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

RESET MATERIALS towards sustainable architecture

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Construction work around the World accounts for nearly 40% of global emissions of CO2 so we have to question not only how we build but also reassess the materials we use for building in order to reduce that impact.

This exhibition shows the results of research by ten interdisciplinary teams of architects, artists and manufacturers who have looked at innovative materials for building - like mycelium - or looked at how we could use existing materials in new ways or, even, at how to bring back into use materials, like hemp or straw, that were used widely, at least in vernacular and agricultural buildings, until a century or so ago. We must even consider using ancient construction techniques so, for instance, earth and mud, dried in the sun, to build up walls, as an alternative to using energy-intensive materials like fired bricks or concrete.

 

 

RESET MATERIALS towards sustainable architecture
30 June 2023 . 28 September 2023
Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Refshalevej 173A
1432 København K

 
 
 

new design & architecture - graduate projects at the Royal Academy

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Shown here are more than 250 projects by new graduates from Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi - the Royal Academy of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

Set out through three tightly-packed spaces, the exhibition is arranged around the framework of the many and specific study programmes for architecture and design at the academy.

Since 2016, the UN Sustainable Development Goals have been a focal point for research and events at the royal academy and in their teaching programme and it’s graduation projects.

NEW DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE
23 June - 17 August 2023
note: closed 10-30 July

Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi
Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering
Danneskiold-Samsøe Allé
1435 København K

Sikke et spild / What a waste

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When we talk about waste and recycling, we tend to think about items that have come to the end of their first use and that are then collected, sorted and either found a new owner where they are reused or they are broken down or processed to produce reusable materials … so glass from a bottle bank or newspapers and magazines used to make new paper.

But this exhibition is about the material left over from the manufacturing process after the factory has cut out or cut off what it needs.

In this age of carefully-calculated profit margins, something like, for instance, metal tubing from the steel mills will come in a standard length and anything shorter will actually cost more for less as that processing adds to the time and cost of production. Manufacturers will then cut what they need from a standard length and the off cut - still basically new material - can be sold on as “new waste” to a company that can make use of those smaller pieces.

This exhibition has been developed with THE UPCYCL - an association with bases in Aarhus and Copenhagen - that puts together manufacturers with new waste and companies that can use that waste.

Det Kongelige Akademi / the Royal Academy, now has a Materialebutikken or Materials Shop where students can select New Waste material supplied by members of THE UPCYCL for design projects.

The exhibition includes stools from Anno Studio that are made from off-cuts of steel tubing that are left over from the manufacture of industrial trolleys by Ravendo A/S; the Rhomeparket flooring system from WhyNature made from the waste from the primary production from Wiking Gulve and a shelving system from Studio Mathias Falkenstrøm based on leftover materials from JEVI, Ravendo & VTI.

It is easy to miss the exhibition as it is in the City Gallery at the Architecture Center …. the exhibition space that is under the main staircase that takes visitors up from the bookshop to the main exhibition galleries.

Sikke st spild / What a waste
7 June 2023 - 29 October 2023

Dansk Arkitektur Center / Danish Architecture Center
Bryghuspladsen 10
1473 København K

THE UPCYCL
New Waste materialebørs / New Waste material exchange

 

materials from Materialsbutikken at Det Kongelige Akademi

Renover Prisen / The Renovation Award 2022

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Banegaarden and the Museum of Copenhagen are contenders for the Renover Prisen 2022

This year, 144 renovation projects were nominated for the prestigious Renover Award.

If this was a golf tournament, then the nomination committee has just announced the list of 21 projects that 'made the cut'.

This is the tenth year of the award so, rather than a single award, there will be awards in three separate categories for renovation projects for Bolig or Housing; Erhverv meaning business or possibly commercial projects, and the third award will be for institutional or public buildings.

Also, this year, the sustainability of the project will be judged along with quality of use and contribution to the environment; quality of execution including craftsmanship; the extent to which the completed renovation will be an inspiration or a good example to others and finally - and perhaps the most interesting criteria - the project should mark a successful collaboration across professional disciplines so it should be seen as the successful collaboration of cliens, consultants, architects and contractors.

By the end of June, for the next stage, a list of nine projects will be selected and it is from those nine projects that an electoral college of 70 judges will chose the three projects that will receive an award for 2022.

Renover Prisen 2022

From this list of 21 projects, nine finalists will be selected by the end of June

Bolig / Housing:

  • Det gamle posthus, Brædstrup

  • Fabers Fabrikker, Ryslinge

  • Roskilde Højskole, Roskilde

  • Moldeparken, Vejle

  • Ellebo Garden Room Blok 3, Ballerup

  • Mineralvandsfabrikken, København V

  • Living in Light, Valby

Erhverv / Commercial:

  • NH Collection, København K

  • Retten i Aarhus – ombygning af erhvervsarkivet, Aarhus

  • Fælleskontor i Willemoesgade, Aarhus

  • Banegaarden, København SV

  • Nortvig Firmadomicil, Horsens

  • My Garage, Vejle

  • Siljangade, København S

Institution:

  • Fængslet i Horsens, Horsens

  • Viborg Teater, Viborg

  • Stationen, Frederiksberg

  • Københavns Museum, København V

  • DTU Auditoriebygning, Kgs. Lyngby

  • Børnehuset Paletten, Søborg

  • Friluftsskolen, København S

 

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

 
 

70% LESS CO2 - Conversion to a Viable Age

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An important exhibition has just opened at the Royal Academy schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

Students and teaching departments were asked to submit their projects for inclusion and 31 were chosen for the exhibition to illustrate how new ideas, new materials and new methods of construction or manufacturing will help to reduce global emissions of CO2 by at least 70%.

Significant levels of CO2 are produced by the fashion industries from the production of the raw materials through manufacturing and through high levels of waste and around 10% of the global emissions of CO2 are from the ubiquitous use of concrete in all forms of construction so several projects here suggest major changes to what we make and build and how we use materials.

But there are also projects on using new materials from algae, lichen and mycelium and even one project that uses pine needles for insulation.

There are short assessments of all the projects on the academy site.

70% LESS CO2
Det Kongelige Akademi
Arketektur Design Konservering
Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 53, København K
7 October 2021 - 14 January 2022

Solutions at Royal Danish Academy

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Architecture Design Conservation: graduate projects 2021

Shown here are 220 projects from the students in the schools of architecture, design and conservation who have graduated from the Royal Danish Academy in 2021.

This is an opportunity to see the work of the Academy schools, with their focus on the UN Sustainability goals, and these projects show clearly the ways in which teaching has taken onboard the challenge of climate change and the need to reassess our approach to materials for new developments and our approach to the increasing need to conserve or adapt existing buildings.

Here are the young architects and designers of the next generation whose designs for buildings and for furniture, industrial products, fashion and graphics will have to provide solutions to the new challenges.

As last year, the graduate projects can also be seen on line.

note:
after an initial opening in late June, the exhibition closed through July but then reopened on 2 August and can be seen daily from 10.00 to 17.00 through to 20 August 2021

Royal Danish Academy Architecture Design Conservation
Philip de Langes Allé 10
1435 Copenhagen K

Graduation 2021: SOLUTIONS
the exhibition on line

 
 
 
 
 
 
Solutions Grid.jpeg
 

the staircase in the south range of the Arsenal

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If you go out to the Arsenal to check out the new Ferm store then make sure you look at the main staircase that is just inside the entrance at the east end of the building.

This has turned balusters with closed strings and a very substantial wooden handrail and it rises from the ground floor to the first floor with a straight flight of steps but with a landing half way up.

The style suggests it should be from the original construction of the building in the 1760s although contemporary plans indicate that then the staircase was at the other end of the building - at the north-west corner - and with a different arrangement or plan that was a tight dogleg with half landings.

The range was originally part of the Arsenal where cannons were stored on the ground floor and other weapons and equipment kept on the first floor but in the 19th century the building was modified by the navy to be used as a gymnasium and the staircase may have been rebuilt or moved and reconstructed here at that stage.

What is interesting about the staircase is that, with the restoration work, the sub structure has been left exposed and this shows hefty or robust and high-quality timber framing below the staircase with heavy posts, cross beams supporting three strings below the steps and substantial cross braces. Clearly it was designed for heavy use.

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.

 

Holckenhus

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Holckenhus is a large and prominent apartment building on HC Andersens Boulevard that is two blocks south of the city hall and opposite Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

It occupies a complete city block that is not square but is actually a distinct trapezium with it's narrowest front to HC Andersens Boulevard; a long north front to the relatively narrow but busy Stormgade; a main frontage to Vester Voldgade and the most important and best-known frontage to the public space of Dantes Plads.

The building was designed by the architect Philip Smidth who also designed several of the major buildings around the city hall and it stands over the site of one of the major bastions of the old city defences called Holck's Bastion and that gave the building its name.

This part of the defences was the last major section around the city to be dismantled - late in the 1880s. Work on the the apartment building started in 1891 and was completed in 1893. Work on the Glyptotek began in 1892 and was completed in 1896 and there are early photographs that shows open ground beyond the gallery and the apartment buildings where the land there was being claimed from the sea.

The apartment building has upper floors in red brick with architectural features - including window architraves and quoins that form pilasters at the corners - in pale stone or cement and over a rusticated stone base but the most distinct feature is the steeply-pitched mansard roofs with dormer windows over what are marked out with quoins to be corner towers along with raised roofs over the sections or pavilions at the centre of each long frontage.

One source of inspiration for the design is clearly the architecture of chateaux and urban palaces in France from the 16th and 17th centuries so the style is generally described as French Renaissance although there is also a strong link to Danish architecture of the 17th century.

There were shops or commercial properties at street level with a lower-height mezzanine above and the most important apartments were on the second floor with balconies to the windows at that level with stone balustrades.

Inventories show that NA Scioldann, the builder of the apartments, lived in a large apartment in the building and he is credited with encouraging artists to move here to studios at the upper level.

A census of 1895, records that the prominent artist PS Kroyer had an apartment in Holckenhus, where he lived with is wife Marie Kroyer and three maids and a nurse for their new-born daughter, and the painters Agnes Slott-Møller and Emil Nolder are also known to have lived in the building.

Controversies over the future of Holckenshus aired in newspapers through last summer after the property was acquire by Blackstone - an American private equity fund - and there were reports that in their work to ‘upgrade’ the building, stained glass on staircases has been removed and high-quality and original woodwork on doors and staircases have been painted over but with details now picked out in gold.

However, the controversial and contentious proposal from Blackstone is to raise the roof between the towers to create eight luxury penthouse apartments. Clearly, the corner turrets and the central pavilions on each of the long facades is the key feature of the design of the exterior and a common roof line would undermine and change fundamentally the original concept.

The building is a major Danish cultural assets and not just the external appearance, in such a prominent position, should be preserved but features of the original interior have to be protected.

An article in Jyllands-Posten on 28 August 2019 Historisk bygning har huset Krøyer og andre store kunstnere: Renovering møder kritik by Ronja Melander has photographs of the interior and the web site of the Museum of Copenhagen has an article on the building and its occupants - Holckenhus - en beboelsesejendom med kunstneratelierer

Holckenhus has been added to the time line for apartment buildings on the site Copenhagen by design

 

the Boulevard in 1897 with the corner turrets of Holckenhus just visible (centre left) with the newly-completed Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

 

retaining the frame

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work for the new Hilton hotel on the harbour where the concrete frame of an office building designed by Palle Suenson and completed in 1962 will be retained although all exterior cladding has been removed and the interior gutted

 

With the major redevelopment of the Ørkenfortet / Desert Fort building on the inner harbour, it would be interesting to see calculations for any environmental gain from retaining the concrete frame against the carbon footprint or cost from demolishing the building from the 1960s and disposing of that building rubble and then constructing a new building that would, almost-certainly, require substantial amounts of new steel and concrete.

Copenhagen, unlike many European capital cities, did not suffer from a massive and unrestrained programme of “urban renewal” in the 1950s and 1960s so there is a relatively small number of concrete and steel buildings from that period. One building that is being remodelled now is on Store Kongensgade - below - where the windows and framing of the street frontage have been removed and the interior has been gutted to expose the concrete frame before the building is completely remodelled to form student accommodation.

In the second half of the last century and even through into this century one model for developers was to assume a relatively short life for any new building … sometimes little more than twenty years. This is only acceptable in exceptional situations and, presumably, planning applications will now have to include environment impact assessments - not just for the impact on existing buildings around the site but the environmental impact of demolishing and removing any buildings on the site with an impact assessment and carbon footprint for new construction and clearly defined plans for later adaptation or for later reuse of those building materials.

Climate - Change for a Sustainable Future

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The last week of this major exhibition at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation in Copenhagen.

Climate - Change for a Sustainable Future - Architecture, Design and Conservation shows the work of 29 major research projects that look at different aspects of the impact of climate change and look at innovative solutions to our need now to build and manufacture in a sustainable way.

These projects look, for example, at reassessing waste in the fashion industry; look at how new materials can be developed or at how materials that are now considered waste can be used and there are projects that look at how traditional techniques, like those used by carpenters in the past, when they constructed timber-framed buildings, might provide solutions to modern problems that now we have to tackle or at how computers and new techniques, like laser cutting or the use of computers and scanners, can determine the most economic way to cut timber for different products to eliminate waste.

This is a daunting subject but an inspiring exhibition that shows that problems that effect our buildings and our towns and streets as the climate changes and the need to use materials in a sustainable way is now a core framework for the teaching of architecture and design in the academy.

The problems have been identified but, with imagination, the changes we have to make - in the way we design and build or design and manufacture - can be seen as not just a challenge but as a change to a new approach that can and has to be seen as something positive.

the exhibition
Climate - Change for a Sustainable Future
at KADK, Danneskiold-Samsøe Allé, 1435 Copenhagen K
ends on the 15 November 2019

The Viking Ship Hall in Roskilde

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There is growing controversy about the future of the Viking Museum in Roskilde.

The ship hall designed by Erik Christian Sørensen was completed in 1968 to house the remains of five Viking-age ships that were discovered and recovered from the Roskilde Fjord in the 1950s.

It is a stark concrete building - some would say brutal - but it provides a dramatic setting for the archaeological displays with a wall of glass that looks north out to the sea.

But there are serious problems with the concrete - with water damage and iron reinforcements too close to the surface - and, because the necessary repairs would be prohibitively expensive, permission has been given, with some reluctance, for the building to be demolished even though it was given protection status in 1998.

Now, a European conservation group has listed the Ship Hall as one of the top 100 modern concrete buildings in Europe and it is not clear quite what the museum and the government agency responsible for historic buildings - Slots og Kulturstyrelsen - will do now.

climate change for a sustainable future architecture design and conservation

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A major exhibition that looks at aspects of sustainable architecture and design has just opened at KADK /The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation in Copenhagen.

Following an open competition, 29 research projects were chosen for the exhibition.

Some of the research has looked at the use of materials - so at how established materials can be used in more sustainable ways or new materials that reduce their impact on the environment by using less water or that form less pollutants in production or methods of manufacture where materials can be reused.

The projects are diverse from campaigns to reduce the use of disposable coffee cups; a reassessment of historic or traditional construction methods of timber framing for new buildings; a reassessment of logistics to utilise the metro at night for a new distribution system for goods or the use of sustainable packaging.

the climate change exhibition at KADK
Danneskiold-Samsøe Allé 51,
1435 Copenhagen K
continues until 15 November 2019

CHART 2019 - CHART Architecture

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This evening CHART - the big annual art fair in the city - opened at Kunsthal Charlottenborg - the main venue for the fair in the centre of Copenhagen.

This was an opportunity to see CHART Architecture - five pavilions in the courtyards of the 17th-century palace that were designed by emerging architects from the Nordic region - the finalists selected by an international jury in an open competition earlier in the year. The winner will be announced on Saturday.

The theme set for the competition was materiality - to see how new materials or reused materials could inspire the designs - and the winning entries have been constructed with the designers working with the engineering consultants ARUP.

Through the weekend of the fair - on Friday 30 and Saturday 31 of August and on Sunday 1 September - the pavilions will be the food stalls and bars for the event.

CHART 2019 -
CHART Architecture
Kongens Nytorv 1,
1050 Copenhagen K

CELL PAVILION
Josephine Rita Vain Hansen & Marie Louise Thorning

Air-filled latex cells form the cocktail bar from Thorn Gin

 

SALARIA PAVILION
Christina Román Diaz & Frederik Bo Bojesen

Inspired by the mineral salt and made in timber with fish nets, salt crystals and clear polycarbonate frames with wine and oysters from Rouge Oysters

 

SULTAN
Anne Bea Høgh Mikkelsen, Katrine Kretzschmar Nielsen, Klara Lyshøj & Josefine Ostergaard Kallehave

A pavilion constructed from the frames, springs and fabric covers of Sultan beds from IKEA for beer from 1664 Blanc

 

ROCK PAPER CNC
Diana Smilijkovic, Jonas Bentzen, Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen, Haris Hasanbegovic & Oskar Koliander

Recycled paper formed in CNC-cut moulds for Jah Izakaya Sake Bar

SNUG AS A BUG IN A RUG
Andreas Körner & Mathias Bank Stigsen

Timber with latex polymer fabric for Green Burgers from Gasoline Grill

 

the jury for CHART Architecture competition 2019:

  • David Zahle, architect and partner at BIG

  • Lea Porsager, artist

  • Nikoline Dyrup Carlsen, architect and co-founder of Spacon & X

  • Pippo Ciorra, Senior Curator of Architecture at MAXXI Museum

  • Rosa Bertoli, Design Editor at Wallpaper* magazine

CHART Architecture 2019

update:

the jury awarded first prize for CHART Architecture competition 2019 to
SULTAN by Anne Bea Høgh Mikkelsen, Katrine Kretzschmar Nielsen, Klara Lyshøj & Josefine Ostergaard Kallehave

Sustainable Chairs at Designmuseum Danmark

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At the end of last year, the Nordic Council of Ministers held an open competition for the design of sustainable chairs with one winner chosen from each of the Nordic countries.

Judges considered the sourcing of materials; the energy required in production and distribution; consideration of disposal at the end of the life of the chair and general compliance with the United Nations 17 goals for sustainability.

At the beginning of December, winning designs were shown in the Nordic Pavilion at COP 24 - the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice in Poland.

The overall winner was the Danish entry - The Coastal Chair by Nikolaj Thrane Carlsen.

This competition was organised in partnership with the Nordic national design associations - Danish Design Center, Svensk Form, DOGA in Norway, Ornamo in Finland and The Icelandic Design Centre.

the chairs will be shown in the entrance area of
the design museum in Copenhagen
until 26 May 2019

Designmuseum Danmark

 

Petite
David Ericsson
Sweden

beech
components reduced to use less materials and light - just 2.5 kilo

 
 

Tangform
Nikolaj Thrane Carlsen
Denmark

shell eelgrass and carrageenan extracted from red algae
frame recycled from bamboo floorboards

 
 
 

Håg Capisco
Peter Opsvik
Norway

recycled plastic from household waste
no glue or harmful chemicals
durable, easy to disassemble and repairable
manufactured by HÅG/Flokk

 

Kollhrif
Sölvi Kristjánsson
Iceland

cork and aluminium recycled from 14,400 tea lights
manufactured by Málmsteypan Hella and Portland

 
 
 

Clash 331
Samuli Naamanka
Finland

aspen and birch
thicker at the part of the seat where the legs are glued so subframe not necessary
durable
manufactured by naamanka

The Danish Design Center has posted photographs and information about the ten designs in the finals in each country:
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden

the Biennale - no straw shortener

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uden stråforkter / no straw shortener - are two works by the designer and visual artist Christina Christensen. One work is with rye from fields near Odder, and the other with reeds from Kysing Beach, and both with cotton, linen and brass.

 
 
 
 

connections:

Through their work, many of the artists who exhibited at the biennale communicate complex ideas or raise important issues about our lives … both in our immediate communities but also, more generally, about how we respond to and how we do or how we should appreciate and respect our broader natural environment.

These woven panels raise interesting issues about both how we see and use natural materials and about the impact on nature of human intervention.

Over recent decades research by plant breeders has lead to the development short-stemmed grain crops - to reduce damage from wind or rain, and to increases yields - but, as a consequence, secondary uses for the product from taller varieties are lost.

Until the second half of the 20th century, corn was not simply harvested for the nutritional value of the seed but the long stalks were a sustainable raw material.

Straw (and in many areas reed) was used for thatch where stone slates or fired clay tiles were not available locally or were too expensive for ordinary buildings.

Now, we worry about air miles or about the cost and effect of shipping food, fashion clothing and goods round the globe but I'm curious to know how many people think about where the materials for the construction of their home come from and the environmental impact of those materials at the source, at the factory, and from the transport of the materials.

Generally, in the past - so before the twentieth century - transport of building materials was difficult and expensive. If you were wealthy then you could buy a fashionable fireplace or elaborate panelling from the nearest city or import an exotic wood like mahogany for a staircase to be made by a local craftsman, but for ordinary people, building an ordinary house, materials, generally, came from the local area - often from no more than five miles away - unless you were by the coast or on a river, or, from the 19th century, by a canal or then a railway, when transport costs were less prohibitive.

So, it is fantastic to see the architect Dorte Mandrup using thatch for not only the roof but also for the external cladding of the walls for the new Wadden Sea interpretation centre at Ribe on the west coast of Jutland.

But straw and reed were not just used for building but were also used to make mats or to make furniture - in areas, where good timber was not available - and for making household goods and toys - but how many people now have things in their homes made from straw or reed?

I had a set of table mats that lasted for nearly 20 years before they finally disintegrated and I have a few traditional Dutch Christmas decorations - small birds and stars - that are woven in straw, and every year, for more than 30 years, they come out of the cupboard to be hung on the tree … good and sustainable examples of rural crafts that have much more meaning than tinsel and baubles.

For more than 20 years I measured and recorded and assessed historic buildings of all periods and a good number were thatched. My job was to measure, record and date the timber-work of the roof structure but I have to admit that I rarely thought about the thatch … more than just to note the material and any pattern on the ridge or eaves that reflected the traditions of that area.

Looking at the work by Christina Christensen, reminded me when I first thought about long straw. I had been asked by BBC radio to collaborate on a programme about a thatched building in Oxfordshire and was there to talk about the date of the roof timbers - the form and techniques of construction suggested it dated from the 14th century and that had been confirmed by dendrochronology - but the main contribution to the programme was from a plant archaeologist.

What was so important about that particular roof was that it had never been stripped back for the thatch to be replaced completely. For over 600 years it had simply been patched and repaired with new layers over the old core of straw thatch. Not just exposed roof timbers but also the underside of the thatch itself were blackened with soot from the original open hearth that had been at the centre of the house until the 16th century when a new fireplace with a closed-in chimney was built.

From within the roof space, huddled in cramped space above modern ceilings, with me and the radio interviewer, the archaeologist drew out straws that were not far off 2 metres long and some still had their seed heads. From these he was able to identify the specific types of corn grown in the area in the middle ages - types of corn that were often specific to a relatively small area and certainly no longer grown - and identifying them was important for understanding medieval farming but also important for studies on bio diversity.

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.

major restoration at the National Bank of Denmark

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It has just been announced that the building of the National Bank of Denmark in the centre of Copenhagen - designed by Arne Jacobsen and completed in 1978 - has to undergo an extensive programme of repairs. As this will take several years, the bank and it's staff are to move out of the building until the works are completed.