Grundfos Halls of Residence Aarhus, Denmark
One of Grundfos Halls of Residence’s remarkable characteristics is providing student housing in the heart of Aarhus’ new harbour front development – that is, a low-cost residential building on a very attractive site.
To reinforce the primary purpose of the building, which is to provide a place for students to live while they study, the project works with vertical stripes as a metaphor for books. From afar, this makes the building look like books on a shelf, while up close, it resembles a condensed micro-Manhattan with clusters of small towers. Each ‘tower’ is treated differently both inside and out with varying materials and window openings. This creates a variety of living accommodations, suitable for singles, couples or friends living together.
The "towers" are placed along the perimeter of the site, establishing an open inner space that employs a simple design strategy to create an atrium with attractive functional and spectacular aesthetic qualities. The individual apartments are reached via balconies that encase the 12-story atrium, with mirror-clad fronts. The mirrors are transforming the sense of space by expanding the relatively narrow atrium with endless kaleidoscopic reflections of itself and the people moving through it.
Selected resources
