Iceberg Housing

Situated in Aarhus, Denmark, right in front of the harbor, the 21500 m² project features mixed dwellings types and commercial space. The project receives its jagged heights to allow better views toward the ocean and better daylight conditions, and the tops and bottoms are shifted so that views between the volumes become possible.  This breakdown of the mass creates the potential for an “iconic” building for the harbor area, and one that, due to its form, creates its own skyline within itself. There’s just something about the Danes’ approaches, like BIG + Cebra, where they tackle simple realities, such as light and views, and allow their whole building to respond them in an unconventional and dynamic way.
As the masses are shaped to accommodate light and views, their variation allows for a multitude of different apartment types.   At ground level, a number of town houses are integrated into the volume, and the peaks of the buildings contain spectacular pent house apartments.  Between the top and bottom levels, a variety of apartments with different balconies, shapes and orientations can be found.  The apartments are geared to “insure an urban environment with a social diversity of people of different ages, incomes and family relations living together.”
The housing becomes a way to mix all user types, not only in the same building, but on the same floor as a way to truly become an integrated neighborhood.  There are advantages and disadvantages to this set up, but looking at it from the positive standpoint, the architects hope that “for instance elderly people looking after kids in return for shopping favors or students helping with the homework or setting up your computer – a community of different people insuring that the complex is alive around the clock.”