The Mountain Dwellings, Orestad City, Copenhagen, Denmark

The programme for this scheme was two-thirds parking and one-third living. The concept was to turn the parking area into a base upon which terraced housing could be placed – resembling a concrete hillside covered by a thin layer of housing, cascading from the 11th floor to the street edge.

Rather than having two separate buildings adjacent to one other – a parking and a housing block – the two functions are merged into a symbiotic relationship.

ROOF GARDEN LIVING

The parking area is connected to the street, and the homes which require sunlight and fresh air have roof gardens facing the sun, stunning views and parking on the tenth floor.

The Mountain Dwellings appear as a suburban residential neighbourhood of garden homes flowing over a ten-storey building – suburban living with urban density.

The roof gardens consist of a terrace and a garden with plants changing character according to the changing seasons. The building has a huge irrigation system which maintains the roof gardens. The only thing that separates the apartment and the garden is a glass facade with sliding doors to provide light and fresh air.

The residents of the 80 apartments are the first in Orestaden to have the possibility of parking directly outside their homes. The 80 units range in size from 80m² to 150m² in size and all have large roof terraces, which seem to sprawl down the 'mountain' like small gardens. The parking area contains up to 650 parking spots and a sloping elevator that moves along the mountain's inner walls. In some places the ceiling is as high as 16m, which gives the impression of a cathedral-like space.

PICTURESQUE PARKING

The north and west facades are covered by perforated aluminium plates, which allow air and light in to the parking area. The holes in the façade form a huge reproduction of Mount Everest.

In daylight, the holes in the aluminium plates appear black on the bright aluminium, and the resulting picture resembles a roughly rasterised image of Everest.

At night the Mountain Dwellings façade is lit from the inside and appears as a photo negative in different colours as each of the floors in the parking area is lit in a different colour.

The Mountain Dwellings is located in Orestad city and offers the best of two worlds: closeness to the hectic city life in the centre of Copenhagen, and the tranquillity characteristic of suburban life. These are the second generation of VM housing being constructed adjacent to a development completed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) in 2006.

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