Silo Towers
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Location:
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Islands Brygge
30-32. Havnestaden
Copenhagen
Denmark
coordinates:
55.6608887 12.5684881
Building names(s): Silo Towers / Gemini Residence / Fro Silo Homes
Architect/Designer:
MVRDV
architect website:
Other Information:
Completion date: 2005
Function:
building costs: €22.500.000Last modified: 3 June, 2009 | Suggested By LT
The structure of the silos has been preserved and the spaces of the new apartments are hung from the preexisting walls, leaving the interior space empty for circulation. The internal space is capped by a glass roof and and circulation similar to that of Frank Lloyd Wrights NYC Guggenheim Museum. The apartments are located and sized based on radial lines. The outside has seamless balconies that surround the silos, and the facade is completely glass. No big surprise…
MVRDV has converted two Grain Silos on the Copenhagen harbour-front into high-end housing for the few and fortunate. The Brief suggested filling up the circular silo spaces with apartment floors. MVRDV chose to go the other way round the task and hang the apartments on the outside of the silo walls as a second skin of glass on the old silo bodies. The Dutch office has collaborated with Danish office Jensen+Jørgensen+Wohlfeldt on the project.
The relative fragility of the old silo walls led MVRDV to this inside-out solution. The structural weakness of the concrete tubes were a serious limitation to the project because it made it difficult to cut large holes in the walls for windows without endangering the structural integrity of the silos. And thus, instead of making crammed silo tubes into crammed living spaces, MVRDV has achieved very light and almost exterior living spaces thanks to the all-glass skin of the apartments. The interior of the silos remain as an industrial interpretation of the atrium, roofed with translucent plastic.
The open-air character of the resulting living spaces have been underlined by making free plan apartments with very few interior walls and in addition to this by adding very wide balconies. The 84 apartments range from around 90 to around 200 m2 and the balconies add roughly one third of that as outdoor living space.