Athenaeum - 2023

    Architecture always surrounds each of us at every step of our lives. It is so obvious that it’s often an unnoticeable part of our everyday living. It’s so much easier for an architect or even an architecture student to notice it as a big part of our surroundings. 

The Athenaeum of architecture should be the connector between architecture knowledge and everyday people. It should lead to appreciation and acknowledgment through experience and inspiration. The building should be a place where everyone including professionals, students, kids, and ordinary people, should be able to meet and exchange knowledge and opinions. It should allow visitors to try new things through eider learning, creating, or taking part in discussions.  

Copenhagen City Center Indre By

The site is a part of the historic district and the city center of Copenhagen. It is full of old fortifications surround by moats and artificial lakes with canals. 

The Citadel Kastellet 

A pentagon shape fortress built in the XVII century as a part of the ring of bastioned ramparts across the city center of Copenhagen. Its axis runs through the site of the Athenaeum. 

Holmen Naval Base Flådestation Holmen

In the nearest neighborhood called Holmen, there is a naval station of the Royal Danish Navy. Historic landscapes, old docks, and post-industrial buildings - an interesting combination creates the whole district and gives an excellent opportunity for revitalization and redevelopment projects. 

Holmen has become a center of creative field departments such as Architecture, Music, and Film Schools. As an attractive space is a great opportunity to locate the Athenaeum building and to be a flagship project of the 2023 World Capital of Architecture.

Geometry Study

Athenaeum building and its orientation

The box has been chosen as a starting point for the building and its further development. After the site studies and broad city analysis, the building has been located on the north part of the site, parallel to the right border. As the site is just opposite the Kastellet fortress the design refers to its axis.

Axis section

Kastellet as a pentagon has one axis of symmetry - which goes directly through the site setting it as a ‘main direction’ for the design process. Another line created by the adjacent site of the pentagon is pointing at the Old City Center of Copenhagen.

Those lines cut through the box and shape it into two main solids. The additional perpendicular direction will create a future circulation path of the building Different heights of the building parts derive from the true north orientation of the site, creating the best indoor lightning.  

Functional Study

Program and Building Organization 

Athenaeum as a ‘place of knowledge and architecture’ should allow people to discover and broaden knowledge about history and principles of architecture. The connection between architecture and everyday people was the main goal of creating this building. 

With a broad program of complementary functions, visitors will be able to choose between different activities that the project has to offer. Libraries dedicated to adults and as well as to kids will promote education and will become a place of research. Fablab with equipped workshops will promote manual skills. Flexible open space-type rooms will be a place of thematical events and exhibitions covering all aspects of building design throughout history and current trends in architecture. Different sizes of auditoriums will allow organizing conferences and lectures with architects and artists.

Focal point

element of light

The glass tower is located at the center of the whole building. From the inside, it offers a view at the center of the Kastellet axis and creates a portal between atriums. From the outside, it works as a sign leading to the Athenaeum. During the night, as it glows in the dark, is a reference to the neighborhood area of the Docks as a symbolic lighthouse.

Space inside the building

The main circulation creates paths of travel through the building, wrapping around the central entrance hall with a smaller atrium and creating a viewpoint across the whole building connecting to different surrounding landscapes.

Heart of the Building

The focus point is the light tower. Created of a glass material, which opacity can be controlled by the electrical system, provides Multiway of usage as an observation point, a glowing in the dark source of light or an inside projection screen.

Light

Architecture is a play of light and shadows. Creating this experience inside as well outside the building addresses the difference between daylight and artificial light, how it affects us, and space we are in. Temperature or brightness can create completely different environments and can show how big of a difference it can make in architecture.  

Contrast

Creating a contrast between the outside and inside of the building by changing the color and texture of used materials.

Openings and closings

Open spaces give a different feel in comparison to closed ones. That’s why the Athenaeum has both types of spaces corresponding to one another. Overhangs tunnel or closing hallways create the urban feeling inside the building.

Axis and focal points 

The glass tower accentuates the importance of the Castellie axis in the project’s creation. It offers a viewpoint to observe the surrounding space and allows to see the connections between the city and architecture which are inseparable.