Greg Vendena, LEED AP is a writer, consultant, and architect based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a background in design, construction, green building, and energy efficiency. His experience includes not only architectural design, but mixing concrete, building custom LED lighting, and energy auditing. He holds degrees in Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and Arizona State University, and a Fine Art degree from California College of the Arts. His work and work together with others has been featured in the Cooper Hewitt National Design museum, and has been published and exhibited extensively. However, playing with his son and riding a bicycle around Copenhagen are what he enjoys the most.
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) designs a Winter Bath for Copenhagen Harbor that will make the existing Harbor Bath a year-round public park (for those hearty enough to take the plunge).
Frederiksberg, a community within Copenhagen, seeks to build an experimental, new type of community center that emphasizes healthy and active lifestyles, along with more traditional or passive social and cultural pursuits. This 4,000 m2 (approximately 43,000 sq. ft.) building is slated for completion in 2015 and cost 130 million Danish krone (DKK) (approximately 25,061,660 USD). The KU.BE or “Kultur -- og Bevægelseshus” or House of Culture and Movement was designed by Adept and MVRDV and realizes an ambition to create a place of high architectural quality that is sustainable. The House of Culture and Movement will no doubt be architecturally captivating and contribute in a real way to the community’s health and well-being.
Over the past decade or so, New York City has been making dramatic improvements that emphasize the quality of life on the street, urban vitality, and sustainability. This is a most welcome shift that is part of a most welcome sea change. Specifically, the city has been carving out more spaces for pedestrians, bicycles, public transit, public gathering, and parks. New York City has no lack of pedestrians, and these improvements invite more. Planting a million trees and creating 200 miles of bike lanes are certainly New York City-sized moves. Like many cities, New York City is correcting the problems created by modernist planning and the predominance of the automobile, including damage to ordinary life for people on the street, where valuable urban vitality was traded for more lanes of traffic and parking lots.
A building down which you can ski and where garbage is burned: some surrealistic fun is coming to Copenhagen. Such a building is the result of the winning competition entry from Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) with realities:united and Topotek / Man Made Land. Expected to be completed in 2016, the $650 million (USD) Amager Waste-to-Energy facility (Amagerforbrænding) in Copenhagen really does incorporate a ski slope into the design, among its other captivating qualities. Amagerforbrænding combines the waste incineration and pollution control plant, offices, visitor center, and the alpine ski slope in one shell.
Malmö, a city in southern Sweden that is connected by bridge to nearby Copenhagen, has undergone an amazing transformation over the last 20 years. What was a place at risk of becoming a post-industrial city in crisis has instead become a thriving inspiration for Sustainable Development. Apparently at least 20,000 international guests have been attracted to the city, not to experience Malmö as tourists, but to experience Malmö’s approach to environmentally friendly architecture and urban development. Malmö is the flagship of urban sustainability for Sweden and has won numerous awards for this commitment from the United Nations, Worldwatch Institute, and others.
Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s (DR's) new headquarters gathers all of their activities into one very large and diverse facility. Almost 10 years after the first competition, the inauguration of the Concert Hall (Koncerthuset) marks the completion of the new headquarters, aptly named DR Byen (DR City).
The New Royal Playhouse (Det Nye Skuespilhus) sits on the Copenhagen harbor, a calm monument to culture and a nuanced design that reflects a respect for its place. The building, by Danish firm Lundgaard and Tranberg Arkitekter, is completely contemporary and yet seems as though it has always been there.
