Copenhagen

Floating containers transformed into student housing in Denmark

The number of students is continually growing in many European cities, Denmark is no exception. In order to keep up with the rising number of new applicants, the city of Copenhagen is looking into options to be able to house the 24.000 student applicants without housing every year. Bjarke Ingels from architecture firm BIG designed Urban Rigger after entrepreneur Kim Loudrop came up with the idea.

Urban Rigger is a complex of stacked reclaimed shipping containers which have been transformed into 15 living spaces that have been situated around an internal courtyard. The structure sits in the harbor of Copenhagen and due to the use of solar power, hydro source heating and low-energy pumps, it is completely carbon neutral.

According to its architect, Urban Rigger can be replicated in other harbor cities with limited space for urban development. At present several requests have been received by Urban Rigger from North America and there are plans to create a unit in Sweden which means that more floating containers may be constructed in other harbor cities around the world.

Image source: WebUrbanist.com

Copenhagen will build three floating classrooms

The capital of Denmark will soon get a new multi-purpose waterfront development. The Scandinavian architecture firm, C. F. Møller Landscape, won the “Nordhavn Islands” international competition to design part of the waterfront in the Nordhavn district, a harbor area in Copenhagen.

It will be “an innovative learning, activity and water landscape” adjacent to a planned international school which C. F. Møller is also designing. Three floating classrooms would give students opportunities to learn outside, even fish and kayak. The design blends a range of concepts – the urban park, the educational classroom, and the recreational community center – right on the waterfront.

Source: www.archpaper.com

Courtesy images: C. F. Møller

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