Sub Title
Creating a Social, Elevated Community
Aiming to redefine the apartment block as a “social, elevated community”, Danish architect CF Møller’s 15,000 square metre tower “breaks with the traditional multi-storey building, which isolate residents. Instead it is designed as a “sustainable, collectively-oriented community in which social encounters are created using a wide range of architectural features”
Mixed Housing Types
The building includes a mix of housing types, from small shared flats suitable for students, to family and live-work homes. There is also 4,000 sq. m. of communal space, comprising terraces, winter gardens and rooftop terraces.
Shared Facilities
The shared facilities for the block include a bicycle workshop, a laundry and a community room on the fifth floor.
The Challenge
Lone Wiggers, a partner in Møller, said:“In classical multi-storey buildings it’s often a challenge to any sense of community that you only meet your neighbours in the lift or lobby. We wish to overturn this by renewing how we design residential tower blocks.
“This means that we have considered the building from within and outwards, with the social qualities driving the design.”
Providing ‘Places’
Whatever one thinks about this project, it is good to see development being regarded as the creation of ‘Places for People’ rather than just ‘buildings to house people’. Long term ‘sustainability’ demands a multi-generational approach. In turn this begs to question of what legacy the creation of ever smaller and smaller ‘little boxes’ bequeathes to future generations.
Collaboration
In collaboration with other construction professionals we endeavour to design and build properties that provide flexible space and that will endure for several hundred years, not the short 60 year conceptual life adopted by many authorities. Indeed it is hard to find any property (apart from clearance schemes) that are less than 120 years old and many interwar homes are themselves already rapidly approaching 100 years old.
In-Built Sustainability
From early design, through technical development of the structure and manufacturing to transport and erection, we use timber based pre-fabrication to deliver the high quality buildings that architects and their clients want at prices they can afford.
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