MVRDV and ADEPT Architects are the masterminds behind this incredible Sky Village high rise. Designed as an acropolis of stackable green-roofed units, the structure recently won a competition to construct a new high-rise in Rødovre, an independent municipality of Copenhagen. The high-rise incorporates lots of sustainable design elements to reduce its environmental impact, and its main concept is centered around a system of individual units that can be stacked in various configurations to maximize available space and allow for easy structural changes in response to market demand.
MVRDV and ADEPT designed their Sky Village to include retail and office space, housing units, a hotel, and a park around the base of the building. Flexibility is one of the building’s key design elements, and its modular composition allows property managers to alter its structure to suit tenants’ needs.
If a retailer wants more space or if the village needs more office or residential units, “pixels” can be easily added to reconfigure the structure. Each pixel is about 60 sq meters and they all are arranged around a central core. The inclusion of retail, restaurants, and offices in a residential development allows people the ability to live where they work and play, making this in a true village, albeit a vertical one.
The base of the village was kept small in order to minimize the building’s footprint as well as to maximize the public plaza and adjacent park. Retail space and restaurants take up the slim lower floors, offices are situated in the intermediary levels, and residential units are terraced towards the north to give the building a curved profile. These terraces give each residential unit a sky garden with a sunny southern aspect. Finally a hotel sits at the top of the high rise with views towards central Copenhagen.
The Sky Village also includes many wonderful green building elements, like greywater recycling, 40% recycled concrete in the foundation, and the structure’s façade will incorporate a variety of renewable energy technologies.
MVRDV’s second project in Copenhagen (after the Frøsilos) is meant to merge the idea of the single family house and a village all into one vertical unit. The building is shaped to resemble Copenhagen’s historical spire and will be the first contemporary high-rise in the city.
+ MVRDV
+ ADEPT Architects
Via World Architecture News
Hmmm… if each one of these ‘pixels’ is an apartment, how do you get out of this building? do you have to go through someone else’s apartment to leave & enter yours?
this problem of entering and exiting apartments is especially apparent when you consider how/where new units would be added. thnik guys.
there should be some “public pixels” inside this building.
There are some good ideas here but I think it’s flawed.
The balcony gardens seem bleak and exposed. There may be potential for overheating in summer since there are no overhangs covering the south residential windows.
And it is ugly! As soon as it’s exciting newness fades it will look too one-dimensional and brutal and it won’t weather well. Why do architects keep repeating the same mistakes, with these clean boxes that look so nice in drawings but have no sense of proportion, no timeless beauty?
The pixel-unit idea as applied here is practical in some ways, but also very limiting and mechanical. Green architecture has the potential to feel so much more human!
this seems a sort of tribute to metabolist architecture like archigram and Kisho Kurokawa. It works really good as a statement and idea but it’s translated to literally into this project with all the obvious problems that follow.
I designed a similar concept with modular units for a studio course about four years ago. The issues of access and reconfigurability can be addressed in several ways, However, it\’s easiest just to provide several vertical cores to keep from having to shrink the interior private space of existing units for hallways and such. Additionally, if the units are made of the same materials all the way up they\’ll be inefficient and overbuilt at higher levels. One solution is to make the cores out of much stronger materials and simply bolt the units to them. Though I should point out that after all the development I abandoned the idea of using the modules for anything larger than a 3-4 story building. There are lots of other problems to be overcome and I especially sympathize for the people that will be working on the detail drawings. I\’m not saying it\’s impossible, in fact the opposite is true, I just think it will be a nightmare to actually get built in it\’s current form.
Nice idea but not realistic. The glass envelope will offset any “green” ideas of conserving energy costs. Structural flexibility…..virtually impossible when responding to market demands; must be a static structure to meet affordability issues. Floor and roof decks appear too shallow especially when green roof profiles and tree root balls are considered. This needs more critical analysis for reality to set in!
please explain structural stability
I’ve talked to the guys from ADEPT, and I saw plan drawings, the in/out issue is NOT an issue..
Sorry guys but do you have an idea of where one could get the plans/sections of this project?
hello guys. Does someone know where one could find more practical informations about this project (plans/sections etc.)?
hallo…
I think it great, different and eye catching.