Really at Kvadrat

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Sometimes you come across a design or a product that had not been on the radar - but it stops you in your tracks. It's like driving along a road and suddenly there is an amazing view and you can’t help yourself and just go wow.

Well it was a bit like that on seeing Really at Kvadrat at Klubiensvej in Nordhavn on Thursday.

In part, this was because I had seen nothing on the internet about Really so, for once, this was the impact of something that appeared to be very new and came out of the blue ........ or maybe it just shows that I’m not going through the design magazines with enough care or attention because Really was shown in Milan.

Probably the best way to start is to quote the introduction in a catalogue from Really:

“Responding to the urgent global issue of waste, Really upcycles textiles to create materials that challenge the design and architectural industries to rethink their use of resources and to design their products with a circular economy in mind.”

 
 

 

The result is new Acoustic Textile Felt and Solid Textile Board - a new building board. These are made from end-of-life textiles - for instance, worn-out bedding from large laundry companies - and the process does not use toxic chemicals or water or dyes. At the end of their own useful life the felt and boards can be “re-granulated” to feed the start of a new product so hence that concept of circular design.

Solid Boards come in different gauges and can be cut and put together for furniture with many of the same techniques as plywood. Thicker boards even have the same impression of layers as plywood with white cotton used for the core layer and coloured outer layers in Cotton White, Cotton Blue, Wool Slate and Wool Natural and that can be more obvious when several thinner layers are combined to form a heavier or thicker gauge of  board ... for instance for table tops. 

Boards can be cut, drilled or milled, sanded and planed, laser cut and glued. Surface treatments are also similar to the finishes for plywood with lacquer, oil or wax.

In the display at Kvadrat, a number of bold benches and tables designed by Max Lamb were shown along with a mood board collection of samples and ideas that, in a good way, reminded me of lino cutting … not the prints but the tangible qualities of the linoleum itself with all the various options you have for depth and sharpness of cut that reveal the layers down from the smooth matt surface and also because the boards themselves have some of that warmth and softness of colour that is a distinct characteristic of simple linoleum.

reallycph.com

 

industrial buildings on Refshaleøen and Prøvestenen

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view of Refshaleøen from the south - presumably from the 1950s before more land was claimed and the huge sheds were constructed to the east

 

Comparing maps of Copenhagen from the 18th century or the 19th century with modern maps, you can see just how much of the city is built on land claimed from the sea. These interventions with extensive engineering works started in the late 16th and the early 17th century as naval dockyards were constructed on either side of Borgen - the royal castle that is now the parliament building but was then an imposing fortified building on an island just off shore from the wharves of the town along Gammel Strand. 

Then, in the 1620s, Christianshavn was built up in the water between the castle and the island of Amager to the south - closing in almost 2 kilometres of the sea between the old city and the island - and the naval yards were moved to that side of the harbour … to the sea-ward side of Christianshavn. 

At first these naval facilities were little more than sheltered moorings that were enclosed and protected by outer defences but over the subsequent decades and in the next century islands were formed inside the defences and permanent buildings were constructed … many of which survive.

Commercial wharves and large buildings for industry and utilities - the first power stations, railway yards, gas works, pumping stations and sewage works of the city - were nearly all built on land claimed from the sea. The harbour below Langebro is still a wide and impressive channel of water but nowhere near as wide as the original bay before coal yards, a meat market and then a power station were all built on new land out from the natural shore line.

And this process - pushing the shore line outwards or constructing new islands - includes all of what is now Refshaleøen at the top north end of Amager.

Then, inevitably, over years or decades, an industry or the economy changes and even large companies fail or move on and away - in the case of the great concrete sheds for the Burmeister and Wain shipyards at Refshaleøen, they were in full use for only around 30 years - and then buildings fall into disuse or are demolished and the landscape becomes marginal … or what is now described as 'post industrial.' Refshaleøen is post industrial and has been in a sort of limbo for twenty years.

But surely there are good reasons that any city needs this sort of open space … a place for paint balling or go karts and boat yards and scrap yards? ... but, unfortunately, it's politicians who define marginal but developers who identity and define potential.

And Refshaleøen is only two or three kilometres from the centre of the city so it’s too valuable to be left marginal for long but, in terms of future use, the remaining buildings - the vestiges of the industry that was here - are pretty amazing and with a lot of imagination - and a fair bit of investment - they can be given new roles.

Just as long as it is not too sanitised. Scruffy and lively can be good. Surely the worthy citizens of Copenhagen need scruffy sometimes?

 
 

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

a new hotel and restaurant in the centre of Copenhagen

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Work is moving forward fast to convert a de-commissioned mid century electricity sub station in the centre of the city into a new restaurant and luxury hotel.

The massive concrete building on Bremerholm - opposite the Magasin department store - has a monumental facade of bronze slats that was designed by Hans Hansen from the city architects office and completed in 1963.

Acquired by the Kähler Group, the hotel will be called the Hotel Hermann K after the potter Hermann Kähler who established the ceramic factory in Næstved in 1839. The hotel will be part of the Brøchner group that includes SP34 and the Hotel Astoria at the central railway station.

A massive new doorway has been cut through the front and inside there is a high and dramatic entrance area.

the towers of Brøndby Strand

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Significant problems have been identified in five of the tower blocks at Brøndby Strand.

These iconic apartment buildings are 16 storeys high and were designed by Svend Høgsbro and Thorvald Dreyer. They are about 12 kilometres from the centre of Copenhagen and are a striking sight from the train as it follows the the bay on the coastal line down to Køge. 

Built between 1968 and 1974 and, as was common at the time, fittings and structural materials in the towers contain Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) that are now known to be toxic - so possibly electrical equipment, cable insulation, thermal insulation, floor finishes and even oil-based paint would have to be removed to comply with current building standards and health regulations. The towers also need repairs to concrete that has degraded and, given the age of the buildings, services and fittings do not match current building standards or tenants expectations and would also have to be upgraded.

There appear to be no technical solution for removing PCBs that are viable financially with remedial works estimated to be almost four times the cost of rehousing the 196 families that live here and then demolishing the apartments.

 

Boliger til Folket - Housing for People

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A small but important exhibition of photographs of housing estates that were built in Denmark in the 1940s and 1950s has just opened in the central library in Copenhagen. 

The exhibition was funded by Realdania, Grundejernes Investringsfond and Landsbyggefonden with the Department of Culture and continues at the central library in Copenhagen until 26 March 2017

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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.

open-uri20161124-20276-1cirogl.jpg
 

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.

 

Copenhagen Metro

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Work on the new Metro line in Copenhagen is progressing and the stations are being completed. The Danish paper Berlingske has just published a set of 25 photographs of some of the tunnels and of the new station at Frederiksberg. It looks as if the overall design of the stations will be close to that of the existing metro stations with a large, long, top-lit space above the platforms with the tracks on either side and steel escalators up inset from the walls. The big difference seems to be that where the present stations are lined with raw concrete, Frederiksberg Metro Station appears to have walls lined with stone or tile in a soft buff colour ... so giving the station a slightly warmer tone but retaining the strong, clean and functional feel of the spaces. The long  tiles are laid as vertical bands rather than laid with a brick pattern of overlapping courses. 

Nu får metroen personlighed Berlingske 3 December 2016

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.

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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

 

a new railway station in Copenhagen

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This summer Copenhagen gained a railway station and lost a railway station or, rather, the city gained a large area of paving and a bike park to serve the new development of the old Carlsberg brewery site and the platform of the old Enghave station - about 200 metres to the east at street level but much closer along the track - has been demolished. An extensive redevelopment of this large area - 330,000 square metres - to the west of the city centre has to have a much larger station for commuters than could be accommodated on the site of the old Enghave station buildings and, in any case, that old station was on the far side of a relatively busy road into the city.

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Carlsberg Byen - Carlsberg City District

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It’s unusual to find that I don’t like new buildings or modern urban-landscape projects in Copenhagen … I even like Ørestad with its raised metro track and its sense of being a Danish Metropolis. It’s not that I’m uncritical but at the very least I can usually see and usually understand if there were problems or constraints that meant some parts of a new development were and are a compromise.

That’s why, after walking around the first stage of the massive redevelopment of the Carlsberg brewery site … a new campus for University College Copenhagen along with what are presumably commercial office buildings immediately north of the new Carlsberg suburban railway station … I just felt perplexed about why my initial reaction was not positive.

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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.