Ørestad - Copenhagen new town
Location: between Copenhagen airport and the city centre
Copyright: Model - Steven Holl Architects / Photography - Iwan Baan



Steven Holl Architects presents design of T-Husene, a mixed-use development, for Ørestad, Copenhagen, Denmark



T-Husene Ørestad - Steven Holl Architects

New York – On 2Nov 2006 Steven Holl Architects presented T-Husene, the design for a direct commission from City Development in Copenhagen, Denmark. Besides a constructed landscape of 8000 sq. m. T-Husene contains 18,000 sq.m. residential space in 5 towers above 12,500 sq.m. commercial space.



A green folded space with multiple elevations on top of the commercial space is sliced open by the insertion of the five rotated dancing towers. With this project Steven Holl Architects sets a new example for residential typologies based on the concept of urban porosity. Leaving behind the standard typology of residential perimeter blocks, the dancing T’s with colored and reflective undersides carve the sky within the green folded space.



Inspired by twilight and the Scandinavian sky, the T-shaped buildings maximize high quality residential floor space with views to the horizon and sunset. Building downwards from the maximum height level, taking into consideration maximum view, each tower will contain 50 apartments in 22 different configurations ranging from 73 sq.m. to 135 sq.m. At the same time, the working environment of the commercial area is improved by the green folded landscape, allowing the nature reserve to flow from the Amager FÊlled through ÿrestad onto the green square in the east.



Steven Holl says about the design, “We wanted to create a sense of autonomy, individuation, and particularity for each apartment and tower. One of the failures of modern housing comes from the lack of individualization. Concepts should not be based on the mass, but on individuals. We aim for an architecture that is in connection to each human being. Therefore, new typologies need to be created of which the dancing T’s are an example.”



T-Husene is part of ÿrestad, a new-town located less than ten minutes away from historic Copenhagen by metro, close to Scandinavia’s main airport and connected directly to Malm¯ in Sweden. To Steven Holl the beauty of ÿrestad is formed by the combination between density, the preservation of nature and the fast metro connection with the existing city. He says, “It is a sharp contrast to the American urban sprawl which is characterised by highways and endless seas of houses.”



High quality natural materials and sustainable solutions for future challenges will be an integral part of the project which will break ground in the second half of 2007.



T-Husene is one of the two projects Steven Holl Architects is currently designing in Denmark; the other project is the Herning Center of the Arts.



Steven Holl Architects

Founded in New York in 1976, Steven Holl Architects has offices in New York and Beijing with a staff of 49. The firm has been recognized internationally with numerous awards, and the work has been widely published and exhibited. In September Steven Holl Architects opened the new School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and The Swiss Residence in Washington, D.C.. Currently under construction is the Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing and the Nanjing Museum of Art and Architecture (Nanjing, China).



In addition, Steven Holl Architects completed several projects in 2005 including two private residences, Higgins Hall Center Section at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York) and the Loisium Wine Visitor Center, Hotel and Spa (Langenlois, Austria). In June 2007 the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art addition in Kansas City, Missouri will be completed and open to the public. Steven Holl Architects recently won four international design competitions: Herning Center of the Arts (Herning, Denmark), CitÈ du Surf et de l’OcÈan (Biarritz, France), Sail Hybrid (Knokke-Heist, Belgium), and Meander (Helsinki, Finland).





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Building photo 27 Aug 2006 © adrian welch

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