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I think we haven’t thought through the challenge of technology for city mobility. We are stuck with some 120-year-old ideas that the industry is desperately holding on to. I tell students: Whenever you hear the word “smart,” beware, because that is somebody who wants to sell as many millions as possible of some new gimmick. And he is not necessarily giving you a better quality of life. — CityLab
Annette Becker and Lessano Negussie, curators of the new exhibition RIDE A BIKE! Reclaim the City at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) in Frankfurt, Germany, interviewed the 81-year-old 'people-friendly city' evangelist for the show's accompanying book. View full entry
OMA’s Blox project stacks a museum, offices, gym, restaurant and housing in a provocative attempt to condense the thrilling energy of a city into a single structure – but the result is a gloomy glass monolith [...]
It is OMA’s first ever playground, and it doesn’t look as if having fun comes naturally.
— The Guardian
Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj – COASTThe Guardian architecture critic, Oliver Wainwright, reviews OMA's new 'Blox' building in Copenhagen, and it's easy to see that he isn't a fan. Like at all. "From the outside, it doesn’t look promising. Far from suggesting unpredictable intrigue, the building... View full entry
Remember that waste-to-energy incinerator Bjarke Ingels designed for Copenhagen with a ski slope on top a few years back? The plant itself (dubbed 'Copenhill') was already completed and opened in March of 2017, but the ski-slope-rooftop-park-cherry-on-top was left behind — until now: Danish... View full entry
Ever wanted to spend a night in an industrial relic while not missing out on luxurious amenities? Then THE KRANE, a converted coal crane in Copenhagen's Nordhavn, is just your kind of thing. The multi-tiered structure sports a reception area on the ground floor (a designated concierge car meets... View full entry
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum’s new additions will be typical of James Turrell’s approach, relying on light to guide visitors around the galleries and exhibition spaces. The rooms lie almost 120 metres beneath the surface, and are invisible from above ground. — The Spaces
Artist James Turrell with model of the dome. Courtesy ARoS Aarhus Art Museum and Schmidt Hammer LassenArtist James Turrell partnered with Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects on an extension project for the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Copenhagen. The new galleries and installations will include... View full entry
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... View full entry
Located in Copenhagen’s redeveloped North Harbor (Nordhavn), “The Silo” is, as its name suggests, a former grain silo. Fifty years after its original construction, the structure has been revamped by COBE. Now, the 17-storey silo is a residential apartment building, replete with 38 unique... View full entry
Assembled from containers placed within a scaffolding net, WE Architecture's Jagtevj 69 aims to create alluring public space while simultaneously providing temporary housing for the homeless.The proposal stresses that it's a temporary solution; by creating a variety of different spaces for... View full entry
Krøyers Plads, a five-story housing project in the center of Copenhagen, has just finished construction. The site, previously a “gap” in a continuous row of warehouses, is adjacent to the Copenhagen harbor. Designed by the Danish architects Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects and COBE, the... View full entry
A groundbreaking ceremony has taken place in Copenhagen for Foster + Partners’ headquarters for Ferring Pharmaceuticals.
The 39,000 square metre office is located on the urban fringe of the city in Kastrup, near the international airport, where it is possible to see the Swedish city of Malmö, where Ferring was founded.
The structure is made up of a triangular glass building that appears to float above a stone plinth, which also acts as its first line of defence against floods.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Other recent Foster + Partner stories in the Archinect news:Construction begins on major Foster + Partners project in SwedenApple's spaceship campus, by the numbers (including an estimated $5b price tag)What does a $1 million dollar staircase look like? View full entry
With a floor plan designed around the concept of petals furling outward from a flower's stem the anodized bronze-toned aluminum and glass tower known as Bryggeblomstem ("the Brygge Flower"), has been granted the "Best Residential Building" award by the Copenhagen Municipality. The... View full entry
Copenhagen has become the first city in the world to attempt to monetize its, and others’, data through a city data market.
Traffic snarl-ups, home break-ins, whether it rained or snowed, and how much electricity the city dwellers use each day is among the data to be traded for cash, city officials announced. Interestingly, the city, which is partnering with Hitachi on the project, also wants to incorporate others’ data.
— Network World
"Not all data will have a price tag—some of it will be free, but it will be anonymized anyway."Relatedly, in a recent conversation with Joseph Grima, co-founder of Space Caviar, the architect suggested, "...the home is becoming a factory of data to the point that one could pay one's rent through... View full entry
I’m not so critical about New York, because they have this very firm grid-pattern. Even the newer buildings are lined up on good streets. If you stand in front of the Empire State Building, you can’t really guess how tall it is, because it meets the street in a friendly way. [...] It’s not so important how high the building is, or how much it looks like a perfume bottle, it’s more important how it interacts with the city. — commonedge.org
Related stories in the Archinect news:Jan Gehl's perspective on making "a good urban habitat for homo sapiens"Is Jan Gehl winning his battle to make our cities liveable?How to design that elusive "Perfect Town" View full entry
The City of Copenhagen will pull its investments out of coal, oil and gas companies. The city council have agreed to divest the fossil fuel holdings of the city’s €920 million investment fund
[...]
"Copenhagen decided to ban investments in companies that gain more than 5 percent of their revenue from coal, oil and gas. The criteria apply to companies that engage in prospecting, extracting or refining coal, oil and gas..."
— Cities Today
Good work Danes! For other urban efforts to curb our collective fossil fuel addiction, check out these links:What the Paris Agreement means for architectureBritain's last deep-pit coal mine closes — the end of the industrial revolution?The climate is getting hotter, and we're not... View full entry
No two people, let alone architects, perceive even the most frequented cities in the same way. How do designers experience their cities as locals?Many a listicle have mentioned Copenhagen as one of the most livable cities in the world with the happiest residents. How could that be? “Perhaps [it... View full entry
