3XN has unveiled its design for a new destination at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, holding a mixture of retail, hospitality, and public amenities located in a “market hall environment.”
The scheme draws inspiration from the sails dotting the city’s waterfront, with an architectural language that seeks to become a “natural extension of the waterfront and nestle into the existing architecture.”
A concave form of the building seeks to create an amphitheater-like space aided by public landscaped roof terraces while creating elevated views of the water.
The emphasis on external landscapes forms part of 3XN’s strategy for climate resilience, with landscaped elements doubling as stormwater management and flooding mitigation. The edges of the concave terraces are shaped to catch the prevailing wind, while the ground floor has been designed with anticipation for flooding, with the building itself imagined as “a community refuge during extreme heat and poor air quality events.”
“For most of my life, Copenhagen’s waterfront was a working harbor — a place of industry, not somewhere where people would hang out, relax, or enjoy their city,” said 3XN founder and creative director Kim Herforth Nielsen. “The transformation of the harbor into a place for people has transformed the whole city as well, not changing Copenhagen but helping to emphasize what was already special about it. We see this project in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor as a way to do the same thing — to give people a place to be together and to celebrate their city.”
News of the scheme comes one week after 3XN’s upcycled Quay Quarter Tower was named the CTBUH Best Tall Building Worldwide for 2023. Earlier in October, the firm was linked to a major residential master plan in Brussels while, in August, 3XN shared images of its new Copenhagen Children’s Hospital ahead of its projected 2026 opening.
9 Comments
Interesting concept, but makes quite inefficient use of the property, in turning it into usable interior space/while maintaining a degree of contingency. Heatherwick comes to mind, projects that are attached to a singular graphic idea like this often end up as three dimensional diagrams, dominated by circulation at the forefront, and less about the discovery of space. Kudos for pushing timber though.
Perhaps saying the same thing—
Much as one might want to like it, the design just looks gratuitous, like something just stuck there. Its dominant feature, the ascending terraces, does not look out on much fully, not the water, not even its own landscaped floor. It largely orients out on the building across. Similarly, from the exterior it is not well seen from those open spaces, the water, the gardens. And it does nothing for context, the buildings surrounding. Inside, functional interior space gets steeply diminishing returns on the height required to make this figure (which is interesting).
The positioning of the terraces is indeed odd. The resulting views are directed mainly to the new Gensler-designed high rise shart across the plaza. The overall "master plan" (by Gensler also) of the site is a travesty, mainly due to the high rises being sited too close to the water.
Thanks. That answers several questions. I looked on Google Maps and saw there are other structures that have been added, including those pylon things in the water.
3XN's best effort at a BIG product.
it's preserving the views and spatial openness of the waterfront edge... I think it's a uniquely considerate as well as elegant scheme and appreciate that there was a hand of restraint on the building's FAR. Contemporary architecture has a place in the urban landscape as well, not every building has to be conventionally massed. This is not an office building its a mixed use public building and I'd love to check it out when built.
What are the things that look like pylons in the water beyond? It's like bridge structure but not a bridge (yes, I could google but this is more fun).
Wait, is it a gondola?
That was my take...
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