Moving Materials at the Danish Architecture Centre

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An exhibition that explores the work of the Japanese architect Hiroshi Sambuichi

... an architecture that attempts to be in balance with nature and with the landscape in which the buildings are set. It requires extensive study, sometimes over a number of years, of the passage of the sun and an awareness of how natural light across the site changes through the day but there is also a deep empathy for the climate of a specific location so the effect of wind, rain and mist across the land at different points of time or season. It is those elements of climate that are the Moving Materials.

continues at the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen until 25 June

 

 

 

longer review

 

 

BIG’s Bakke

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OK … I could hardly wander around Kløvermarken and Refshaleoen with a camera in bright clear Spring sunlight and not take more photographs of the new waste incinerator designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group.

The steam released from the chimney shows that it is up and running although the building is not completely finished and, as yet, there is no sign of the promised smoke rings or the ski slope that will run down from the top.

I still have some reservations about the size of this building so close to the historic city centre but actually the scale - along with not trying to hide or disguise it - is really the point here because you just can’t hide something this big. The only alternative would have been to banish it to some distant fringe of the city but that would defeat the need to reduce the impact and cost of transporting and dealing with the waste that the city produces. 

And making it bold and impressive and - hopefully - fun then that makes the proximity and, to be honest, the cost possibly more acceptable. It is a huge investment by the city but they have ended up with a pretty amazing chunk of engineering and if it’s covered in trees and snow and if you can ski down from the top then maybe the citizens can at least see it as their BIG BFG ... even if they don’t all love it.

Amager Bakke

 

Prismen

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On the walk across to look at the new Pelican storage building the light was good for taking photographs of the Prismen sports and culture centre that is just to the south - on the opposite side of Prags Boulevard.

Designed by Dorte Mandrup, the sports hall opened in 2006. 

This part of the city lacked sports facilities and the hall covers a large space for a variety of community activites and although its envelope of polycarbonate panels might look like an out-of-town shopping shed from the outside - the inside has amazing natural light and it feels more like a large public square that happens to be covered.

The shape and volume is deceptively simple so, although it looks like a large wedge, there is a complex relationship with buildings to the east with two traditional Copenhagen apartment buildings of U shape - both around three sides of a courtyard - and with a short street between them so the slope of the roof runs up to four high gable ends and the building closes off two courtyards and a short street. The plan is also a wedge shape that tapers in on the north and south side and forms interesting triangular public spaces towards Prags Boulevardand to Holmbladsgade to the south.

PRISMEN, Holmbladsgade 71

 

Pelican Storage

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In the Wasteland exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre about the pioneering work of the Lendager group on up cycling building materials there were separate sections on their research on reusing glass or timber or brick and so on and in each section, as well as discussing broad ideas, they focused on a building that illustrates in a more tangible way what they have achieved already or what they are doing with ongoing projects.

For their work on up cycling concrete they showed drawings and plans and a section of shuttering they are using for a new self-storage facility for Pelican where work is now well in hand.

The new unit is at Prags Boulevard, less than 2 kilometres from DAC, so it seemed like a good idea to show photographs of the building itself. 

Concrete from the old paint factory that was on the site has been crushed and reused following demolition. There were some old workshops on the site so new workshops have been incorporated into the new building on the ground level and there is space on the site for 600 square metres of urban garden where locals will be able to grow vegetables.

Lendager on the Pelican building

 

section at the Wasteland exhibition on up cycling concrete with various samples of aggregate and crushed concrete; trial pieces for the design of the panels for the new building with a full-scale section of the panelling and a model of the self-storage building

shuttering for the large panels of concrete have a stylised pattern of tree branches ... the photograph from below, before the fronts of the entrance and doors to workshops have been inserted, shows the hefty layer of insulation behind the panels because, of course, temperature control to avoid condensation is crucial for a self-storage unit

WORKS + WORDS

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At KADK on Danneskiod-Sasøes Allé in Copenhagen … an exhibition to show a wide variety of recent experiments and research projects in architecture from architects and teachers from the Royal Academy itself and from the School of Architecture in Aarhus and the School of Architecture and Design in Oslo. 

This is about research into how we can design better buildings now and in the future: “the artistic experiment is … an important cornerstone of KADK's architectural and design education and is a central part of KADK's community commitment as an educational institution. “

This is the first in what will be a biennial event and continues at KADK until 5 May 2017

the house of Arne Jacobsen and a rare opening to the public

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In 2005 Realdania purchased the house in Gotfred Rodes Vej that Arne Jacobsen designed and had built for himself and his young family in 1929. The house has been restored and many features returned to the original arrangement. The house is normally occupied by tenants so access for the public is rare but the villa was opened for two days on the 11th and 12th of February.

Gotfred Rodes Vej 2

The Infinite Happiness

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The Infinite Happiness, by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, is a fascinating film profile of the 8House  - the large block of apartments in Copenhagen designed by Bjarke Ingels.  It is in their Living Architecture series and looks at the building by talking to people who live and work there … so the best people to understand and appreciate or criticise the architecture. The film was screened recently by Arch Daily and the series has been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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progress on the Amager incinerator .....

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Work to complete the Amager incinerator is progressing … this photograph was taken today in the late afternoon as I walked back across the new bridge over the harbour. External facing seems to be complete and the single stack is in place but wonder how the gizmo for blowing smoke rings is coming on.

 

Johansen Skovsted

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The third of the series of three exhibitions in the Dreyer Gallery at the Danish Architecture centre on young architects in Copenhagen features the work of Søren Johansen and Sebastian Skovsted.

 

the exhibition continues at Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen until 15th January 2017

Johansen Skovsted

Norrøn - territory for dreaming

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This is the second of a series of three exhibitions in the Dreyer’s Architecture Gallery at the Danish Architecture Centre with each exhibition running for about six weeks to profile the work of younger, more-recently established architectural practices from Copenhagen.

continues at the Danish Architecture Centre until the end of November

review

The Silo

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The Silo in May 2015 - work had been completed on the ground floor
and the exhibition space was used for 3daysofdesign

 
 

After going to the new exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre - Our Urban Living Room about the work of the Copenhagen architects COBE this seemed like a good time to go out to the North Harbour to see what is happening at The Silo … one of their major and ongoing projects.

read more

 

May 2016

 
 

The Silo from the west in October 2016 with a new block of apartments in the foreground. The photographs of the balconies that are now being fitted were taken from the roof of the car park by jaja architects that has just been completed to the east of the Silo

 

Ofelia Plads

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looking north across the new pier or plads from the theatre with the Admiral Hotel beyond a dock basin 

Work on Ofelia Plads - a large, new public space in Copenhagen - has just been completed. 

To the north of the Skuespilhuset (Royal Danish Theatre or Playhouse) there was a 19th-century staithe or pier that was constructed parallel to the shore with a basin, Kvæsthusbassinet, and a wharf with a large brick warehouse, now the Admiral Hotel, on the west side and the main channel of the harbour to its east. Most recently it was used as the dock for ferries to and from Oslo and to and from the Baltic islands and ports.

In an ambitious and extensive engineering project that has just been completed, the pier has been excavated or hollowed out to create a large car park that has three levels below ground - or, perhaps it’s more important to point out, there are three levels below water level in the harbour - and the surface was then reinstated with a number of simple, small, low, new, metal-clad structures for staircase entrances to the parking levels and ventilation systems.

This hardly sounds devastating or dramatic in terms of city architecture but it actually shows Danish engineering design and urban planning at its very best - very, very well thought through; carefully and efficiently executed and with no attempt or need to show, in any flashy way, just how much money was spent. In fact the project was a gift to the city through a collaboration between the Ministry of Culture and Realdania.

read more

 

Our Urban Living Room - Learning from Copenhagen

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A major exhibition has opened at the Danish Architecture Centre which focuses on the work of the Danish studio of Cobe arkitekter but, in a much broader sense, the exhibitions also explores crucial aspects of urban planning … the current and the future role that planning has in the enhancement of our built environment and the way that architecture and planning together can and must encourage the use of public space in our cities and towns for a huge variety of activities.

What is shown here - with models, drawings, photographs and text - are specific projects completed by Cobe over the last decade or so - the remodelling of Israels Plads; the remodelling of the street space above Nørreport railway station; the building of new libraries and schools in the city and all with a very strong and positive planning agenda - but these are also clever and innovative projects that tell us much about the meeting point of public and private space; about the way that politicians and planners determine appropriate policies for how public space is used and shows how much citizens need and how much they appreciate public space and how they use that space in increasingly inventive ways.

 

 
 

Our Urban Living Room at the Danish Architecture Centre,
Strandgade 27B, Copenhagen
until 8th January 2017

Amager incinerator

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Taking the harbour ferry was a chance to take yet another photograph of the Amager Resource Centre designed by BIG - the Bjarke Ingels Group - and due to come into service next year. The stack - the one that will blow smoke rings - is finished and much of the exterior cladding appears to be in place and it's now easy to judge the angle of the ski slope that will run down from the top. Perhaps more important, if only from the design aspect, is that the grey colour helps drop the bulk of the building back into the cloudscape and tones down the impact of the building on the sky line.

BLOX - a summer of building work

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BLOX in February 2016

October 2016

 

 

Work on what initially was called the Bryghusprojektet in Copenhagen but is now known as BLOX seems to have moved forward rapidly through the summer. There are now fewer cranes, less obvious engineering work and with a more open site, where hoardings and builders cabins have been removed, it is now much easier to get a sense of how the finished building will appear. 

It still looks a bit like a stack of plastic lunch boxes but, as more of the large panels of pale green and opaque white have been put in place and the scaffolding and covers removed, it now seems to be at least some reference to the use of green and blue slate colours for many of the buildings in the city from the 20th century. It strongly adheres to danish ideals of rational and minimal style and is clearly aware of how buildings can and do use views of the harbour and the light reflected up off the water. 

It was obvious that the relationship with the dark, solid block of the Royal Library, the near neighbour along the quay, was always going to be a difficult one … dominate, compete or be subservient … but the decision to simply be different seems now to be the simplest one. There are still some odd issues with the way the new building will loom over low historic buildings around a courtyard on the side away from the harbour and it will undermine the impressive scale of the important 17th-century Brew House but that may well be resolved by the way the open space on the city side of the new building will be quite complex with changes of level with steps and sunken areas, that will form a transition from street level to the interior and then through to quay of the harbour.

That complex interlocking of levels is in part because a major road running along the quay is bridged by the new building but there will be links under the road as one important function of the building is to provide a route between what is now to be known as the Cultural District of the city and the water front.

Work is so far advanced that it was possible to allow the public access during the Night of Culture to see the progress for themselves. 

Determined clearly by necessary economic considerations, there will be a mix of uses for the building including car parking, a restaurant, a gym and luxury apartments across the upper levels but the primary function will be as the new home for the Danish Architecture Centre and for BLOXHUB - the Danish Design Council along with other associated bodies and companies working broadly on architecture to focus on the Built Environment … rather than the Natural Environment.

 

 
 

 

The architect for the project is Rem Koolhas and his studio in Rotterdam - OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) - and the development is by Realdania who have an excellent web site for more information.

 

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter

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Næstvedgade Day Care Centre, Copenhagen (2004)

 

Slowly but hopefully surely more architects and designers are being added to the menus that drop down from the bar at the top of the site. These pages are simply a broad introduction to the work of an individual or a studio ... a quick reference point for a reader wanting to find links to a person or a company that has been the subject of a post so links will be added to existing works, to provide a context, or for new work or to web sites, exhibition details, and references to catalogues and monographs.

The latest addition is a brief summary of the works of the Copenhagen architects Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter.