Sydhavnen Copenhagen (CF) — Council on Open Building

Soeters Van Eldonk Ponec architecten (Sjoerd Soeters)

Planning & Urban Design

Background

Sydhavnen is the southern harbor district of Copenhagen, located south of the historic city. With Java Island in Amsterdam as a succesfull precedent, Sjoerd Soeters was asked by the Municipality of Copenhagen to make a plan for the transformation of Sydhavnen into a residential area. This plan consists entirely of city blocks, situated so as to be oriented toward the water on all sides. In order to achieve this, kilometres of canal were added to the area. The size of the blocks in Sydhavnen are based on the dimensions of the large city blocks in the center of Copenhagen. The twists and curves of the canals create constantly changing spatial effects and sight lines.

Sluseholmen is the first application of the Sydhavnen plan. The island is characterized by a panoramic view of the surrounding water and a more intimate inner side. The inner area is formed by a curved main canal and several short lateral canals. Each city block is a single structure that contains a variety of dwelling types. The facades of the blocks were worked out by different Danish architects, supervised by Sjoerd Soeters. Architectural guidelines were set for materials, colours, spatial effects and building height, to ensure that each city block remained coherent and fitted in with the greater ensemble.

The site

The south harbor of Copenhagen, Sydhavnen, is situated south of the city center. The south harbor area is a set of peninsulas along the main water streaming through Copenhagen in a south-south-west direction, each of the peninsulas separated by a side canal with minor branches or a bigger surface of water, each with three different sized docks. As the harbor activities have been moved out further north to a new and bigger port, the south harbour became redundant.

Figure 2

The housing program

With the prospect of the opening of the Øresund Bridge from Copenhagen to Sweden in 2000, modern big high tech companies set up their head offices in the harbor areas and on the waterfront of the city of Copenhagen, thus attracting young, highly educated professionals. However, the housing possibilities in the old city, mainly small two-room apartments in social housing projects, didn’t answer the demands of these young urban professionals. There was an urgent need for the kind of housing that would satisfy them and that would keep them from seeking settlement in the suburban districts further away.

By transforming the southern harbor with its long waterline into a residential area, the city could offer an alternative. A primitive illustration therefore was drawn up, showing that the plan was aiming at a house on the waterside with a small jetty and a boat (havne bolig), instead of the traditional house surrounded by a hedged garden (have bolig) - blue instead of green.

The sydhavnen masterplan

A concise plan for the four elements of the south harbor was designed in a few months. The importance of the water was enhanced by the addition of an enormous length of new canals in an attempt to give all dwellings a water orientation. Following the ideas of French-influenced 18-century city planning in Copenhagen, big perimeter blocks dominated the plan, reserving space for first, second and third ‘backhouses,’ and creating interior courtyards the size of small parks. The second peninsula, Teglholmen, posed specific problems of how to deal with the existing office building and shed of the ship engine factory, and how to weave in the green crossing area for bicycles and pedestrians, that the local planners had foreseen, within a pattern of canals and waterfronts. (Figure 3)

Figure 3

Shrinking public space

The problem of most newly planned city extensions is that, although they may be beautifully designed, they are completely dead. The purist and abstract beauty of design, unity in colour and in volumetric composition may play a very big part in this feeling of deadliness, but this is not the whole story. Big blocks generate big in-between spaces, that are mostly occupied by cars, driving by or parked on the spot. Even when most of the cars are stored in underground garages or under buildings, the open spaces feel uncomfortable. People see each other at great distance, the frequency of meeting one another is very limited, the new city feels anonymous. Part of this is caused by the extensive unbuilt ground surfaces in modern city planning; the other cause is the low population density. Even in traditional cities, their built volume kept as they are, the number of people per hectare has decreased with a factor of at least 10. In nineteenth century Amsterdam it was common for a family with 8 children to live in a two room flat, whereas today a four room apartment is likely to be used by two people. So, when the streets of the old city quarters used to be full of human interaction, nowadays they are usually empty.

For these reasons, we tried to reduce the public area as much as possible. A limited public surface is the best condition for people to meet each other more frequently, for safer dwelling environments, for more commercial activities nearby, for more pedestrian and bicycle movements, for more effective public transport, etc: dense and happy cities are the best and maybe the only answer to most of the environmental problems that we face.

Sluseholmen

Attempting in the next phase of developoment to maximally shrink the public area, it was decided to eliminate most streets in the Sluseholmen plan. By doing that, perimeter blocks would seem to rise up out of the water as much as possible. The main canal was laid out in a slow curve, so that at the beginning of a walk on the quay, the end of it is not yet visible. This principle of ‘serial vision’ (ala Gordon Cullen’s Townscape) is applied here to create an area in which visitors and users can wander and be constantly surprised, experiencing the intimate quality of provisionary closed spaces. The concave stretch of buildings facing south is dominant and this sunny image is longest in view, while the convex shady row of buildings facing north is seen shortened in perspective. Because the summer season is short, Scandinavians love to have a walk in the sun. That is why the promenade quay is only stretched out as compacted public area at the north side of the main canal section.

Due to the reduction of public surface area, most of the housing in the perimeter blocks has to be entered by way of the interior courtyards. Because of this, these courtyards become communal urban spaces, shared gardens where people who live around it can meet one another, have their children play safely, have barbecue parties and so on.

As a reference, Java Island in Amsterdam consists of long peripheral rows of 27 meter wide ‘houses’, with rows of canal houses perpendicular to them and palazzo’s of uniform dimensions as well. In Sluseholmen, most blocks are not rectangular and they form an intricate fabric of apartments, stairways, elevators, galleries for access, etc. It therefore seemed impossible to commission separately designed ‘houses’ of standard dimensions as was done on Java Island. For Sluseholmen, so-called ‘block architects’ were commissioned to sort out the best way to organise an entire block with its public access to the courtyard and, from there, its varied entryways to different apartments and maisonettes, to the parking under the courtyard, to storage units, bicycle parking, and so on.

The urban blocks

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Figure 7

Separating design tasks

Figure 8

Different architects' offices were commissioned to design the floorplans of the blocks: Architema was the most important, working for the major client/developer. Gröning architects were introduced by and worked for a second developer. (Figure 4) These block plans were discussed with city officials, developers, and ultimately the supervising architect Sjoerd Soeters. The building structures were organized in such a way that the load bearing concrete walls were used as separation between the apartments. Within the contours of each apartment different layouts were and will be possible but crossing the load bearing walls is not foreseen in the buildings. The contractors who built the project had a contract for the base buildings as well as for the outfitting of bathrooms and kitchens.

In the urban plan, the exterior size of the blocks was established and so were the sections of the buildings in relation to the street and the level of the interior courtyards. Learning from Java Island we positioned the inner courtyard level at a half-floor level above street level, to get a more or less neutral ground balance. Doing that meant also that the ground floor apartments had a “piano nobile” position (in US terms the ‘second floor’) with more privacy as they were lifted a half-floor above street level with better views on the quays and the water. Also learning from Java, it meant that the level of the corners on the blocks next to the bridges were equal with the level of the bridges and could be used for commercial functions. Floor to floor heights were according Danish standards, so were building techniques (prefab concrete) and installation specifications: all according to what was “normal” at that time. The territories of the two developers were in whole blocks. Opposite the most eastern canal the difference between two developers and their respective architects is visible in the architecture.

The (base) building designs were completed first. Then the order of the different facade parts was established by the supervising architect (see below discussion on the separation of design tasks for the facades). The separation between apartments per floor and the position of balconies is an important item in the designation of the separation line between two different facade-parts. The facade architects first brought together their preliminary sketches on paper, glued together in the right order, to discuss the quality of the composition with the supervisor and fellow architects. (Figure 7) Adolf Loos once stated that a city is built of simple houses standing next to each other, very similar to their neighbors, but still recognizable as individuals. “Architectur isst für die Grabdenkmaler und die Palässte”. In that sense we didn’t want extreme architecture and asked architects to tune down their too loud architectural language. I remember Hugh Newell Jacobsen, an American architect, explaining that “a building should not shout at the neighbors”. As an exception the Supervisors’ office designed the floorplans and the facades of two complete blocks.

The drawings for building permits were made by Architema and Gröning. They brought together the different facade proposals and their detailing in these drawings. The city made a contract with me for the design process of the urban plan. Also, during the whole process of supervising the process, all fees of the supervising architect were paid by the city. In that way they were representing the city in steering and evaluating the contributions of the architects who worked for the different developers. Support from the side of city officials consisted of two planners, who helped us to understand the bureaucratic problems and upcoming attacks ahead.

According to the Supervising architect: “The process was efficient. Having a supervising architect with a strong mandate means that a lot of bureaucratic red tape can be cut. Direct interaction took place between developers, architects and the supervisor, all intensely involved in the design process: proposal, critique, new proposals, etc. is a very efficient way to work because the circle of professionals involved is small. Being in such a process, you have to earn your right of decision all the time by being efficient in asking the right questions and helping the architects to find the proper solutions. The developers experienced in the activities within the supervising team the advantage of avoiding the necessity of going to all the departments in town hall to collect agreement and permits. A few local planners helped to smooth conflicts with the city architect, who didn’t understand the project.”

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Facades

“For the design of facades, a very primitive set of architectural guidelines was drawn up in a cartoon fashion and some thirty highly modern and mostly famous Danish architects were invited to design “only” the facades of the pseudo- parcels into which the blocks were divided. The architects were not amused, not to say that they felt flatly insulted. But they nevertheless took up work, and came together to discuss the paper and cardboard models (Figure 7) that showed the progress of designs of every block. The sometimes strong debates nevertheless resulted in blocks that were very satisfactory to the whole team of city representatives, developers and the supervising architect.”

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Architectural Guidelines for Sluseholmen

Main structure - The main structure of the buildings blocks (island blocks) is surrounded by canals and harbor basins. The buildings on the individual island must appear homogeneous in size and rhytm in order to maintain continuity. Every ‘house’(apartment building) in the block has its own plan, organisation and own architectual expression. The individual houses along the cross canals are smaller and so have a smaller individual (vertical) expression.
Height - There is variation of height between the indiviual buildiings. North, East, West quay: A variation of 5-7- floors with an average of 6 1⁄2. South quay: a variation of 4-5- floors with an average of 4 1⁄2. Canal buildings: a variation of 3-4 1⁄2 floors with an average of 3 1⁄2. Note: The difference in height from house-to-house can be one floor.
Elevations - The vertical arrangement in the facade is important for the proportion of the facade. The facades are individual faces of the buildings to the public space. The balconies are a part of the architectual facades; no projecting balconies into the public space. The annexes and balconies project out from the facade to a maximum of 30-40 cm (12-16 inches). The gates in the block have to be a part of the building. The facade should end with a designed trim – a finished “cornise”, in a modern way. This subtle element can also be used to articulate the height differences. The windows in each facade are set back with a specific depth per house. The variation of windows from house to house or building to building are made to avoid continuous horizontal lines in the facade.
Materialization and colors - The materials of the facades of the buildings should prevent deterioration, but instead should age in a nice manner by using materials such as brick, copper, zinc, and wood. Glass only in openings, not as a main mass: materials used in the Danish tradition, and seen in Copenhagen. A color pallet has to be worked out. This pallet maintains the harmony of area; each area will have a specific color pallet.
Roof landscape - The roof can be penthouses and/or roof gardens. The installations on the roof are preferably not higher than the height of the designed trim. Individual pipes are grouped and hidden in chimney cages.
Corner buildings - The corners of the different urban blocks are going to be designed according to the situation. – different solutions for different situations with the possiblity to place public functions there. Therefore the fronts of the buildings are more open. The transition of the corner building at the cross canals, where the lower meets the higher building, should be designed individually. The solutions should be related to the scale of the smaller cross-canal buildings.
Public space - A proposal is going to be worked out for the hierarchy of the different places in the public space. Proposals of functions, activities etc.
Bridges - The bridges are an important part of the public space. Through their heights the quay is divided into different areas which enriches the experience of the public space. The bridges will be as high as possible with a maximum slope of 1:20 according to the rules for disabled people.
Parking and Courtyards - The basic idea is that the main part of the courtyard should be a green area with incidental hard pavement. A minimum of 2/3 of the whole area should be green and grass, 1/3 hard pavement. Each courtyard differs. Guidelines for the specific landcape in the inner courtyards of the blocks will be worked out. The exact guidelines for parking based on these ideas will follow.
Functions - The groundfloor of the buildings following the height level of the Sluseholmen has to be filled with public or work functions. All of the ground floors of the blocks on both sides of the southern entrance to Sluseholmen are designated to have commercial, cultural and educational functions where the ground floor is level with the street. Public functions may also be created in the ground floor of the corner buildings. It is very important that the kindergarden is integrated in one of the building blocks near the main entrance of the area.
Procedure - Every architect has to agree on the guidelines and be willing to design a project based on these guidelines.

Conclusions

According to Sjoerd Soeters, the Supervising architect, “Sluseholmen has received various architecture and planning awards since its completion in 2009. Inhabitants send fan-mail. It seems to have become a place that people are proud of and love to live in.”