Integrating a new idea into an established system is no easy task. For the Tingbjerg housing project in the Danish capital, however, COBE architects have successfully mastered the challenge: During the 1950s the suburban development took shape as a planned city, the most striking aesthetic of which were the yellow bricks of its walls.
Over the last few years, however, what was once a showcase project by Stehen Eiler Rasmussen and Carl Theodor Sorensen has lost something of its connection to the creative center of Copenhagen. Residents of Tingbjerg were not served any attractive cultural offerings and there was no integrative cultural center that might act as the social engine for the area. Hence, COBE architects devised a building that meets residents’ preferences with regard to openness and flexibility and at the same time slots harmoniously into the existing structure in visual terms.
Photo: Rasmus Hjortshoj
The result is a wedge-shaped building that comprises 1,500 square meters of space and is home to a community center complete with a library, and which, when viewed from above, connects to the existing local school complex like a funnel. Just 1.5 meters wide at its narrowest point, the architecture is indeed taller than the structures that surround it, but with its broad glass façade and clapboard exterior it has an open, dynamic feel to it. In the interior, concrete, glass and light wood are the predominant materials, appearing modern in combination and giving the interior a reduced atmosphere that fosters concentration.