In 2008, JDS/Julien De Smedt Architects and Aarhus-based CEBRA, in collaboration with the Dutch firm SeArch and French architect Louis Paillard wins the competition to build a 25,000 sqm housing complex in the new Aarhus Docklands development.
Called ‘Iceberg‘, the 21.500 m2 project features mixed dwellings types and commercial space. The project receives its jagged heights to allow better views toward the ocean and better daylight conditions, and the tops and bottoms are shifted so that views between the volumes become possible. This breakdown of the mass creates the potential for an “iconic” building for the harbor area, and one that, due to its form, creates its own skyline within itself.
As the masses are shaped to accommodate light and views, their variation allows for a multitude of different apartment types. At ground level, a number of town houses are integrated into the volume, and the peaks of the buildings contain spectacular pent house apartments. Between the top and bottom levels, a variety of apartments with different balconies, shapes and orientations can be found. The apartments are geared to “insure an urban environment with a social diversity of people of different ages, incomes and family relations living together.”
The housing becomes a way to mix all user types, not only in the same building, but on the same floor as a way to truly become an integrated neighborhood. There are advantages and disadvantages to this set up, but looking at it from the positive standpoint, the architects hope that “for instance elderly people looking after kids in return for shopping favors or students helping with the homework or setting up your computer – a community of different people insuring that the complex is alive around the clock.”
The following information is from JDS architects:
‘The Aarhus Harbour development provides a huge opportunity for Denmark’s second largest city to develop in a socially sustainable way by renovating its old, out-of-use container terminal. The area is meant to become a living city quarter, comprised of a multitude of cultural and social activities, a generous amount of workplaces, and of course, a highly mixed and diverse array of housing types.
The Iceberg Project seeks to locate itself within the goals of the overall city development. A third of the project’s 200 apartments will be set aside as affordable rental housing, aimed at integrating a diverse social profile into the new neighborhood development.
The project’s main obstacle is the density set up for the development, the desired square meters are in conflict with the specified site height restrictions and the overall intentions of providing ocean views along with good daylight conditions.
The Iceberg negotiates this problematic, by remaining far below the maximum heights at points and emerging above the dotted line at other moments. ‘Peaks’ and ‘canyons’ form; eliciting the project’s iconic strength while ensuring that all flats will be supplied with a generous amount of natural lighting and waterfront views.
‘With the Iceberg we get unique housing qualities as well as a city architectural expression of the highest quality’, says Kent Martinussen, adm. dir. of DAC (Danish Architecture Centre).
‘Århus will get a fantastic harbour front with unique architectural buildings that both in appearance and functionality prove that we are a city of grand ambitions. Our desire for this area goes beyond just a façade without life and purpose. We want a living city where everybody thrives. Both those who live and those who work in this ‘City near the harbour / De Bynære Havnearealer’. Projects of this calibre are a big step towards this goal.’ Mayor, Nicolai Wammen.’
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