a last chance to see the exhibition Living Better Lives

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This weekend is the last chance to see the important and controversial exhibition Living Better Lives about the work of the Danish architectural studio Vandkunsten.

Tegnestuen Vandkunsten - an architecture firm based in Copenhagen - were founded in 1970 and the exhibition has been an opportunity to see and to assess their work over the last 50 years as their buildings have been seen to challenge and set the tone of “climate and social agendas in Danish architecture and urban planning.”

Here, in the exhibition, they suggest alternative and more sustainable, designs for homes with ideas for housing that would have much smaller areas of personal space but more shared or communal areas and would use sustainable or reused materials in construction.

The exhibition ends on the 18th April.

Living Better Lives
Vandkunsten
Danish Architecture Center
Bryghuspladsen 10,
1473 København K

 

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

 
 

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.

Bygningspræmiering / Building Awards 2018

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On the 7th April 1902 the city council of Copenhagen voted to make awards annually for "beautiful artistic designs for construction projects on the city's land."  

There had been some discussion 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 awards were also to provide guidelines or a model and an incentive for owners and clients when they commissioned work. 

It is important to understand that the council appreciated fully the importance of historic buildings in the city so the awards were, in part, to encourage the design of new buildings of an appropriate quality to stand alongside the historic buildings but they also went further to include awards for major projects for the restoration of existing buildings and to recognise improvements to the townscape or urban scape that provided the best and most appropriate setting for those buildings.

Nor did the awards just focus on major or prestigious buildings but over 115 years they have also recognised the best private houses, new apartment buildings and commercial buildings, factories and schools in Copenhagen. 

For 2018, eight buildings have been recognised with an award but, for the first time, these will all go forward for the selection of an overall winner by a public vote.

That winner will be announced at a ceremony at the City Hall on 3 May. 

 

 

 

Axel Towers, Axeltorv 2
Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter A/S

Five circular towers, tightly grouped and interlinked, with shops and a cafe at the lower level, a new public space at an upper level between the towers, offices and a restaurant at the top overlooking the city. The nomination for an award appears to be in part for the quality of the exterior and for the new or rather the replanning of the public space running back from the street across the west side of the new buildings.

 


Carlsbergfondets Forskersboligerne / Carlsberg Foundation Graduate Housing, Bohrsgade 7-13
Praksis Arkitekter ApS

Apartments on an important and sensitive site overlooking the JC Jacobsen Gardens. The award appears to be for the quality of the design, attempting to set a standard for the redevelopment of this area, previously the site of the Carlsberg brewery. There is an interesting loggia across the street frontage that takes its form from covered links between and across the front of original brewery buildings and the form of the brickwork, with panels of bricks set diagonally to create a zigzag dog-tooth pattern, shows a clever and sympathetic and appropriate respect for the facade of the adjoining brick building on the garden side by Eske Kristensen that dates from the 1960s and was itself an award-winning design.

 

 


Konstabelskolen, Luftmarinegade 1
Vandkunsten

New youth housing in buildings on Margreteholm that date from 1939 - an early and important concrete post and beam construction that has been derelict for some years.

 

 
 

Mærsk Tårnet / Mærsk Tower, Blegdamsvej 3B
C F Møller Architects
Landscape SLA

Prominent new building for medical research - for the university Panum Institute and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre on the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences site. The award, in part, seems to recognise the technical aspects of the building, particularly energy saving for such a large structure; in part recognises the complex planning for such a complicated high-tech role and in part is for the landscape around the building that takes into account controls for surface water - as cloud bursts become more common, and potentially much more destructive with climate change - but also has interesting planting and a dramatic use of elevated public walkways to encourage people to enter the site or cut through.

L1260671.jpg

 

Dehns Palæ / Dehn’s Palace, Bredgade 54
Wohlert Arkitekter A/S

An 18th-century palace - designed by JG Rosenberg and close to the royal palace and the Marble Church - has been restored for Danmarks Apotekerforening / Denmarks Pharmaceutical Association following an extensive fire in 2010. The award recognises that because the building is so important, restoration work was completed using original materials with original working techniques.

 

Åbenrå 16
Entasis A/S

Apartment building constructed on a plot in the historic centre of the city close to the King's Garden that has been vacant since 1970 when a number of old houses were demolished ahead of a major scheme to rebuild the street that was then abandoned.

 


The Silo, Lüdersvej 15
COBE

Prestigious apartments and a roof-top restaurant in the conversion of a concrete silo for grain that was the largest industrial building in the North Harbour. The challenge was to give the building a relevant and financially viable function to justify its survival; respect the scale of the building, with what are exceptional heights between the floors, and to retain qualities and the drama of the raw concrete of the original building but bring the spaces up to current standards of insulation. 

the two silos in May 2015

 

Frihavns Tårnet, Helsinkigade 18-20
Praksis Arkitekter ApS

Housing in the conversion of a former DLG silo close to the Silo. The industrial building was given a distinctive framework of balconies on three sides and the award recognises the quality of the apartments - “the decor and the choice of materials” but also appreciates that the design has created “liveable” homes particularly in terms their orientation to the natural light.

 
 

note:

There is a page on the web site of Københavns Kommune - under Housing, Construction and Urban Life - on the Building Awards that has information about each of the nominated buildings with photographs, including some interiors, and a short video for an assessment of each of the projects by the City Architect Tina Saaby (in Danish).