Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Nordic Architecture Special – Denmark
Transforming discarded shipping containers into compact miniature houses, Vandkunsten Architects and developer Cph Containers have created an alternative way of living in the city.
Can old concrete and discarded containers solve Copenhagen’s housing shortage? Copenhagen is one of the world’s ten most expensive cities to live in and a shortage of affordable small homes is one of the issues pushing up living costs in the Danish capital. Transforming discarded shipping containers into compact but attractive miniature houses, the Copenhagen-based architecture firm Vandkunsten Architects is proposing a sustainable and innovative solution facilitating a new kind of city life – affordable, flexible and with simple, distinct luxuries. By Signe Hansen | Photos: Mads Frederik
Environmental and social sustainability have always been at the heart of Vandkunsten Architects’ work. Hence, it is perhaps unsurprising that two of the 68 | Issue 93 | October 2016
firm’s most recent projects see existing constructions reused and transformed into housing that challenges restrictive social norms for what a home is. The
first project has turned features from a worn-down military building into distinct aesthetic qualities of a new student housing complex while the second experiments with preconceptions of living spaces in small, portable and attractive container homes. Describing the projects, Søren Nielsen, who has been partner in the firm since 2008, says: “The projects demonstrate a classic Vandkunsten approach – we fall in love with the constant, the existing, the living, the worn, and we choose minimal alterations and