biking big

on a cloudy and incredibly windy evening, my housemates went on a bike ride following the metro line from nørreport station near our apartment, to ørestad, a developing city area that is being developed using the new town concept with the metro as the primary public transport grid, connecting it with the rest of metropolitan copenhagen. the ride took us past some of the biggest names in danish (and international, for that matter) architecture, focusing primarily on big (bjarke ingels group) and some designs of note and of use by this incredibly young and innovative group. (all photos are courtesy of http://www.dac.dk/)

the first building we rode past was not a 'big' design, but a notable one nonetheless. three silos, all once a part of the soya bean cake factory, have now been converted into 'the gemini residence'. the old seed silo consisted of two raw, naked concrete cylinders. the apartments have been positioned on the outside of the two cylinders, whose glass walls and wide balconies offer panoramic vistas of the harbor and city. the silo cores have been converted into a lobby space throughout the height of the building. while we wanted to get closer and have a look around, the building and its immediate vicinity is strictly off-limits to non-residents and loitering near the harbor area (even though it is a perfectly nice and open spot with great views of the harbor and the city) is not allowed. taking something very proletarian and making it exclusive and elite. how danish.

gemini residence takes its name from the astrological sign gemini,
the latin name of the zodiac sign 'the twins'.

farther away, well outside copenhagen, we arrived at 'the mountain dwellings', a modern ten-level 'housing mountain' used for housing and parking. the 80 penthouse residence was designed by big architects who wanted the relaxed atmosphere typical of suburbs united with the social intensity experienced in an urban setting of dense buildings and city life. the mountain pops out of the ground like a suburb full of courtyard gardens spreading across the tall building: suburbanity and urbanity melting into one. while it's a visually intriguing building, no doubt, there are aspects of it that look quite 'gimicky'. and walking up the stairs to see the view from the top allowed us to look into each apartment - their shades wide open - and into the lives and details of every resident. while copenhagen might pack in a lot of people, this certainly seems excessive and a little out of place.

the northern and western facades of the parking garage depict a
photorealistic mural of himalayan peaks

the southern side of the building showcases each apartment's roof garden, edged by elevated flowerbeds in the shape of planter railings, designed to block the view to neighboring, lower-level apartments

seen in the parking lot, the underside of each level of apartments features a distinctive color scheme of psychedelic hues which, as a tribute to danish 1960s and 70 furniture designer, verneer panton, are all exact matches of the colors he used in his designs. a swiss-manufactured ski lift-style inclined elevator moves along the wall of the garage for access to the apartments

right next to the mountain dwellings lie the vm houses, inspired by le corbusier's unité d'habitation concept. shaped like the letters v and m, the apartment is designed with an emphasis on daylight, privacy and views. however, i still don't understand how an entire apartment made out of glass, and the design of the balconies, especially when occupied, make any part of this building seem private.

farther down the road is ørestad's high school, the first school in denmark with an architectural design intended to correspond to new visions on content, subject matter, organization, and learning systems. flexibility and openness are key words for the building and traditional spaces such as classrooms and lounges no longer exist in the high school of the future. instead, the building is divided into four "study zones." each has its own floor, which are linked by a wide, spiral staircase leading toward the roof terrace. however, we all wondered, if concentration and creativity are emphasized in this design, are not also short attention spans and distractions?

at the very tip of ørestad south, is a large figure-eight shaped building called 8tallet - formerly known as big house and our final stop. by this point we had biked from our apartment in central copenhagen to basically the airport. 8tallet is the largest residential building in denmark, with a 1.5 km-long path running around the entire perimeter of the building. what interested us more, was the cafe, located below the apartments, where we were about to devour a what might've been the largest burger i've seen in denmark. the shape of the house is turned and twisted so that it looks like a large infinity sign from above. we walked to the top of the building and saw copenhagen in the distance from one side, and the edge of the world from the other. an endless meadow, kalvebod fælled, seems poised and ready for a flood of young architects and handfuls of apartments and other buildings that are bigger, better, more innovative and make a louder statement than the last. regarding the future of danish architecture, i think it imperative to keep asking of designers and architects alike to keep in mind what has actually put denmark on the map in terms of danish design and architecture: the functionalist tradition - setting aside ego, and designing a product/building that can actually be used to improve people's lives. 

with the rain beginning to pour and the wind never seeming to die down, we began the long trek home, looking longingly at the metro speeding by us toward the city, the one place in all of denmark that doesn't seem to allow bicycles. but we made it home, soaked and exhausted, still full from dinner and stuffed with danish architecture.