AM Architecture

SCALA SKYSCRAPER

About three months ago, I wrote a post about the new development on Krøyers Plads - A building site, which has remained empty for many years, due to a lack of a suiting project. Having mentioned this, there is yet another site in Copenhagen which has so far face a similiar destiny - Axeltorv. Situated on Axeltorv, is Scala, a building once built as an entertainment center in the very heart of Copenhagen, filled with bars, restaurants, an arcade and even a cinema. Unfortunately, this building never recieved much attention despite its spectacular location (it lies between the main entrance of Tivoli, and the circus building in Copenhagen). The lack of visitors resulted in practically the entire building closing down. The building's unfortunate faith continued over the years, as each new owner entered bankruptcy, one after the other, due to the financial crisis. As the building kept changing owners at the rate of the change of seasons, eventually it would find an owner that was serious about tearing the building down, and projecting a skyscraper on the site, to revitalize the urban image of the site. The competition was won by the now infamous BIG architects with the following proposal:

As it has become a bit of a tradition in Copenhagen, this high-rise project provoked great debate amongst Copenhageners - some argued for the need to develope more high-rise projects in the capital, while others argued that this would ruin the charming historical feel of the inner-city area. Little did they know, that the owners of the site would follow the faith of their preceders, and yet again fall into the hands of bankruptcy and once again fail to make a change on the troublesome site.

About a year ago, a Copenhagen-based lawyer firm finally proved to be the stable owner of the site, and today, the building is in the process of being torn down, to make way for the new creation on the site. This new creation has been designed by Danish Lundgaard & Tranberg architects - a rather succesful architectural studio, which have designed buildings such as the SEB headquarters building by the waterfront, the Tietgien Dorm, Skuespilshuset (The Actors' House by the waterfront) and other works of a mostly noticeable scale. The first concept model of the project is seen above.

The project is still in a concept stage, and the models and illustrations provided by the architects aren't sure to show the final result. The shape of the project relates to its surroundings - The circular shape mimics the circus building behind it and a little water pool on its western side. The heights are carefully chosen in order to integrate the building with its surroundings, despite its somewhat dominant scale. As illustrated above, the highest of the five towers relates to the Golden Tower in Tivoli, while maintaining a height that respects Arne Jacobsen's SAS Hotel building. Each of the five towers relates to it's surroundings in height, i.e. the one facing the circus building being lower to reach down to it. The idea of having five towers, is to easen the dominance of the skyscraper scale, and create spaces for shops and cafés in between the gaps, thus minding the human scale, and creating a skyscraper that actually contributes to the city life in the area.

Above is a very early and mostly conceptual rendering of what the towers might look like, as seen from the City Hall Square (notice that the view to the SAS hotel is respected). In my opinion, I was at first a bit afraid that the five towers are perhaps a bit too much for the site, since they might steal too much of the attention from the neighbouring Tivoli entrance and the circus building, which I believe to be two very fine buildings. Building on such a central site is always tricky, due to the great impact on the surroundings, but with the architects having minded the human scale of the site, I believe this project will work out. It is of course hard to tell for now, due to the conceptual level at which the project is, at the time being, but I'm following on the development with great interest, and I trust that Lundgaard & Tranberg will bring us a promising project at the end of the day.

DYSTOPIA COPENHAGEN

A few days ago, I was a bit bored, so I decided to play around in Photoshop. This post, quite simply, shows the result of my random boredom. I ended up making a few photo manipulations, which led to a scene that shows my vision of a dystopic Copenhagen - Strongly inspired by Half-Life 2's City 17 by the way. Being somewhat satisfied with the result (though there is plenty, and I mean plently of room for improvement), I decided to make a user at DeviantArt, where I'll post such random graphics. Check it out every once in a while, I might just get better at this stuff over time!

3D STUDIO MAX COURSE

As our studies progress, we have come to the point where we are to learn the more advanced graphical and technical computer programs. For about a week ago, we finished the first of a few CAD and rendering courses that are to come. The first course, was about working with and rendering in AutoDesk 3D Studio Max. As some of you may know, this is an extremely advanced program, used to make visuals for high-budget film and animation productions and also computer and console games. The limits are few with this program, which of course is a plus, but also quite a problem. The vast possibilities have made it quite the complicated application, so fortunately, we were only introduced to the tools we need in order to make architectural render scenes.

The rendering scenes we were to make, are those of our previous project (link at the bottom of this post). The theme I was going for here, was to illustrate the evolution from a techincal CAD drawing to a photorealistic render. The original 3D model is made in SketchUp 8, the rendering in 3D Studio Max Design 2012 and finally after effects, entourage and such are all made in Adobe Photoshop CS5. That's all there is to say really, I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story - But do keep in mind, that these are my first renderings in 3D Studio Max.

Further reading:
- http://goo.gl/GmfNx (post about the project)

- Andy Minchev

RESTAURANT PAVILION - HARESKOVEN, DENMARK

Last Friday, I finally presented my complete work. Our project was to be an independent extension to a restaurant in Hareskoven. Hareskoven is perhaps Greater Copenhagen's largest woodland area, and it is also the location of our project site. The existing larger restaurant building, is one that hardly makes use of its beautiful surrounding forest panorama. Furthermore, it hardly has any direct relation to the forest, rather than its situation, so I decided that my primary goals for the design of my project were to design a building that has closer relations to the forest, and also to be one that makes use of the woodland panorama.

Playing around with different shapes that would enframe a specific view towards the forest, while also making a sort of tunnel-like refuge to the wild forest, I ended up with the above shapes as my first concept. These shapes and their long V-roofs reminded me about the viking longhouses - litterally, long houses where entire viking village communities were housed under one roof. These longhouses (concept illustrated bellow) led to the grand idea of the rest of the project.

Having taken this conceptual twist and making it the focus of the project, I went on to use the sketch-model on the lower right side of the first illustration. I especially like this one, since it lived up to the tunnel-to-the-forest concept, while also following the form language of the longhouse idea. Furthermore, I was very satisfied with having the visitors first go down in a small, discrete entrance, and then having a huge opening on the other end of the tunnel, so they get a somewhat dramatic experience of the look towards the first, already as they enter. Below are the technical drawings:

As you can see, there is a major difference in the roof height from the entry point and by the end of the roof. It is also quite clear, that my design most certainly lives up to the name of longhouse! Following the social structure of the viking longhouse, my building is furnished quite simply, but with a great emphasis on social activity. My concept of this restaurant pavilion, is to have a different dining experience. Instead of having your food directly serve, as at normal restaurants, here the visitors come in groups, and together with a guide they are given food packages, that they, with assistance from the cook, cook together, thus creating a social activity through the cooking process. All this is achieved through a single, simple component, that is placed centrally in the building. This long component consists of a kitchen, a grill pit and finally a long table. Like the viking longhouses, there are no electric appliances whatsoever, just a grill pit, where the meats are grilled. On the kitchen component is a sink, which is the only appliance that requires an external source. Furthermore, guests are seated on two long concrete benches, placed along the long table, once again to bring the guests closer together, as part of the social experience. The smoke from the grilling rises naturally towards the ceiling, where five openings allow it to exit the building. During the cooking, the elevating smoke makes daylight from the ceiling openings (which by the way are covered with windows, which only open when the smoke needs to exit), become quite clear, thus creating a dramatic effect in the indoors. Below are two renderings, one of the exterior and one of the interior:

And a few photos of a 1:50 scale model I made of the project:

As for the criticism I got for the project, it was generally favourable towards my project. The dug-down discrete entrance was criticized, but mostly for the shaping of the staircase, that according to my teachers wasn't completely in harmony with the rest of the structure. I was also questioned about the wooden roof and finally wether the entrance area of the structure was too enclosed and and narrow. I have to agree with all the three mentioned things, that there is space for improvement there, but otherwise, I'm satisfied with the concept and the aesthetic appearance of the result.

P.S. We're now having a 3D Studio Max course, and by the end of next week, I'll have a far more advanced 3D rendering of this project to show!

- Andy Minchev

DESKTOP ORGANIZER

Our latest project differs from our usual everyday architectural work. Since our teachers showed interest in introducing us to the school's model workshop (a carpenters' workshop we have), we were given an assignment that was intended to further our skills and knowledge within the world of model carpentry. Our project was to design a 1:1 scale desktop organizer, that suits our own personal needs (as already implied, we had great freedom in doing this, and the main task was to get to know the modelling tools better). Personally, I'm a person who is rather fond of order, and usually I try to keep my desktop as clean and tidy as possible, bringing to the table only the things I need at the moment. Therefore, a desktop organizer wasn't that vital to me, and I decided to make it a bit more of a piece of eyecandy rather than a more functional object, such as a drawer, which by the way, many of my classmates made. The object I created was intended to function as a staffelli - A place where I can place my drawings and always have them within my sight, so I easily can focus on how my sketches, ideas and concepts evolve throughout the design process. Bellow are its technical drawings:

The shape is actually an almost triangular surface, which has been folded into a rather sharp-edged dynamic figure, which is supposed to give an illusion of a piece of paper leaping out of the desktop surface (which is to become white, but currently black). All edges are sharpened and are 45 degrees on the sides, which furthers the above mentioned illusional effect. The object is constructed from MDF wood (which is seen on the backside of the object) and covered with a glossy cardboard surface (seen on the front - the part that gives the leaping paper effect). Below are photos of the finished design.

P.S. I recieved almost entirely positive criticism for this project, and it is perhaps the first time I'm completely satisfied with a project. (The second place going to my Light and Sound Art Center, which surprisingly had a very similar form language as this project). I'm looking forward to find out if such sharp and dynamic shapes are a thing I should work with further on, when logically applicable of course!

- Andy Minchev