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Today the winners of the competition for a new Natural History Museum was announced. We were pleased to obtain a small price in our effort to challenge the program and question the decisions made concerning important issues such as placement, infrastructure and sustainability.

Extract from the jury report :

This entry incorporates the Botanical Gardens and the museum buildings in a larger urban plan that covers the green belt of the former ramparts and focuses on the connections between the many museums on the green museum island near the ramparts. It is one of very few entries in both Trail A and Trail B that suggests that, while a number of the already existing entrances should be retained, the main entrance to the Botanical Gardens should be immediately opposite Rosenborg Castle, located close to Nørreport Station, at the Observatory in the wide Øster Voldgade street.

A logical result of this proposal is that the entrant wants to turn the listed Observatory into the central building of the museum and its main entrance. In connection with this main building the entrant suggests that the required undergroundfloor area be provided by building into the Observatory hill instead of using the area below the hill as required in the competition brief.

However, the most remarkable concept relative to the educational aspect of the museum is a series of footbridges (similar to the footbridges in Kew Gardens) which, starting at the Observatory, take visitors on a tour of the Botanical Gardens at treetop height. One of the footbridges continues across Sølvgade to Østre Anlæg and the National Gallery; another crosses Øster Voldgade and provides access to Rosenborg Castle. The entrant sees this system of footbridges as an ‘extra layer’ of experiences, an additional perspective on the Botanical Gardens in which the bridges will not be a disturbing element, and as an opening of the gardens towards other units in a green museum belt.

This week at department 10 we held a workshop lead by Philippe Rahm guest professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

He works currently in Paris and Lausanne. He has made numerous exhibitions around the world as well as teaching in universities in Switzerland, France and England. For more information check http://www.philipperahm.com/

Right now he is preparing a special exhibition in KARCH to be open during the UN COP 15 conference and he is currently part of Louisianas exhibition “The future of architecture is green”

At department 10; when we first heard that Rahm was coming to teach here we were eager to show our interest in getting a closer understanding of his outstanding work: Philippe Rahm challenges our understanding of spaces exploring the sensibility of human biology and physiology reaching far beyond visual perception. Thereby he shows us new ways to go, and he can inspire us to explore new territories of architecture remembering that ecological conscience architecture not only has a low co2 but can also provide humans with enjoyable and sensual spaces.

This is an interview I did whit him discussing the objectives of the workshop and the idea of the Atlas that the students will produce for the COP 15 exhibition.

Louisianas “The future of architecture is green” has been prolonged until 18 December to include participants in COP 15. Here’s some of my snapshots from the exhibition.

I the final assignment 2008-2009 my students worked with developing ideas for a small Island in the south of Denmark where Claus Meyer grows his vine and tasty apples. Here’s their resume of the work they did and images from some of the projects :Lilleø, en af danmarks mange små øer, blev udgangspunktet for en en talrække af visioner om bæredygtighed på flere planer og i forskellige skalaer. Vores bidrag er en samling af hvert enkelts refleksion over mødet mellem menneske og natur. Et ønske om at udforske det møde og dets muligheder med henblik på social bæredygtighed, økologisk produktion og ikke mindst en grundlæggende respekt for naturen. Visionerne tager udgangspunkt i en lille ø i et lille land, og forholder sig på mange måder til den nære skala, men er samtidige universelle. Visioner som ikke nødvendigvis giver nogle endegyldige svar på debatten om bæredygtighed, men som kan inspirere og skabe større bevidsthed.

Fossil society; Are we stuck ore will we find more meaningful ways to get on from here ?

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My collection of great architecture that I have visited and photographed now contains 100+ architects….have a look at flickr/

This photo is from a housing project in Paris by Edouard Francois. The greening is integrated as part of the railing; a really beautiful façade!

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When there’s little activity on this blog you might find me micro-blogging at
Twitter. Have a nice summer now that I am back to work.

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Philippe Rahm which projects I have documented on this blog last year is currently participating in the very well curated exhibition “The future of architecture is green” at Louisiana.

Philippe Rahm challenges our conception of spaces exploring thoroughly the sensibility of human biology beyond visual perception.

I attended his beautiful lecture “Meteorological Architecture” held this week in KARCH and we hope to offer a workshop with Philippe Ramn the coming semester.

I can only recommend to visit the exhibition at Louisiana which includes some of my favourite architectural studios such as Lacatton&Vassal, ecosystema urbano, Andrea Deplazes and Shigeru Ban; all front runners of ecological architecture with a sensibility for playful human spaces.

Bearing in mind that true ecologycal architecture not only has a low CO2 etc. but provides humans with enjoyable living spaces I would also have liked to include works souch as studio FAR´s poetic wall house, WORK AC´s projects for urban farming, Hiroshi Sambuichis earth architecture and Exploration´s biomimical architecture. A section could also have been dedicated to the art of landscape architecture where ecology and our relation whit nature is not a new discussion. Anyway go see it ! its worth while