ARCHITECTURE: Sky Village

Dutch architects MVRDV & Danish co-architects ADEPT won a competition to design the "Rødovre Skyscraper" in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The 116 metre tall tower will include apartments, a hotel, retail, offices, and a public park and plaza.
The stacked building consists of “PIXELS”, each 60 metre square, which are arranged around the central core of the building.
“The constellation of the pixels allows flexibility in function; the building can be transformed by market forces,” say the architects. “Flexibility for adaptation is one of the best sustainable characteristics of a building.”

The new skyscraper with a total surface of 21,688 square meters will be located at Roskildevej, a major artery East of the center of Copenhagen. It is after the Frøsilos MVRDV’s second project in Copenhagen.

The skyscraper’s shape reflects Copenhagen’s historical spire and present day high-rise blending in the skyline of the city, it further combines the two distinctive typologies of Rødovre, the single family home and the skyscraper in a vertical village. Consideration of these local characteristics leads to Copenhagen’s first contemporary high-rise.

Responding to unstable markets, the design is based on a flexible grid, allowing alteration of the program by re-designating units. These ‘pixels’ are each 60 square meters and arranged around the central core of the building, which for flexibility consists of three bundled cores allowing separate access to the different program segments.

On the lower floors the volume is slim to create space for the surrounding public plaza with retail and restaurants; the lower part of the high rise consists of offices, the middle part leans north in order to create a variety of sky gardens that are terraced along the south side. This creates a stacked neighborhood, a Sky Village.

From this south orientation the apartments are benefiting. The top of the building will be occupied by a hotel enjoying the view towards Copenhagen city center.

Furthermore the plans include a greywater circuit, the use of 40% recycled concrete in the foundation and a variety of energy producing devices on the façade. A public park adjacent to the Sky Village is part of the project and will be refurbished with additional vegetation and the construction of a ‘superbench’, a meandering public path and bench. A playground, picnic area and exercise areas for elderly citizens are also part of the plan.