Archinect - News

Cobe, Dorte Mandrup, JAJA, and Tegnestuen Vandkunsten to lead new mixed-use housing development at Copenhagen's South Harbor

2024-04-12T13:41:00-04:00

Cobe is joining fellow Danish architecture firms Dorte Mandrup, Tegnestuen Vandkunsten, and JAJA, alongside Sweco engineers, to deliver a new mixed-use residential district in Copenhagen’s South Harbor. The one-million-square-foot design is set to include 1,000 new units of housing (25% of which are considered affordable) designed to help key the Danish building sector's vital green transition.

Each of the buildings will be constructed in line with the Reduction Roadmap initiative, an analog of the Paris Agreement, as well as the Planetary Boundary for Climate Change and a German DGNB platinum certification. Wood will be used as a primary building material throughout the structures, which are connected via canals, bridges, and new green areas.

Rendering courtesy Cobe

Cobe is also under tender to deliver the newly redesigned Danish parliament buildings and public entrance in Copenhagen and has nearby completed another mixed-use housing tract called Paper Island at its Inner Harbor, w...

Dorte Mandrup team unveils Nunavut Inuit Heritage Center with rock and turf-covered roof

2023-07-18T11:16:00-04:00

Dorte Mandrup has announced their team’s success in an international competition to design the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Center. Located in Iqaluit, Canada's territorial capital, the facility is set to be a cultural bridge promoting Inuit heritage and facilitating “healing and reconciliation between Inuit and non-Inuit communities.”

The winning team included Dorte Mandrup, Guy Architects, LEES+Associates, Adjeleian Allen Rubeli, EXP, Pageau Morel, Altus Group, and indigenous consultants Kirt Ejesiak and Alexander Flaherty.

Image credit: MIR

The design concept is a creative interpretation of community perspectives, traditional Inuit knowledge, and the healing potential of the planned facility. The design takes its cues from the regional topography and environmental phenomena such as kalutoqaniq – patterns formed in snowdrifts by the prevailing wind. Emulating these natural shapes, the building will carve into the rocky hillside, echoing the features of the natural landscape.

“The Nunavu...

Dorte Mandrup's winning museum design is a stunning cultural landmark within the Arctic Circle

2021-02-03T17:40:00-05:00

Resulting from a design competition initiated by The Whale AS back in 2019, the organization sought design proposals that created a unique experience for spectators to enjoy large underwater visitors common to the area. The site's location is a popular whale-watching site in Andenes just north of Andøya, an island in Norway 186 miles within the Arctic Circle.

After beating out other big-name firms like Snøhetta and BIG, Dorte Mandrup was named the winner. Børre Berglund, CEO of The Whale AS, expressed much praise towards the design proposal. He's shared with the press "the project from Dorte Mandrup is a clear winner [...] It is poetic and low-key and at the same time a very exciting and unusual building."

Project visual © Miir/Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup

As we enter 2021, visuals for the project have already made their rounds in the media thanks to Bergen-based studio Mir who provided visualization renders for Dorte Mandrup and the project.

Praises for the museum's seamless structur...

Weiss/Manfredi to lead La Brea Tar Pits overhaul in Los Angeles

2019-12-11T18:14:00-05:00

A design team led by interdisciplinary, New York City-based architecture and landscape firm Weiss/Manfredi has been selected to reinterpret the La Brea Tar Pits and George C. Page Museum building in Los Angeles.

The design team includes experiential designers Imaginary Forces, horticulturist and water conservation experts Perry and Associates Collaborative, paleobotanist Carole Gee, artist Mark Dion, and Michael Bierut of Pentagram. Locally, the team will draw on the expertise of Brenda Levin of Levin & Associates for architectural and historic preservation assistance, among others that have yet to be announced.

The Lake Pit at La Brea Tar Pits features a trio of fiberglass mammoths that will be preserved by the selected scheme. Courtesy of La Brea Tar Pits.

Upgrading and Expanding the Museum and Site

The project seeks to repurpose, upgrade, and expand the 1970s-era George C. Page Museum building, a partially submerged paleontological and educational complex designed by Los Angele...

Weiss/Manfredi, DS + R, and Dorte Mandrup unveil competing schemes for L.A.'s La Brea Tar Pits

2019-08-27T13:00:00-04:00

Weiss/Manfredi, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS + R), and Dorte Mandrup have unveiled a trio of competing schemes for Los Angeles's La Brea Tar Pits, George C. Page Museum, and Hancock Park.

The proposals are aimed at rejuvenating and updating the 12-acre park and its iconic tar pits installation, which includes a tar-filled lake populated with life-size fiberglass woolly mammoth figures. The three schemes differ in terms of their approach to retaining the existing Page Museum structure, an iconic and submerged Mayan temple-inspired facility designed in 1977 by architects Willis Fagan and Frank Thornton.

The proposals, expanded below, will be on view at the La Brea Tar Pits museum through September 15th. A jury that includes Milton Curry, Dean of USC School of Architecture; Christopher Hawthorne, Chief Design Officer, City of Los Angeles; Kirk Johnson, Director of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Kristin Sakoda, Executive Director, Los Angeles County D...

DS+R, Weiss/Manfredi, and Dorte Mandrup to reimagine L.A.'s La Brea Tar Pits

2019-06-07T15:37:00-04:00

Diller Scofidio+Renfro (DS+R), Weiss/Manfredi, and Dorte Mandrup have been tapped to reimagine the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.

Under a new initiative, the selected firms will compete to "reimagine and renovate" the 12-acre portion of L.A.'s Hancock Park that is home to the La Brea Tar Pits and the George C. Page Museum. The museums and surrounding grounds are owned and managed by a public-private partnership that includes the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County and Los Angeles County.

The teams will unveil their masterplan proposals for the campus in August 2019 for public review. It is expected that a winning proposal will be selected by the end of 2019.

The George C. Page Museum is home to an extensive paleontological collection. Image courtesy Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County.

The improvements, according to a press release announcing the team selection, will be undertaken to "advance NHMLAC’s scientific research and public engagement for the next half...

Rural Danish town approves construction of Western Europe's tallest skyscraper

2019-04-04T14:03:00-04:00

“It’s hard to find anybody here who is opposed to the tower. Everybody thinks it’s a fantastic idea, and me too,” says Morten Dickmann, a reporter for the local newspaper. “The Danish news media tried hard to find someone opposed, but they couldn’t find anyone.”

Move over London—there's a new supertall tower (proposal) in town, and it is aiming to dwarf the current tallest building in Western Europe, Renzo Piano's The Shard.

Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter/Bestseller.

The plan for this new mixed-use headquarters of fast-fashion company Bestseller was designed by Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter, but it won't go up in Copenhagen or Aarhus but in the tiny, rural town of Brande, population 7,000.

The project first made headlines in 2017 when the idea of a 320-meter skyscraper in the middle of the completely flat Jutland peninsula was introduced.

Denmark may soon have its own remotely located tall tower in new mixed-use HQ, designed by Dorte Mandrup

2017-08-18T15:31:00-04:00

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter was appointed as advisor and architect for the new mixed-use headquarters of fashion company Bestseller in Brande, Denmark. Located in the company's hometown of Brande, the project will accommodate retail spaces for up to 30 shops, areas for offices, education, and public events, and even hotel facilities for traveling business guests.

Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter.

But the centerpiece of the mixed-use will be a slender tower that Bestseller says will stand at over 200 meters tall. (Anyone else thinking about Morphosis' proposed 381-meter luxury hotel tower in Vals?) More architectural details about the tower are yet to be released. But with Dorte Mandrup's current renderings, the tower will surely stick out in the small railway town of Brande (Population: 7,065 as of 2014). The architects say the building will be Denmark's tallest tower, once built.

Courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter.

According to project leader Anders Krogh Vogdrup, the mixed-use pr...

BIG's Cactus Towers to join Dorte Mandrup's urban IKEA masterplan in Copenhagen

2017-08-15T18:04:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels Group recently unveiled the renderings for two hexagonal “Cactus Towers”, as part of a 74,000 square-meter masterplan in Copenhagen that fellow Danish practice Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter is in charge of designing. The project will be built in the Vesterbro district at the Kalvebod Brygge waterfront.

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter's urban IKEA masterplan, which includes BIG's Cactus Towers (upper left corner). Rendering: Luxigon.

BIG's residential towers, standing at 60 and 80 meters tall, will have 500 compact “youth rooms” with an average size of 30m2 as well as balconies and terraces on each story. The project gets its name from the towers' rotating hexagonal cores, which form a distinctly “spiky” silhouette. According to Magasinet KBH, the towers are BIG's first residential project in Copenhagen since their acclaimed Ørestad projects, which include the 8 House.

Image courtesy of BIG.

The Cactus Towers will over...

Peek inside the new Dorte Mandrup-designed Wadden Sea Centre

2017-02-07T19:51:00-05:00

The newly redesigned Wadden Sea Centre is now in full operation at the Wadden Sea National Park, Denmark's largest national park and a UNESCO-appointed heritage site. Copenhagen-based Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter, who designed the Sailing Tower in Aarhus and won the Träpriset prize for the Råå Day Care Center, was put in charge of converting and expanding the Sea Centre in 2014.

The Sea Centre lets visitors learn about the unique backstory of the surrounding landscape, which is described as a resting place for some 15 million migratory birds. Costing approximately €7.2 million (53 million DKK), the redesigned building now has 2,800 square meters of exhibition space and large glass windows to allow ample sunlight and views of the landscape.

Dorte Mandrup envisioned the building's design as “a new sculptural interpretation” rooted in the region's tradition and history — and quite literally too, in that the architects wanted the building to appear as if it had emerged from the ground.

Based ...

Perforated "Sailing Tower" spotlights Denmark's commercial Aarhus harbor

2016-03-03T18:29:00-05:00

With bold geometric references to cargo sailing masts and portholes, the primary function of Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter's Sailing Tower is to reference the considerable maritime history of the Danish harbor, which was founded in the 8th century and remains an active commercial port today. The tower, which was inaugurated in August 2015, incorporates two official viewing platforms, the upper one of which offers a 360 degree view of Aarhus. Sited on the docks, the tower is categorized as an urban sculpture, not only for its direct relationship with the harbor, but its visual orientation toward the city.

The staircase offers perforated panoramic views as visitors climb up (although a lift has been installed for those unable to climb stairs), while the steel-plate construction also recalls the feeling of being at sea. At night, the mast-like geometry of the Tower's exterior is illuminated by LEDs.

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter to design new tower landmark at Aarhus Harbor in Denmark

2013-11-13T18:27:00-05:00

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter won the competition to design the new tower landmark for Aarhus Harbor in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark. The firm's origami-like structure beat out proposals from some of Denmark's biggest architects like BIG, schmidt hammer lassen, and Cebra.

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter wins University of Lund project in Sweden

2013-11-01T19:20:00-04:00

Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter from Denmark won the competition to design the new main building of the School of Economics and Management for the University of Lund in Sweden. The 16,000 m2 cubic structure will have four stories raised on a one-story base, which will altogether consist of lecture halls, research and student facilities, and green space.