BETTER & CHEAPER HOUSING

In 2001, the Danish Architects Association in cooperation with the Municipality of Køge announced a competition under the heading ‘ better & cheaper housing’. Our proposal was made in collaboration with Morten Gregersen (now a partner at NORD architects).

The project seeks to answer two fundamental questions: How can one building satisfy modern people's differentiated wants and needs? And how can a settlement be structured so that it may be condensed and possibly converted to other uses over time?

The proposal presented a structure, which due to a simple constructive system can be expanded, and over time become part of a denser urban area. The proposal is an alternative to the close/low suburban settlements, which are hard pressed to respond to demographic changes, the need for increased density or conversion to other uses. The housing modules relied on prefabricated durable and sustainable materials. The homes were built of two main elements; a heavy module containing equipment and a light element, which includes housing modules. The system is based on six different homes that can be combined in several ways, thus creating a diverse residential structure with passages through and over the structure, and also with residences in both single and twin planes.