In Progress: 8 House / BIG

Last year, BIG completed Mountain Dwellings (winner of the Building of the Year 2009 Award under the Housing category), showing us new approaches to a complex typology.

© Dragor Lufthavn

Along this line of innovation in housing, we now present you a sneak peek of the soon to be completed 8 House a 62,000sqm project located in with an interesting approach to mixed use. Over 540 units for different configurations (single or family, young and elders, growing or shrinking families) are placed around a bow in the shape of an 8, mixed with commerce and community facilities, which Bjarke Ingels explain on the above video with a simplicity that has become ’s signature when it comes to project presentation.

More photos of the construction process after the break:

Cite: Basulto , David. "In Progress: 8 House / BIG" 06 Jun 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 26 May 2013. <http://www.archdaily.com/63464>

47 comments

  2. Thumb up Thumb down -1

    love the way the community space wrapping around, up and down. Very sophisticated!

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  3. Thumb up Thumb down -1

    This project is very interesting and multi-layered. My concern about projects like this however are that marvels of current architecture (such as this one) are built using alluminium panels, plastic window frames etc. which at the very best have an expiry date of 30-50 years.

    By that time all those buildings will be gone, as in practice there is no money for a real facade maintanance in such a long timeline.

    I’m afraid that because of the material use – good architecture of our times will simply self-disassemble and we will sadly see more and more stories like Nakagin Tower or the MVRDV dutch pavillion from 2000.

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      Nothing is made for eternity. And older building materials like wooden window frames or plaster also need regular maintenance and/or replacement. I don´t see your point. Maintenance is important and costly, but it is impossible to make an maintenance-free building.

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        Probably nothing for eternety, but contemporany building have short life compare even with gothic, romanic, all ancient civilization. And that’s whay we are now just simple consumers, after a wile, we will foget about our age architectural marvel.

      • Thumb up Thumb down +2

        R Goldschmidt is dead on. it’s just another object of consumption that will probably be demolished in fifty years or repurposed into a low-income ghetto.

  4. Thumb up Thumb down +1

    With all respect to BIG, this is big monster….with all unoccupied land in Denmark i do not see any point of building something like that…well, if you plan a ghetto, then this is the solution…

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  5. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    This is what happens when you actually THINK.
    ARCHITECTURE happens!
    This is not just an 8 on steroids… everything’s got a purpose.
    That’s why IT WORKS!

    Well done BIG.

    & LOL at the soundtrack :)

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  7. Thumb up Thumb down -1

    one day i’m gonna go to copenhagen only to work with these guys. this is architecture! BIG, keep up your quality please!
    I hope the staff is happy there is is being treated and paid fairly!

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  9. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    I do not like the project too much, but the way of presenting and communicating the project is very convincing…

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  10. Thumb up Thumb down -1

    amazing project! like the others big’s projects.
    this guy is the future of architecture.

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  15. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    Very interesting video. I do not believe that the goal here is to say what is and is not Architecture, I think that BIG purposely obfuscates that line between the developer and architect. I didn’t realize that the whole strip is not yet built – as it stands in the aerial photography, it does seem like it needs its some surrounding urban fabric! But this is a good thing! Lots of architecture seems to want those OUT-standing qualities, as if to reject the city. This project seems to want it (as in stand-IN). Is the campanile not going to be built – It isn’t in the photographs. Further, the tower seems to be a completely different project here, definitely not as responsive as the super-block to the demands of the site, program and sun. For me, this is undeniably Architecture. The question is, is it good Architecture? I think that will only be proven when the rest of the master plan is filled out and the city has had a chance to operate as a city in this building.

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  17. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    Is the red man BOLT? he’s must be very healthy to run through the building, climb up and down 10 floors using staircase. :)

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  20. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    BIG is really a design oriented company which have more pride in being great salesmen, than making something which can be seen as great architecture. How this thing interacts with absolutely everything around it, the city, landscape etc – just awful. But I guess it does make more sense sitting on a table – like in the presentation;-)

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  21. Thumb up Thumb down -1

    incredible presentation, convincing building. Love the work they produce, topped with outstandingly clear and direct graphics.

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  22. Thumb up Thumb down +1

    I think I tend to criticize the developer more than the design itself. Attempting to create a master plan in an area like that seems like an incredibly risky move, however, I don’t see it as bad design at all. It is definitely unorthodox, but all the design moves make perfect sense. To me, saying that the presentation is great yet the building is awful is not a claim you can actually make without visiting the completed structure and having a first-hand experience.

    The presentation itself presents the work as a series of diagrams, which naturally give the project a sense of heavy-handedness which perhaps offends designers that prefer a more subtle and delicate style. However, that is not to say that subtlety has not been built in at the smaller scale. It seems fruitless to say that it is bad architecture without actually providing concrete reasons backing up that argument.

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  30. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    What sort of software would they have used to create this video? In particular, what sort of 3D animation software?

    Reply

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