Life on a Rollercoaster by Robert Uhde | 02.07.2011

8 House

Re-vitalization the super Apartment Building

After the negative experiences made with uniform mass housing construction during the 1960s and 1970s, mega apartment complexes were considered not communicable for a long time. Only since the end of the 1990s there were attempts here and there to bring new life to this disreputable building task. The projects of Bjarke Ingels seem to be able to free large-scale residential housing from its negative image. A visit to the new Copenhagen quarter of Ørestad, touching the southern part of downtown, provides impressive evidence of this. After the “VM Houses”, completed in 2005, and the “Mountain Dwellings”, where people started moving in in 2008, BIG have launched their third local large-scale housing project at the end of 2010 by designing the “8 House” apartment block. Once again, the architects have successfully managed to combine a maximum of density and unconventional architecture with individual layouts, intelligent openings and optimal daylight exploitation by deploying new typologies. 

“City within the City“

In order to bring the various demands together into a conclusive shape, the new building has been designed as a “residential mountain” with a maximum of 13 floors with a bow-like layout and with a partly wave-shaped ascending base by Bjarke Ingels. Apart from 476 apartments in 125 different variations, a supermarket, a kindergarten, 10,000 square meters of offices areas as well as a Café on the first floor along with two little inner parks were able to be integrated. A terrace-shaped construction of the two structures towards the south-west allows for an optimal lighting, a good view across a little lake and the nature reserve to the South as well as the cultivation of front gardens and balconies of outdoor terraces for all units. The new building becomes even more dynamic through moving façade structures with their variously shaped windows and nobly shimmering aluminum panels, mirroring the multi-façetedness of the provided apartment types. 

Residing without a Car

Apart from that, BIG have done all they could to connect their new building with its surroundings in a flowing manner. For instance, for allowing an optimal opening and a flowing connection to the city, the architects have integrated a public footpath next to the lifts, a path leading to the top floor like a vertical sidewalk passing all apartments. A large community area with guest rooms, lounges and roof terrace at the intersection point of both bows add to the living quality, a public footpath crosses the building here, too. Furthermore, a metro station provides a direct connection to the downtown area, Denmark’s biggest shopping mall, as well as to the concert hall by Jean Nouvels in its direct proximity. As a consequence, BIG havedecided to do without parking areas or underground car parks. A bold decision others should make as well!