8 House
BIG

Photo Jens Lindhe

Situated on the outer edge of the city as the southern most outpost in the maturing neighborhood of Orestad, the bow-tie shaped mixed-use building contains three different types of residential housing as well as retail and offices.

Rather than a traditional block, the 8 House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of typologies connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the 10th floor, creating a three-dimensional urban neighborhood where suburban life merges with the energy of a big city, where business and housing co-exist. The differences in height allows spectacular views towards the Copenhagen Canal and Kalvebod Faelled's protected open spaces.

Photo courtesy Dragør Luftphoto

Photo Jens Lindhe

8 House is a three-dimensional neighborhood rather than an architectural object. An alley of 150 row houses stretches through the entire block and twists all the way from street level to the top and down again. Where social life, the spontaneous encounter and neighbor interaction traditionally is restricted to the ground level, the 8 House allows it to expand all the way to the top./Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG

Photo Jens Lindhe

Photo Jens Lindhe

Instead of dividing the different functions of the building into separate blocks, the various functions have been spread out horizontally. The apartments are placed at the top while the commercial program unfolds at the base of the building. As a result, the different horizontal layers have achieved a quality of their own: the apartments benefit from the view, sunlight and fresh air, while the office leases merge with life on the street. This is emphasized by the shape of 8 House which is literally hoisted up in the Northeast corner and pushed down at the Southwest corner, allowing light and air to enter the southern courtyard.

Photo Jens Lindhe

Photo Jens Lindhe

The 8 House creates two intimate interior courtyards, separated by the center of the cross, which houses communal facilities available for all residents. At the very same spot, the building is penetrated by a wide passage that allows people to easily move from the park area on its western edge to the water filled canals to the east.

Photo Jens Lindhe

Photo Jens Lindhe

Photo Jens Lindhe

Photo Jens Lindhe

Photo Jens Lindhe

A continuous public path stretches from street level to the penthouses and allows people to bike all the way from the ground floor to the top, moving alongside townhouses with gardens, winding through an urban perimeter block.

Two sloping green roofs are strategically placed to reduce the urban heat island effect as well as providing the visual identity to the project and tying it back to the adjacent farmlands towards the south.

8 House is our second realized example of architectural alchemy - the idea that by mixing traditional ingredients, retail, row houses and apartments in untraditional ways - you create added value if not gold. The mix allows the individual activities to find their way to the most ideal location within the common framework - the retail facing street, the offices towards northern light and the residences with sun and views to the open spaces. 8 House is a perimeter block that morphs into a knot, twisting and turning to maximize the life quality of its many inhabitants./Bjarke Ingels, BIG

This is BIG's third project with the same development team in the neighborhood of Orestad, the VM Houses completed in, The Mountain, and finally the 8 House.

Image courtesy BIG.
Diagram
Image courtesy BIG.
Diagram
Image courtesy BIG.
Diagram

Model photo courtesy BIG.
Model
< Drawing courtesy BIG.
Commercial Level Plan

Drawing courtesy BIG.
Apartment Level Plan

Drawing courtesy BIG.
Row Houses Level Plan

Drawing courtesy BIG.
Penthouse Level Plan

Drawing courtesy BIG.
Cross Section

Drawing courtesy BIG.
Longitudinal Section

The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design have named Bjarke Ingels as the recipient for the 2010 European Prize for Architecture.
The Prize will be formally presented to Bjarke Ingels at "The City and The World: Madrid Symposium" November 4-7, 2010.