the popular name of the island- but after the warehouses closed, the buildings were used for car parks, for temporary gallery spaces - Copenhagen Contemporary, now out at Refshaleøen, started life here - and &Tradition had their first store out here and the COBE studio themselves had studio space in the warehouses.

But the main use for the concrete buildings on the side towards the harbour was for an incredibly popular food hall that thrived despite being in a slightly awkward place ... it was quite a long walk to get here before Inderhavnsbroen - the inner harbour bridge - was finished.

The food halls are set to return to the island - to the spaces on the ground floor - but these apartments will be some of the most expensive in the city so it will be interesting to see if they can coexist happily as neighbours.

It's probably unfair to criticise the building while so much is unfinished and a wide board walk around the buildings and a new swimming pool complex at the north-west corner will contribute much to this part of the city ... but visually I'm not sure the reality will match the romanticised and possibly over optimistic CAD drawings for the scheme. I’m always suspicious about proposals for buildings that are shown to look amazing in the dusk or in the dark.

Cobe on Paper Island

Papirøen - Paper Island from the inner harbour bridge in August 2017 (left)

the paper warehouses on the island were not attractive and certainly not in such a prominent position but, with the opening of the gallery space occupied by Copenhagen Contemporary and with the incredibly popular food hall that opened here, there was a vitality that will be hard to replicate once the expensive apartments are occupied

 
 

Bo bedre bæredytigt / Living Better Lives

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”Lad Os” (Let’s) - the Vandkunsten Manifesto

Lad os bo mindre og bedre!
    Let's live smaller and better!

Lad os dele mere!
    Let's share more!

Lad naturen flytte ind!
    Let nature move in!

Lad os gøre det selv, sammen!
    Let's DIY, together!

Lad det være og se skønheden!
    Let it be and enjoy its beauty!

This is an important exhibition to celebrates the 50th anniversary of the architectural studio Vandkunsten. It looks at some of their major projects from those decades - but also asks crucial questions about how we can construct more sustainable buildings in the future by using materials in new ways or by giving old materials a second life.

The architects and designers from Vandkunsten have built their reputation on coming at problems with a less conventional approach and here they not only propose a “manifesto” for the design of homes but also suggest that, in the future, homes have to be smaller - much smaller: we should share facilities with our neighbours with the trade off that there would be to more communal areas but less private space.

Here, a home built at the the centre of the exhibition has a floor area of just 37 square metres that is not a holiday home or a temporary home but what could be a model for permanent living space for two or three people.

Recently, it has been suggested that building standards for homes in Copenhagen should be modified - for modified read downgraded - but is that really the only or the right way forward?

Living Better Lives is an opportunity to consider the implications of having less space and to think about alternative ways of building when most of us do accept that the way we live really does have to be sustainable.

Bo bedre bæredygtigt / Living Better Lives
20 November 2021 - 18 April 2022
Dansk Arkitektur Center / Danish Architecture Center
Bryghuspladsen 10, 1473 København K

Vandkunsten

 
 

Christiania at fifty

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the main entrance into Christiania

If visitors to the city know about Christiania, then it is usually because they have heard of Pusher Street but the history of the old barracks here - the buildings that were occupied fifty years ago - and the topography of this area - between the old city and the island of Amager - and, of course, the subsequent history of the community here is so much more interesting than the drug trade.

From the 1830s through to the 1970s this part of the city, close to Christianshavn and immediately south of the naval dock yards, was a major military establishment for the artillery.

Called Bådsmandsstrædes Kaserne, there were barracks; training grounds; stables for the horses that pulled gun carriages; a large riding hall and workshops for producing weapons for the artillery as well as  stores for supplies; weapons and gunpowder.

When the army moved out in the Spring of 1971, local people broke down the boundary wall, at first to make use of open space here as a play area for children who lived in the densely-packed housing of Christianshavn but then people realised they could occupy and make use of the buildings and on 26 September 1971 the settlement of Christiania was declared to be a free and independent town ... free of the laws and regulations of not just the city but also free of the laws of the state.

Back then, politicians and the police must have believed that this new community would survive for weeks or, at most but, fifty years later, Christiania is still here.

 
 

Sitting just inside the south entrance to Christiania, is the giant figure of Green George that was created from scrap wood in 2019 by the Copenhagen artist Thomas Dambo
the mural behind was painted by Rasmus Balstrøm.

 

graffiti and posters are important in the art work produced in the settlement …. here (above) on the outer wall of one of the main buildings that faces directly onto Prinsessegade and (below) on the boundary wall further north along Prinsessegade on the side of the boundary fence that faces out to the road

Christiania is not just the area within the former barracks but it extends north along the outer defences so encloses a large and important green area of the city.

The old buildings along the defences include stable blocks and gunpowder stores but also a number of self-built houses. There is public access to the lanes down the inner line of bastions and down the outer defence and it is a popular route for people walking between the city and Refshaleøen.

The main area of Christiania is remarkably close to the centre of the city and would be extremely valuable if redeveloped so there are occasionally rumours that the area is to be be cleared for social housing to be built here.

 
 

the if or when and the how much and why of new islands and tunnels under the sea

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This week, politicians in Copenhagen have to agree a budget for the city for the next financial period and the main item on their agenda will, presumably, be discussions about moving to the next stage their ambitious plans to construct a large new island across the entrance to the harbour …. a major engineering project that has been agreed in principle by both the national government and by the city and agreed across most political parties.

Initial plans set the new island immediately beyond and close to the Trekroner Fort - built in the late 18th century to guard the entrance to the harbour - but the most recent drawings published show that it will now be further out into the Sound and will cover a larger area of about 3 square kilometres. There will be a large park along the eastern edge - planned to be larger than the well used and popular Fælledparken on the north side of the city - with homes on the island for 35,000 people and work there for at least 12,000 people although some assessments have suggested that as many as 20,000 new jobs will be created.

But the new  island is not simply the next version of Nordhavn - just larger and further out - but it is also an integral part of an expansion of traffic infrastructure on this side of the city and there will be extensive flood defences on the east or outer side of the island that faces out across the open Sound …. defences that will be an important part of the protection against storm surges that could flood the inner harbour as the climate changes and as sea levels rise.

The name for the new island - Lynetteholm - was, In part, inspired by the shape with a broad curve to the east side - the side facing out across the Sound - and is from the Danish version of the French word lunette and that has been combined with the Norse word holm for a low island that was usually in a river or estuary and was often meadow.

However, Lynette is not a new name in this area of the outer harbour because it was the name of a curved outer fortress built in the Sound in the 1760s that, with large guns set up there, was an important part of outer defences that protected the entrance to the harbour.

read more

① road link and tunnel to Nordhavn - north of Svanemølle and south of Hellerup
② tunnel to link Nordhavn to Lynetteholm and then on to the bridge to Sweden
③ alternative route for a traffic tunnel below the coast road of Amager
④ route for tunnel from Nordhavn to Sjællandsbroen - bridge over the harbour

⑤ if the elevated motorway at Bispeengbuen is demolished then there is a plan
to construct a road tunnel from Fuglebakken to Amager - including a tunnel
under Åboulevard and under HC Andersens Boulevard and on under the
harbour and possibly as far as Artilerivej

 

COBE on Frederiksberg Allé

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select any image to open as sllde show

 
 

This new apartment building on Frederiksberg Allé - designed by COBE and built over a new metro station - sets a new standard for building in the city and deserves to win the Arne prize next year.

OK … it’s the slab and clad building method I rant about and rail against but that is when it is done badly with lazy or boring or cavalier design. This building shows exactly what can be done to produce an elegant and clever building by using the free tools any architect has of understanding and appreciating the use of proportion, logic, composition of masses, texture, colour tone and, with COBE, an astute knowledge of Copenhagen building traditions and an empathy with the city and its streetscapes.

The site is a square plot approximately 35 metres wide and 35 metres deep that was cleared for construction work on the new metro line and for an important new metro station here at the centre of the Allé. There was a large villa here that broke or weakened the street line so this project has been an opportunity to establish a clear and well defined street frontage but also with a sense of a new space created at the cross roads by stepping back to the corner in stages along both Frederiksberg Allé and on Platanvej - the side street.

Metro trains now run under the cross roads at an angle and, as the general principal for the metro is that both platforms and the ticket halls and entrance stairs all work in line with the train tracks, that set the angle of the lift tower to the platforms and dictated that the main entrance to the metro should be across the corner and not from either the main street or the side road. Of course the lifts and staircases could have been buried into the building, disguising or ignoring that diagonal angle, but that would not have been a challenge and much of the very best architecture is good because it works with and overcomes the problems of a specific site.

It is also important that the architects of the new building understand the main vocabulary or language of the buildings along the street …. that is, substantial apartment buildings of a high quality with angle turrets at road intersections and the use of decoration to indicate individuality or difference and status. Here the architects from COBE have resisted any temptation to produce a pastiche with domes or flourishes but use strong composition by building up elements to a corner tower and by doing that well they actually get away with producing a building that is much taller and much more solid than anything that might otherwise have been rejected by the planning authority. Given the importance of this historic street and given the potential criticism that could have landed on the desks of politicians from the wealthy and articulate people who live in the expensive homes in this neighbourhood, it had to be right.

The panels of pale brick have either areas of raised header bricks or raised courses of bricks for texture and plain sunk panels on some areas show that actually it does not need much projection or recession to throw a little shadow across the facade for definition. Many of the new buildings in the city are too flat - with no use of recession or projection - even by a slight amount - to give the facade some life.

Here, bricks are set horizontally, in the conventional way on walls where headers are pulled forward, producing a darker surface with the same colour of brick but set vertically and with much longer bricks than is normal on the sections of wall on the corner tower to produce a much softer tone that gives the wall a sheen that is almost like a textile. The windows have a projecting frame or simple architrave of headers and window frames are thin and set back but produce what looks almost like a graphic line to define the openings. There is a clever use of blind panels within the brick frames of the windows above the metro entrance to disguise a high lost area or service mezzanine inside. All this, and the good proportions of the whole and the parts, is an aspect of the design that any good 18th-century architect would understand and respect.

I’m still not convinced that the lack of any definition below the brick but above the wide openings at the corner does not look slightly weak. Steel and concrete can span any space like this without obvious support on the material of the wall face - structural features such as lintels or arches - but without them a wall hanging above a void looks insubstantial - as if it could all slide down - but here it does work because looking at the building, from the angle, it is rather like a chest of drawers with the drawers half pulled out and the corner lifted up. And then the glass tower of the metro lift slides forward under the whole lot like an actress taking the applause, slipping under the curtain of the proscenium arch. Prose too florid? Ok but it does reflect the drama of the building but drama done with an almost minimalist restraint. If this does not win an award for being the best new building in the city it certainly deserves an award for being the classiest.

To simplify what is a complicated plan, essentially, there are three parts to the building with that rectangular block cutting in from the corner and containing the metro station. On either side is a high open space rising through two floors, basically triangular and filling out the space of the plot on either side of that metro rectangle. On the initial plans there were small units on either side to create a food court with tables around the escalators that drop down to the metro platforms but in the end there are two larger restaurants and what is now a florist. On a mezzanine level are two small halls and facilities - the kulturhus - that can be rented for local events.

Above, and almost self contained, are 30 homes arranged in a squat L shape around an open courtyard that is a garden high above the street. From the courtyard itself there is access to six town houses each on two floors, with all but the corner house with dual aspects to the courtyard and to Frederiksberg Allé and then, piled on top, is another block pf six town houses above that and with roof terraces. On the west arm of the L there are relatively narrow studio flats, again with dual aspect but to the courtyard and to Platanvej - across the west side of the plot.

Upper levels of the housing are reached by open lift and stair towers with black metal framework and railings a little too much like cages. Lower apartments have entrance doors from the courtyard and the upper apartments from open external galleries … not the most common form of apartment building in the city where normally, in larger buildings, there will be a series of separate entrances along a front with separate staircases and lifts at each door and single apartments on either side at each level. Here, with the wide entrance to the metro across the corner and the commercial area on the ground floor, that was not an option.

On the courtyard side, the restrained style of the brickwork of the street frontages is abandoned for large panels of wood facing but with the grey brick used for a framing. Windows on the courtyard side are arranged with an unnecessary asymmetry and the staircases and balconies, with their black railings, begin to look a bit too much like an Escher drawing. What is good is that upper levels of the building not only step up to the corner so building up visually to the corner turret with its penthouse apartment, but they also step in or back at upper levels to disguise the height of the building when seen from street level and that also means that upper access galleries, from the lifts to the separate houses at the upper level, do not project but are on the roofs of deeper houses below and there are terraces or roof gardens on the set back so, for once, this is a major apartment block with no projecting balconies.

Frederiksberg mad-&kulturhus
COBE

 

Nyhavn

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Recently, while doing research for a number of posts on buildings around Råshuspladsen, I’ve been using the vast collection of historic photographs from the city archive that are now available on line and, although not actually looking for it, I came across this photograph of Nyhavn … a photograph of the view from the ‘new’ harbour looking towards the more open water of the main harbour.

It was taken sometime after 1900 and probably before 1910 and for me it sums up what is so fantastic about Nyhavn and about the survival of so many major historic buildings along the quays on either side.

For over 200 years, this part of the city was at the heart of commercial trade with merchants living here and with warehouses and workshops that continued to thrive even when, from the end of the 18th century and through the 19th century, they were superseded by the larger warehouses of Christianshavn and Larsens Plads and the line of large brick warehouses between Amalienborg and the harbour.

In the book Historiske Huse in det gamle København, published by the National Museum in 1972, forty four buildings in Nyhavn are included with short summaries of their date; their builder (if recorded) and with details about important later owners. Despite alterations, most of the buildings on the north side, date back, at least in part, to the construction of the harbour in the 1680s. On the south side was the palace of Charlottenborg, that survives, and then further down the harbour buildings from the naval dockyard and the first botanical gardens. It was only in the middle of 19th century that the larger apartment buildings along the quay below the bridge on the south side were constructed.

The photograph shows that the ships moored here - designed and constructed for specific cargoes or different trading routes - were as beautiful and as amazing as the buildings. And, of course, it was the ships that generated the income that provided the money to build and then later to improve the houses as the wealth of the city merchants increased and as tastes and styles and fashions changed.

Some will argue that the harbour has been swamped by it’s own success and has been or will be destroyed by the ever-larger numbers of tourists and the restaurants that are here to serve them but, of course, some will argue that it is only the income from tourism that now means the buildings can be maintained and that they now have a valid role.

The important thing is that they do survive and that they are well maintained not just as exteriors, so simply as a backdrop, but rather as incredibly important historic buildings and interiors that contain the physical and tangible evidence for how people in the city lived and worked and traded and the evidence to show how and why they were successful.

 

Bygningspræmiering / Copenhagen Building Awards 2020

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Winners of the Copenhagen Awards for Architecture for 2020 were announced on 29 April. 

These awards date from April 1902 when Copenhagen city council voted and agreed to make awards annually for "beautiful artistic designs for construction projects on the city's land."  

There had been discussions with the Association of Academic Architects about creating an award that recognised the best designs for new buildings in the city but, from the start, the city council understood the importance of the historic buildings in Copenhagen so one function of the awards was to encourage the design of new buildings of an appropriate quality to stand alongside those historic buildings. They went further and decided, from the outset, to consider awards for the restoration of existing buildings or to recognise improvements to the townscape that provided the best and most appropriate setting for those historic buildings.

Nor did the awards focus just on major and prestigious buildings but over the years they have also recognised the best private houses; new apartment buildings and commercial buildings; factories and schools in the city. 

For 2020, eight buildings or projects were nominated and of those, five have been recognised with an award and one of the five, Hotel Ottilia, was selected by public vote as an overall winner.

The Award-Winning City, Hans Helge Madsen and Otto Käszner
The Danish Architectural Press 2003

Hotel Ottilia, Bryggernes Plads, Carlsberg
Arkitema Architects and Christoffer Harlang

There are two old brewery buildings here - the malt 'magazine' by Vilhelm Dahlerup completed in 1881 and, at a right angle, a long building from 1969 by Sven Eske Kristensen called Storage Cellar 3, although it was actually a large warehouse on five levels. It is faced in brick but is perhaps best known for a series of large gold roundels or shields on the outside.

These have been retained on the east side towards a narrow lane but with new tall thin windows cut on either side. On the courtyard side, towards Bryggernes Plads, the roundels have been removed and replaced with large round windows.

The roof was rebuilt to create a new restaurant - a large glass box with extensive views over the city - although this has been done well and from the ground is not obvious as a large addition.

CPH Village, Refshalevej 161, Refshaleøen
Arcgency
landscape by Vandkunsten

Housing with accommodation for 164 students on land at the north end of the harbour that was a shipyard but this area will not be developed for around 10 years so that gives the housing a fixed but feasible life span.

There are two lines of housing … one along the wharf of a basin and the other in line behind and parallel to create a narrow street that is the main access point to the units, and provides some privacy for the residents, as the development as it is in a large and open public area. The street arrangement and also helps foster a stronger sense of community.

Former shipping containers are set as blocks of four, two on two, with narrow spaces or 'courtyards' or terraces between them and with staircases to the upper units but also providing semi-private outside space for plants or for sitting outside to overlook the street or the water.

Each container has a bedroom/sitting rooms at either end, with large windows and their own kitchen area, and with a lobby and shared shower/toilet at the centre. There is also a large community space in the development with a communal kitchen, a meeting area and a laundry.

Insulation and new facing have been applied on the outside so the interiors retain the corrugated metal of the container. The individual space is relatively small but there is a good ceiling height of 2.92 metres. All materials can be recycled but the design and finish is of a high quality so that the units could be relocated.

There is a strong sense of human scale and a strong expression of the ethics of sustainability. There is a swimming area at the inner end of the basin - so a clear and easy connection with the recreational use of the water and the Refshaleøen food market, breweries, restaurants and galleries are nearby.

CPH Village.jpeg

Klarahus Produktionskøkken, Agnes Henningsens Vej 1-3,
De Gamles By
Anders Jørgensen and Erik Arkitekter

De Gamles By is a large area of nursing homes and hospital facilities with substantial buildings in red brick that date from 1892 and onwards. It is north of the lakes in Copenhagen, with Fælledparken to the east and Nørrebro to the west.

This new building is an extension to one of the nursing homes with a new kitchen and dining room.

External walls are mainly glass so people can see in and patients can see out to help break down any sense of isolation from the community.

The striking feature is a deep band of vertical planting above the glass with a good contrast between the industrial form necessary for a working kitchen for a nursing home and natural planting for an element of texture where otherwise there would have been metal or plastic cladding. The planting resembles camouflage - in part to reduce the impact of a relatively large building but also to form an appropriate link to the gardens all round the site that are used by not only patients and staff but also by visitors and even, on sunny weekends by local people.

There are community gardens and a petting zoo just metres away and it is an important and now well-established principle for civic buildings such as schools, libraries and here a hospital to remove barriers between the facility and people living in this area.

Elefanthuset, Thit Jensens Vej 4, De Gamles By
Leth & Gori

Not far from the kitchen is a former chapel that is now an activity centre and meeting place for patients with cancer.

The exterior has been carefully restored and the interior is a mix of historic features but with a clear use of modern materials and a strong palette of colours with natural wood to create a functional and practical but warm and friendly space.

photographs of the interior from Leth and Gori

Grøndalsvængets Skole Rørsangervej 29
JJW Arkitekter

Grøndalsvångets School was designed by the architect Victor Nyebølle and dates from the 1920s.

The school is an unusually long but narrow brick building that faces south and is towards the back of a large rectangular plot that slopes up from the street to the school. The building is at the centre of a grid of streets and apartment buildings that date from the middle of the 20th century and are mostly of three or four floors. The new buildings are on either side of the plot and run down from the front of the existing school to the street to form a new, large courtyard where there had been temporary buildings and a more traditional playground. The new ranges include teaching rooms on the east side and a new gymnasium and music centre on the west side.

These new buildings have high-quality and carefully-designed brickwork with pitched roofs that run down to the main street front where there are gables and the façade sets forward and back to create a good and well-proportioned frontage on a human scale and with a good domestic or vernacular style that makes the school deliberately very much a part of the area.

 
 

note:

There is a page on the web site of Københavns Kommune - under Housing, Construction and Urban Life - about the Building Awards along with information (in Danish) about each of the buildings.

Life Without Energy

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This project from SPACE10 was undertaken with the Indian design lab Quicksand. They visited 40 families in Kenya, Peru, Indonesia and India to look at how little or no access to electricity restricts or controls day-to-day life and limits opportunities.

With limited incomes, several families who were interviewed spent available money on improving or constructing a more secure and solid home - above any priority for electricity - but then used power, often solar power, first for charging mobile phones as that gave them access, for the first time, to banking and to ways of selling their produce at more competitive rates.

Lighting for safety or security and for extending the working day is important and it was interesting to see that some preferred to continue with traditional forms of cooking on open fires rather than buying stoves that can be expensive and unreliable. It was not just that fridges and electric stoves could be expensive to repair but the supply of electricity could be intermittent or unreliable or family income could be unpredictable so some form of backup like kerosene was kept for when the family could not pay for electricity.

Here, in the exhibition, there are photographs from the project with extended captions that set out the difficult choices that many people have to make when they do not have access to reliable or affordable or safe energy.

Life Without Energy: Needs, Dreams and Aspirations - is the report that came out of the research project and it can be read on line.

the exhibition Life Without Energy
continues at SPACE10 until 17 April
read the report  Life Without Energy: Needs, Dreams and Aspirations

note:

In the World there are around 2 billion people with restricted access to electricity and of those there are as many as 860 million people with no access to electric power of any form.

Access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 along with efforts to improve sanitation, nutrition and access to safe water.

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Realdania - houses of the 20th century

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Realdania own important historic buildings throughout the country including a number of homes designed by some of the major Danish architects from the 20th century for themselves and their own families.

These have been restored by Realdania and they try to return the buildings to their original arrangement by removing later alterations if they are inappropriate and restoring interior schemes of decoration. 

Many of these houses are let to tenants but are open to the public at intervals. This is a list of some of these homes of architects that are open in the Spring. Please check with the Realdania site as numbers of visitors to each property are limited and for some houses it is necessary to book a ticket before the day the house is open.

Realdania also produce excellent guidebooks and these are available free on line … the name of the house is a link to more information on the Realdania site and images are links to the relevant pages to download the guide book.

 
 


House by Eva og Nils Koppels for Jørgen Varming (1952)
Skovvej 35A, Gentofte 
open 6 February 2020

 
 

House for JW Friis by Kay Fisker (1917)
Valnøddevænget 10, 3000 Helsingør
open 26 February 2020

 
 

House designed and built for himself by Arne Jacobsen (1929)
Gotfred Rodes Vej 2, 2920 Charlottenlund
open 3 March 2020

 
 

House designed and built for himself by Bertel Udsen (1956)
Bjælkevangen 15, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby
open 11 March 2020

 
 

House by Karen and Ebbe Clemmensen (1953)
Solbakkevej 57, 2820 Gentofte
open 18 March 2020

 
 

House by Viggo Møller-Jensen (1939)
Borrekrattet 7, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby
open 15 and 22 April 2020

the house is about to be restored and is opened to give people an opportunity to see the house before work starts

 
Møller Jensen.jpeg
 

House by Halldor Gunnløgsson (1958)
Rungsted Strandvej 68, 2960 Rungsted Kyst
open 16 April 2020 

 
 

House by Poul Henningsen (mid 1930s)
Brogårdsvej 72, 2820 Gentofte
open 27 April 2020

 
 
 

Amaryllis Hus

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The annual Building Awards in Copenhagen were established in 1902 but it was only last year that citizens were asked to vote for a public award for one of the buildings on the list of finalists.

Last year the building selected for that first public award was Axeltorv / Axel Towers by Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter.

The winner this year is interesting. From a diverse list of unusual and quite adventurous building projects around the city, the public selected an apartment with a high-rise tower out of the city, just under 5 kilometres from city hall, out to the south west beyond Vestre Kirkegård … the western cemetery.

This is Amaryllis Hus on Paradisæblevej - designed by Mangor & Nagel and part of a major redevelopment of Grønttorvet - the old wholesale vegetable market - a short walk from Ny Ellebjerg station.

read more

 
 

brickwork

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Someone told me that in the late 19th century, as more and more buildings in Copenhagen were built in brick, with brickwork with ornate patterns or fine moulded or shaped details in brick, bricklayers were sent off to Germany to learn to do it properly.

I’m not sure if that is true or not but certainly by the 1890s and into the early 20th century, better buildings in Copenhagen had very good high-quality brickwork with a lot of ornament.

By the 1920s, with the arrival of first classical and then functional styles for the best architecture, brickwork, generally, became less ornate but still of a high quality and not just for public buildings but also for the better apartment buildings.

Patterns of coursing and the use of different colours of brick together enliven what would otherwise be stark or severe exteriors. This apartment block was built in 1930 and is in Skoleholdervej - the road that runs across the south boundary of the north-west cemetery.

Similar brickwork, with alternate courses set forward and back to create the effect of horizontal ribbing, has been used at Amaryllis Hus - the new apartment building in Valby but in sunk panels beside windows within a regular square grid.

Dorotheavej apartments by BIG

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This new apartment building on Dorotheavej - affordable housing designed by Bjarke Ingels Group - has just been nominated for the Bygningspræmiering - the annual city architectural award.

Out to the north-west of the city centre, just over 4 kilometres from city hall, this is an interesting area just below Bispebjerg and Nordvest cemetery, with a mixture of older apartment buildings and new apartment developments but also older industrial buildings on either side of a main road and, to the west, just beyond this site, low suburban housing.

The main road, Frederiksborgvej runs north - climbing up the long slope up to Bispebjerg - and Dorotheavej is on the west side, itself rising up a slope across the hill, with the new apartment building just in from the main road and on a very wide site with a long frontage to the street that faces south.

The form of the block is a long, gentle and sinuous curve back away from the street towards the centre but hard against the pavement at each end with the area in front planted with grass and trees. There is a high and wide archway through to the back of the building at the point where that curve is furthest back from the street.

The apartments have the typical through form - typical for Copenhagen - so here with a series of seven separate entrances along the façade and each giving access to a staircase with an apartment on each side at each level those apartments are relatively narrow but deep and run through from front to back of the block. 

 

Communities Between the Walls

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On 15 February a new exhibition opened in the gallery space on the staircase at the Danish Architecture Centre.

Communities Between the Walls is a counterpoint to the recent reports on social housing and ghettoes. Here are a number of major art projects that have been initiated in areas of deprived or poor housing in urban areas including the new library recently completed in the Tingbjerg housing scheme and the major projects in Gellerupparken in Aarhus.

 

continues at the Danish Architecture Centre until 1 June 2019

Ét Danmark uden parallelsamfund / One Denmark without a parallel society

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ghetto.jpeg

This was a difficult post to write because it is about sensitive political and social issues but the subject is important and not least because there are broader implications for planning and housing in Denmark that will influence future planning policies and should, as a potential model, have a much wider relevance for many countries where there is rapid population growth in urban areas and where housing is concentrated in housing schemes.

In the New Year the government published a report - Ét Danmark uden parallelsamfund / One Denmark without a parallel society - that sets out a policy to tackle problems in some urban areas in Denmark that will now be defined officially as ghettoes.

read more

data to plan for housing needs in the future

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Danskerne i det byggede miljø / Danes in the built environment is a detailed annual survey that asks Danes about their homes.

Information for the most recent report was gathered in April 2018, when 7,090 people completed a questionnaire from Kantar Gallup A/S for Bolius. The results have been published by Realdania and the most recent edition is now available on line.

These surveys have been conducted every year since 2012 so now they provide an important data base but have also tracked changing attitudes so they should influence decisions by planners and should prompt architects, builders and designers to assess carefully the real problems people encounter because the surveys show how people perceive problems and show how these are prioritised. 

The survey is published with general points and summaries but most of the information is set out in a large number of tables. These provide a fascinating insight not just into day-to-day practical problems people have and about the way they complete maintenance and repairs but also broader issues about neighbourhoods - about what makes a good neighbourhood - and how all these factors together influence how people rate the quality of their lives.

More than 6 out of 10 Danes believe that their home is important when they consider the quality of their life … for 22% of Danes  their home is of very high importance and for a further 41% their home is of high importance when they consider the quality of their lives.

read more

Realdania - full report to read on line or download as a pdf file

 
 
 
 

UN 17 village on Amager by Lendager

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January 2019 - the site for the UN17 Village by Lendager Group - the view is looking north along what is called Promenade - the west boundary of Ørestad - Kalvebod Fælled is to the left

Recently, it was announced that housing on the last large plot in Ørestad Syd where building work has not started will be designed by the Lendager Group and Årstiderne Arkitekter and the engineers Arup.

At the south-west corner of Ørestad, it is perhaps the most prominent site, in this major development area in Copenhagen with the open ground of Kalvebod Fælled immediately to the west and to the south an artificial lake and then extensive views out over pastures and meadow.

Given the character of the site, it seems appropriate that this project should go to an architectural practice that is establishing its reputation around its innovative approach to sustainability. In fact, the large development of apartment buildings here is being described as a village and promoted as the first development project in the world that will address all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Concrete wood and glass used in the new construction will be recycled materials but also the housing will be designed to provide an opportunity for the residents to have a sustainable lifestyle.

There will be 400 new homes here in five housing blocks with courtyards and rooftop gardens. Rainwater will be collected with up to 1.5 million litres of water recycled every year.

It is planned to be a mixed development - a very mixed development - with 37 different arrangements of accommodation - called typologies - with family dwellings; co living and homes for the elderly along with communal space; a conference centre to host sustainability events; an organic restaurant and greenhouses with plans for schemes for food sharing.

When completed, there will be homes here for 800 people and 100 jobs.

Initial drawings show that the design will break away from the grim style of many of the recent and nearby apartment developments in Ørestad, replacing flat facades of dark brick with what appears to be a regular and exposed framework of pale concrete piers and beams with balconies and glass set back within that grid and although high at the north end, the blocks will step down in a series of terraces so they will be lower in height towards the lake and the open common.

UN17 Village, Lendager Group

 

drawings from Lendager Group

 

UN17 village overlooking Kalvebod Fælled

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Kalvebod Fælled August 2018 from the west edge of Ørestad

 

With the area of Ørestad marked by a dotted white line and the plot for housing designed by Lendager at the south-west corner marked in orange - this aerial view of Amager was produced simply to show the site and the context.

From the air - and, of course, on the ground - you can see how the proposed housing will be at a key point between the densely built housing blocks of Ørestad and the open common of Kalvebod Fælled.

It also shows the extent of Ørestad for readers who have not been to Copenhagen or do not know this part of the city although, actually, the 8 Building by Bjarke Ingels, just to the east of the Lengager plot and also looking across the common, is now a tourist attraction.

The position and the extent of Copenhagen airport on the east side of Amager is obvious but what might not be so obvious is the odd small tongue in the sea in the centre of the east or right side. That is the end (or start) of the rail and motorway bridge linking Copenhagen and Malmö. The road and rail links drop down into a tunnel between the shore and the bridge.

The road and the rail links run east west and straight through the centre of Ørestad which is why Ørestad City, with a rail and metro interchange, was planned as a major business centre.

At the centre, at the top of Amager, are the distinct lakes and 17th-century defences around Christianshavn and above that part of the historic centre of Copenhagen.

It is the first time I have produced a map of this part of the city for this blog and I realised that I have a slightly distorted view of Ørestad. Over the last five years or so I have done the trip out to this part of the city at fairly regular intervals - partly because I like having a coffee in the lakeside restaurant in the 8 Building with a view out over the common - but mainly because I want to observe and to photograph the area as it develops. A standard trip is to get the metro out to the end of the line, have a coffee and then walk back to where I live in Christianshavn exploring and taking photos.

The metro emerges from its tunnel alongside the university area at the north end of Ørestad and then curves round past the distinctive blue cube of the Danish Radio concert hall before running the full length of Ørestad on an elevated concrete track.

The image I have is of a very large or rather a very long and densely built development but flanked by the much older areas of small plots and gardens and individual houses to the east and open common land to the west and south. That much is true but somehow I had set in my mind that Ørestad was almost a sixth digit on the famous Copenhagen Finger Plan … even if that seems like a slightly perverse understanding of anatomy. But it's not a finger. The Fingers are much much larger, and much longer and much more suburban in character, so each finger is a string of housing and centres for shopping and commerce and based along the lines of the suburban railway. I'm not sure how Ørestad fits in my mind map of the city now … maybe a name tag hung from the wrist.

Resource Rows, Ørestad Syd by Lendager

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June 2018 - rapid progress

 

 

A major housing project in Ørestad by Lendager is moving fast towards completion.

This is housing around an enclosed courtyard on a plot about 250 metres south of the new Royal Arena

It is a wide site from east to west but relatively short north to south and there will be three-storey row houses along both long sides and taller blocks across the shorter east and west ends of the courtyard.

Drawings for the scheme show extensive planting in the courtyard with well-established trees and with climbers or plants on the walls of the courtyard and extensive gardens and green houses across the roof.

drawing by Lendager Group

But it seems, from walking around the site, that there could be a very real problems with shadow across the building and across the courtyard. This is not just a problem with this development but a significant problem across the district.

A masterplan for this part of Ørestad was produced by the Finnish company ARKKI in 1995 and although the specific form of key buildings - like the new Royal Arena and the recently completed school - have changed from the layout shown then, the arrangement of roads and building plots has survived. However, the housing and apartments as built, over the last year or so, appear to be much higher than originally planned with more floor levels - to increase housing density - so the buildings have a much longer and unbroken area of shadow and that is obviously much more of a problem at this time of year when the sun, although often bright and in a clear sky, is low in the sky.

Here, there are tall buildings immediately to the south with just a narrow road between the two developments but the higher blocks at the east and west ends of the Lendager building itself will also throw shadows across the courtyard from the early morning and the evening sun.

To be more positive, the really striking feature of the building will be the facing panels of recycled brickwork. These are not old bricks that have been salvaged and cleaned and re-laid but they have been cut in panels from buildings as they were demolished … in this case buildings on the Carlsberg site in Copenhagen.

Old lime mortars tends to crumble away as a building is demolished and individual bricks can be cleaned and reused but modern mortar is so tough that bricks are damaged or shatter if you try to salvage them individually.

This method of creating facing panels for new buildings has been shown by Lendager at exhibitions at the Danish Architecture Centre.

 

Resource Rows, Lendager Group

January 2019 - a much clearer idea of the final appearance with windows fitted and the strong black skyline but note the deep shadow across the south-facing row houses on a bright winter day early afternoon - general view taken from the south-west