VM Houses / PLOT = BIG + JDS
Architects: BIG + JDS = PLOT
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Collaborators: Plot, JDS, MOE & Brodsgaard
Client: Hopfner A/S, Dansk Olie Kompagni A/S
Contractor: Hopfner A/S
Program: 230 Apartments
Construction period: 2004 – 2005
Total Area: 25000 sqm
Photography: BIG & JDS
If people are different then why are all apartments alike?
The VM Houses are two residential blocks formed as the letters V and M. The blocks are formed as such to allow for daylight, privacy and views. The vis-à-vis with the neighbour is eliminated by pushing the slab in its centre, ensuring diagonal views to the vast and open, surrounding fields. All apartments have a double-height space to the north and wide panoramic views to the south. The logic of the diagonal slab utilized in the V house is broken down in smaller portions for the M house. In this project, the typology of the Unite d’ Habitation of Le Corbusier is reinterpreted and improved; the central corridors are short and receive light from both ends, like bullet holes penetrating the building. The VM Houses offer more than 80 different apartment types that are programmatically flexible and open to the individual needs of contemporary life – a mosaic of different life forms.
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- plan 01
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- plan 02
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- plan 03
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- plan 04
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- M scheme 01
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- M scheme 02
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- V scheme 01
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- V scheme 02
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- plan diagram
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- plan diagram 01
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- plan diagram 02
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- plan diagram 03
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- plan diagram 04
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26 comments »
Oh my God!!!
What’s this?
Brilliant!!This is truly an extraordinary building,conceptually, formally and tectonically. The many options in apartment typology make this something worth studying closely.
durian House or prickle House
is that a balcony??
weird,,
Balcony gives dramatic effect.
I think it’s too aggressive…
just bad … wrong conceptual architecture for just effect…
Jesus, it looks like 100 canoes got stuck while flying through the air.
It seems to me all the floorplans are the same… am I missing something?
While the project itself may look interesting, the building in its actual location (and in particular the much-hyped V building facade) is quite disappointing, as it is packed between other buildings.
man. makes me uncomfortable watching..
This is just normal, average, ordinary, typical block apartment building made “strange” to draw attention. Why not… if there is extra money to spend? But is this right way to make people’s life better? I don’t think so… I like Abdul’s comment above :)
BO what kind of architecture DO you like? It seems most of your comments are so depressing…
I think that this is a great and simple way to provide different units within one building. the unit layouts offer so many different options with unique spaces inside. I an imagine going to my neighbor’s apartment and not feeling like I am in a copy of my own, it’s fun and gives people a sense of individuality!
“The blocks are formed as such to allow for daylight, privacy and views. The vis-à-vis with the neighbor is eliminated by pushing the slab in its center, ensuring diagonal views to the vast and open, surrounding fields. ” I hope this is really true for each unit, its a little difficult to see, too much attention spent on those triangles… Because too achieve the important things there are many ways, and the article does not help so much in clarifying if it is really accomplished, but you can start irrelevant discussions about triangle shaped balconies… After a year living there you don’t will care about that, but if you really got the “daylight, privacy and views” Damn photographers showing only the visual stuff, if they really care so much about those balconies, at least show how to live on them, and maybe the view from the balcony clarifying if there is really a good care about neighbors privacy and so on… Triangles or not, or if the corridor has that color, or even is there a nice girl in the apartment, who cares… at least they show that there are many different types and some interesting double heights… but again a strange thing: you can see more on the pictures token from outside, considering that one of the aims is privacy.
@ Dustin
Look where at the diagrams labeled ‘M scheme 1′ and ‘V scheme 1′. You’ll find a matrix of the various units.
If I lived there, I would be aggressive everyday,everytime.
The thing is although they want to makt the apartment different from the others, there is nothing different except the offensive balcony.
looks like scattered broken-glass
so cool
i think the basic idea breaking the appartments in puzzle like pieces to form unit, its awesome, but sadly the fachade its horrible. its agressive, gives an unpleasent feeling
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