Tag Archives: gehry

Sønderborg’s new multicultural centre on the harbour

Leave a reply

sonderborg multicultural house

One of the key buildings in Frank Gehry’s Masterplan for Sønderborg is the multicultural centre that will sit at a prominent location in Sonderborg with views of both the harbour and the historical city centre.

There were two architect companies that took part in the contest to design the future centre. It has now been decided by the municipality which submission is the winning bid. And from the pictures published I think it looks like a really nice project.

The winning proposal for the new multicultural centre on the waterfront is created in collaboration between AART Architects, Zeni Architects, Alectia and Hoffmann.

Sonderborg havnefront

The centre will be built around the old warehouse (Ewers pakhus) that is the only old building left on the harbour at the moment.

The lonely warehouse on the harbour

The warehouse in is a pretty bad state but I think that once it has been restored it will add character and charm to the brand new building and be a physical reminder of the times where the harbour of Sonderborg was a bustling industrial port.

The building will bring together under one roof several cultural institutions, and create a place where the focus is on learning as well as other cultural and recreational activities. The building will amongst other things house Sønderborg Library, The German Library and South Jutlands Artschool.

sonderborg library

The building will be 5500m2 and it is expected that 1000 people will use the building daily and the budget cost of the centre is almost 100 million kroner.

sonderborg cafe library

Ambitious Waterfront Hotel in Sønderborg

Leave a reply

The plans for the harbour front in Sønderborg does not lack ambition. One of the pieces of the “Gehry’s Masterplan” that has gotten a bit more concrete lately is the hotel and waterpark.

Hotel_Sonderborg_03

If built the hotel will be 85 meters tall with 18 floors. That means that from the top floor you will be able to see all the way to Aabenraa and Flensburg! Furthermore the current plan is that the top floor should be open to the public (crossing our fingers for this to happen). To get an idea of what the view will be like Zoom Film made this visualisation:

http://youtu.be/ou4C7XFmXmI

The hotel will have 210 rooms, conference facilities and – look at this – a water park both with space for fun and games as well as wellness and saunas for the well-off tourists.

Waterpark in Sønderborg

The building is design by Henning Larsen, one of Denmark’s architectural icons within the last couple of decades (or his company, Mr. Larsen passed away June 22nd this year). Henning Larsen Architects have previously made The Opera House and ITU in Copenhagen and The Wave in Vejle.

Read more about the project from:

Henning Larsen Architects
Press release from 2010
August newsletter

House of Knowledge – TeleBilling, KPMG & Rambøll

Leave a reply

On the harbour of Sønderborg a new building is rapidly taking shape. It’s another of the pieces from Frank Gehry’s Masterplan for the harbour front of Sønderborg. The plan is to transform the harbour into a vibrant new part of town.

Sønderborg Videnshus / House of Knowledge

The first block was the white residential building (to the right in the picture above) – this time it’s a bronze “House of Knowledge” – Videnshus in Danish – (to the left). The building will be the new corporate residence for local IT company TeleBilling, the local branch of KPMG accounting and Rambøll engineering.

house of knowledge

Recently TeleBilling made a film of what the building looks like now as they are still working on the interior. (Skip to 0:23)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwRppy8uZx0

The offices there will have amazing views up and down Alssund and you couldn’t blame the office workers for sometimes stopping what they are doing to stare at the beautiful scenery.

interior house of knowledge

The building has 6 floors and 4750 square meters of office space. The roof will be fitted with solar panels and will comply with the 2020 standard of buildings, which means it’s very energy efficient.

If everything goes according to plan the three residents should be moving in in November. Let’s hope they have an open house reception, so the rest of us can come in and be jealous of their sparkling new office.

Read more at Byens Havn

The First Block in Gehry’s Masterplan

Leave a reply

The architect Frank Gehry and his company created a Masterplan for the harbour in Sonderborg back in 2008. The masterplan was a rough sketch of how the urban landscape along the water across from Alsion could be shaped.

Instead of making specific designs for the buildings Gehry’s plan just had big blocks representing buildings as you can see above and below.

As far as I can tell the building in question is going to be the black buildings on the right on the picture below. It should be in front of the hospital a bit up the hill. (Residential C on this map)

The first building to become more concrete than a big wooden block is designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). I don’t know the actual name of the house but it looks a bit like a sliced and twisted shoebox. On BIG’s website is a presentation of the house with this description:

How do you create dwellings that optimize the water and the view to the fullest?

[…] BIG’s project, Sønderborg, is a new 1,100 m2 residential building located on the northern side of the harbourfront close to the existing Sønderjylland Hospital.

From the water the building is viewed as a sculpture that rest on a soft hill and invites the viewer to explore the different angles of the architecture. From the other side the building is views as a series of volumes that twists and rises from the park creating an open but yet protected arrival space.

The building consists of 7 exclusive apartments with private terraces that extend the life inside the building to the outside in the warmer months. The terraces have a covered and uncovered area so they can be used even during rainy days.

To archive a better connection between the park where the building is placed, we have lowered the basement half below ground while the other half of the basements is covered by a soft hill. This means that you need to descent half a floor in order to get inside the apartments. This gesture means that the two lower terraces archive more privacy than if they were placed directly on the existing terrain.

–Bjarke Ingels Group

I think it’s a cool and bold building and the views will be spectacular. The sidings on the artists renditions are bright rusted orange, I wonder how that will look in real life.

The building is also set in the middle of a public landscape so unless you are at the top people can peak into your house from almost all sides.

It will be interesting to follow the construction and final finish of this building.

Photos in this post are from Byens Havn, Gehry’s masterplan Design Guide and BIG’s project description. I discovered the project on afasia.

Sønderborg – The Little City That Could

Leave a reply

Black smoke and white steam

Sonderborg is the 33rd biggest city in Denmark the 111th biggest country in the world. Not a particular big engine by any means. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in guts.

Like many other places, Sonderborg is seeing its share of an uphill battle in the wake of the recession but in no way has it given up trying to pull itself over the hill.

As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, “I–think–I–can, I–think–I–can.” It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, “I thought I could, I thought I could.”

— The Little Engine That Could

While Sonderborg is chanting “I think I can” it has embarked on a couple of impressive projects:

Project Zero

In 2009 Sonderborg became the first Danish city to build a Zero+ house, i.e. one that produces more energy than it consumes. This has developed into Project Zero, an ambitious project that aims to make Sonderborg carbon neutral by 2029. This is a fantastic initiative where rather than talking about what is not working, the city is acting to rectify the situation.

Frank Gehry’s Masterplan

“…To create a place where it is worthwile to live, to work and to enjoy our life”. That is what Frank Gehry‘s masterplan for the Sonderborg harbour area aims to achieve. This is the guy who turned Bilbao from backwater to top tourist destination with his Guggenheim museum. The project, if realised, will transform the harbour area into a thriving urban area that includes recreational, cultural, commercial and residential areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeKtunmuw6Q

European Capital of Culture 2017

Every year two European cities are chosen as European cities of culture to celebrate the diversity and cultural ties between European cultures. In 2017 it is Denmark’s turn to nominate a city, and Sonderborg (for the cross-border region of Sonderjylland-Schleswig) is one of only two cities in the running. *Fingers crossed* for Sonderborgs bid! The decision will be known by the end of next year.

So lots of interesting projects in the works. We hope Sonderborg is able to pull the load over the mountain – Choo chooooo!