There seems to be a lot of activity swirling around the Copenhagen harbor: on the heels of floating dorms and wooden islands comes a design competition for the development of a Paper Island aquatic center in the city’s harbor area. Several architectural firms such as AART, 3XN and Studio Octopi participated in the competition, but the proposal renders of The Waterfall, a collaboration between Danish firm COBE and Bjarke Ingles Group, caught our eye in particular.
Architects: Bjarke Ingels Group, COBE
Location: Denmark
Client City of Copenhagen
Landscape Architects: SLA
Engineering: Hundsbæk & Henriksen, DEM & Esbensen, Teknologisk Institut
Acoustics: Gade & Mortensen Akustik
Artists: A-Kassen
Area: 5000.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
The proposed aquatic center features a cascading flow of waterfalls that connects the different aquatic facilities, which includes swimming pools and saunas. Its exterior features sloping surfaces and gables facing the waterfront. “With a simple gesture of twisting the top, the aquatic center addresses both the harbor and the inner courtyard on Paper Island, becoming a part of the informal, vivid public life on the island as well as placing it amongst some of the most important cultural institutions along the harbor front of Copenhagen,” says COBE.
