Located in Copenhagen, Denmark, the project brief was to design a multifunctional facility that included community workshops, a general store and offices. 

The objective of this project was to choose an architectural element, rethink the way we see and of course use it. We see a staircase as a means of getting people from one floor to the next but I investigated possibilities beyond pure functional.

The staircase was the main driving factor for the design. The spaces in the building were centred on the stair core. Social spaces were designed on the stairs, which allowed people to choose to sit somewhere if they met someone they knew. 

The staircase was designed on quarter levels, this allowed people to feel they weren’t going from floor to floor but more like they were circulating horizontally across the spaces on a small number of steps. Having the staircase on quarter levels also allowed the workshops to be viewed which stimulated conversation, created an exciting experience for the users and allowed more interaction.

Each floor had different types of spaces divided up between offices and workshops. The offices were intended for the young generation while the workshops were intended for the retirees in the surrounding area. This allowed further interaction between people of different age groups and lifestyles.