Architourists

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With Amy in town for a few weeks, I was able to be architourist with a willing accomplice. We picked up the Copenhagen X New Architecture guide and went about visiting almost every project/development in the book! It was great to have insights from a trained landscape architect to keep me from focusing on building details all day. Thanks Ames!

The map shown above has a few landmarks that I added, as well as a ton of little dots that represent all the new architecture in the most central part of copenhagen.



One of my favorite new building projects is a community recreation center is Amager. The interior is just fantastic--green rubbery floor, white steel and natural wood structure, diffused natural light coming through a translucent cladding that covers the entire building. The relationship to the neighboring building as an addition is also really nice. The grounds around the building aren't really designed at all though, and the entry is just a door in the wall... both a bit weak, but man, how I'd love to have a day long sports medley in this place!
Link to good pictures on the Copenhagen X website here.



Another great project, which is really a series of new public plazas, is located near my place in Frederiksberg. It's fantastic to ride through this area on several off-street bike paths that weave through the plazas. This photo shows one of the plazas at night that has a pattern of bottom-lit spray nozzles that create mini-clouds of glowing water. In the background you can just make out the blue l.e.d. lights behind an artificial waterfall. This area includes some really nice buildings as well. Residences, a high school, business school, movie theater, grocery store, fitness center, cafes and bars are all either in new buildings or adapted reused ones. I will make a post on one of these buildings later on, once I can sneak inside to get better pictures.
Link to the Landscape Architects who designed the plazas here.