VM Houses is a housing project consisting of two adjacent apartment buildings in

Ørestad Ørestad () is a developing city area in Copenhagen, Denmark, on the island of Amager. The area was developed using the new town concept, closely linked with the M1 (Copenhagen), M1 line of the Copenhagen Metro. Economically, income for the plan w ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, Denmark. Designed by

JDS Architects Julien De Smedt (born 1975 in Brussels, Belgium) is the founder and director of JDS Architects based in Brussels, Copenhagen, Belo Horizonte and Shanghai. Projects include the VM Housing Complex, the Mountain Dwellings, the Maritime Youth House ...

and

Bjarke Ingels Group Bjarke Ingels Group, often referred to as BIG, is a Copenhagen, New York City, London, Barcelona, Shanghai, Oslo, Los Angeles, Zurich, and Bhutan-based group of architects and designers operating within the fields of architecture, product, lands ...

, the M House with 95 units was completed in 2004 and the V House with 114 units, in 2005.

Background

The developer Per Høpfner, working with the

Dansk Olie og Naturgas Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A Danish person, also called a "Dane", can be a national or citizen of Denmark (see Demographics of Denmark) * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, ...

company -now

DONG Energy Dong or DONG may refer to: Places * Dong Lake, or East Lake, a lake in China * Dong, Arunachal Pradesh, a village in India * Dong (administrative division) (동 or 洞), a neighborhood division in Korea Person names Surnames * Dǒng (surna ...

-, was interested in creating housing in Ørestad on land purchased from the state. Despite the fact that

Bjarke Ingels Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels (; born 2 October 1974) is a Danish architect, founder and creative partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). In Denmark, Ingels became well known after designing two housing complexes in Ørestad: VM Houses and Mountain Dwe ...

and

Julien De Smedt Julien De Smedt (born 1975 in Brussels, Belgium) is the founder and director of JDS Architects based in Brussels, Copenhagen, Belo Horizonte and Shanghai. Projects include the VM Housing Complex, the Mountain Dwellings, the Maritime Youth House ...

had not built anything on such a large scale before, he decided to commission PLOT, their architecture firm, to design VM Houses. Høpfner's son Peter explained how cooperative Ingels turned out to be, always ready to adapt his plans if the costs were too high. "VM may look crazy," Høpfner remarked, "but it came in on budget." He believes the project's success was due in part to the frequent discussions the architect had with the developer in his role as general contractor. Ingels lived in the complex until 2008 when he moved into the

Mountain Dwellings Mountain Dwellings () is a building in the Ørestad district of Copenhagen, Denmark, consisting of apartments above a multi-story car park. The building was designed by the Danish architectural practicPLOT

Design

Inspired by

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...

Unité d'Habitation The ''Unité d'habitation'' (, ''Housing Unit'') is a Modern architecture, modernist residential housing Typology (urban planning and architecture), typology developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afons ...

concept, two residential blocks, with footprints in the shape of the letters V and M, have been designed with an emphasis on daylight, privacy and views. Rather than looking over the neighbouring building, all the apartments have diagonal views of the surrounding landscape. Corridors are short, rather like bullet holes through the building. There are some 80 different types of apartment in the complex, adaptable to individual needs.

Award

VM Houses was the first major project to be designed by

and

, winning them the

Forum AID Award The Forum AID Award was a Nordic architecture and design award, given annually by the Swedish magazine Forum AID. AID is an acronym for the three subject-matters of the magazine - Architecture, Interior design and Design - and it is also the three ...

for the best building in Scandinavia in 2006.

Vladimir Belogolovsky Vladimir (, , pre-1918 orthography: ) is a masculine given name of Slavic origin, widespread throughout all Slavic nations in different forms and spellings. The earliest record of a person with the name is Vladimir of Bulgaria (). Etymology T ...

Architecture as a Social Instrument: Interview with Bjarke Ingels of BIG
''ArchNewsNow.com'', 1 March 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2012.

Gallery

Image:VM Houses.jpg, Image:VM Houses 1.jpg, Image:VM Houses 2.jpg, Image:VM Houses - balconies.jpg,

References

External links