Copenhagen: The Latest Architecture and News

Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, in collaboration with Holscher Nordberg Architects, has been selected to lead a 120,000-square-foot (36,000-square-meter) redevelopment of the new Carlsberg City district in Copenhagen. Located on the former site of the famous Carlsberg Brewery, the project will incorporate the area’s historic industrial elements in creating a new sustainable city district with inviting open spaces, public transportation, and a series of context-sensitive new buildings, including a 262-foot-tall (80-meter-tall) residential tower.

Founded in 1996 by Buenos Aires-born Martin Rein-Cano, TOPOTEK 1 has quickly developed a reputation as a multidisciplinary landscape architecture firm, focussing on the re-contextualization of objects and spaces and the interdisciplinary approaches to design, framed within contemporary cultural and societal discourse.

The award-winning Berlin-based firm has completed a range of public spaces, from sports complexes and gardens to public squares and international installations. Significant projects include the green rooftop Railway Cover in Munich, Zurich’s hybrid Heerenschürli Sports Complex and the German Embassy in Warsaw. The firm has also recently completed the Schöningen Spears Research and Recreation Centre near Hannover, working with contrasting typologies of the open meadow and the dense forest on a historic site.

Denmark's largest architecture festival Copenhagen Architecture Festival opens its fourth edition Wednesday, April 26th with a wide program spread over three cities and with the opening film and world premiere of "BIG TIME" on Bjarke Ingels. This year, the festival will feature more than 150 architectural events in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Aalborg.

If we think about how the educational system worked in the past, we can quickly see that both the teaching style in schools as well as the school’s infrastructure were very different from the current system. The educational model of the twentieth century could be defined as being similar to the "spatial model of prisons, with no interest in stimulating a comprehensive, flexible and versatile education."

However, we are now at a time when social, economic and technological developments have created a more global society and where information and learning are becoming more affordable. This radical change has transformed the societies in which we live, leaving the current educational model based on a rigid and unidirectional teaching obsolete. 

As such, there are schools that have not only broken the mold of traditional teaching but have formed new educational standards, exploring new paradigms and opening up new possibilities within the design of educational spaces. Since architecture and educational models often reflect the ideology of a society, how is the school of 21st century defined? 

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The city of Copenhagen have announced the shortlist of 5 firms that will compete for the design of a new aquatics center to be located on a prominent site in the Copenhagen Harbor. Planned for completion in 2021, the project will feature a 5,000-square-meter facility offering both indoor and outdoor swimming areas with views across the water to the Henning Larsen-designed Copenhagen Opera House.

BIG, in collaboration with Schønherr Landscape Architects and MOE, has revealed designs for a new yin-yang-shaped panda enclosure at the Copenhagen Zoo that will serve as the new home of two Chinese giant pandas upon their arrival in 2018.

Located between several existing buildings, including the award-winning Elephant House by Foster + Partners, the circular shaped habitat will be split to create separate enclosures for the male and female pandas; to increase the probability of mating, partnered pandas should not be able to see, hear or even smell each other for the majority of the year.

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WE Architecture + Erik Juul have been awarded a commission to transform a vacant lot at Jagtvej 69 in Copenhagen into a urban garden and housing structure that could provided temporary accommodation for homeless people, helping them to turn their lives around.

The architects describe the project as a place “where housing and green gardens [create] a platform for the meeting between locals and homeless, and a path for a new beginning.”

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“Who would’ve thought a parking garage could be so interesting?”

In this video aired by the Louisiana Channel, Kathrin Susanna Gimmel and Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka, both co-founders of Copenhagen-based firm JAJA Architects, explain the ideology behind the “Park ‘n’ Play” parking garage. Bright red, atop the 24-meter high car park, sits a playground which, in combination with a rooftop garden, provides a unique public setting offering sought after views of the Copenhagen harbor. Watch the video for more insight into JAJA’s design methodology and how the playground helps redefine roles of public space and usage while integrating into a historical urban identity.

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The team of COWI A/S, Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, Mikkelsen Architects, and STED Landscape has been selected to design Copenhagen’s new diabetes center, Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen. Based on the idea of creating a connection to nature, the Center weaves together the indoors and outdoors, in order to stimulate and nurture patients and visitors.

The main entrance to the project faces south to ensure natural lighting, and features a rolling landscape that leads inside, with an in situ poured concrete pathway and landscaped staircases that connect to a public rooftop garden.

On arrival, visitors are greeted by a luscious, rolling landscape leading inside. The area is designed with curiosity in mind – from the outset patients and visitors must feel welcome and enticed to explore.

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The Pillars is a new monument in the heart of Copenhagen dedicated to informing the public through a combination of national data and artistic beauty. Inspired by other nationally recognized works such as the 10,000 Year Clock in Texas; Mount Rushmore in South Dakota; and the Fühlometer (Feel-o-Meter) in Lindau, Germany, The Pillars encourages both citizens and leaders to understand the facts of their national development.

Danish architect Jan Gehl is a world renowned expert in all things related to urban design and public spaces. He obtained this expertise by publishing numerous books, and later, from his consulting firm Gehl Architects that he founded in Copenhagen, his hometown, to make cities for people. The firm celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016.

PLH Arkitekter has been announced as one of two winners in the international design competition for Rail Baltica, organized by The European Railroad Lines, Ltd. As a part of the European transport network, Rail Baltica will be a multi-modal public transport hub in the Latvian capital of Riga, with a railway bridge crossing the Daugava River.

The focal point of the project will be a train station building “that creates a strong visual identity in the cityscape, strengthening the sense of Riga as a metropolis.” Inspired by the archetypal form of the arch and the Art Nouveau period, the building will feature canopies that resemble arched fern leaves. On the north side of the building, the canopy shape allows for a unique view over the historic city, ideal for travelers entering or leaving the city to create a strong sense of place.

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