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The Gala proudly shows off in space; still and quiet it takes over the entire room. Table legs narrow towards the floor, which shifts its center of gr..

This soil treatment centre in Copenhagen by Danish studio Christensen & Co was designed to resemble the mounds of earth being used to sculpt the landscape of a developing harbour-side community (+ slideshow).

Soil Centre Copenhagen is located on the coastal edge of Nordhavn, a new urban quarter underway to the north of Copenhagen’s centre. It was designed by Christensen & Co as a facility for decontaminating soil excavated from construction sites across the city.

The building has an angular profile, which slopes up from the ground to create the shape of two connected hills, and its outer walls are clad with rusty panels of pre-weathered steel.

“Soil Centre Copenhagen grows out of the landscape with its characteristic shape and rusty red facades,” said the architects. “The building has a distinctive silhouette against the vast horizon, and is an integrated part of the landscape and an obviously man-made object.”

The roof surfaces are covered with plants and grasses, intended to fit in with ponds and shrubs already present nearby. The architects also hope that in time trees and bushes will grow over the structure.

“In this sense the building makes up for the piece of the landscape it has occupied, and will help preserve the natural biodiversity of the area,” they said.

There are more plants inside the building, where the architects have added a living wall and a row of trees inside a double-height entrance lobby.

Offices and laboratories are arranged around this space, while garage and workshop areas are positioned on either side.

Wooden shelving grids are build into the walls to provide storage and seating areas in various spaces and skylights help to bring daylight through the interior.

Photography is by Adam Mork.

Here’s a project description from Christensen & Co:

Soil Centre Copenhagen

Between the sky and the ocean

On the edge of Øresund, where the sky meets the ocean behind the Freeport and the Container Terminal lies Copenhagen Municipality’s new soil treatment centre, Soil Centre Copenhagen. It is here millions of cubic metres of dug up soil from construction projects and metro building sites around Copenhagen create new ground for Copenhagen’s new urban area Nordhavn.

The landscape at Nordhavn is flat and makes for a fascinating and ever-changing scenery, giant piles of soil and huge excavations. To the north-west of Soil Treatment Centre, Copenhagen, the landscape is contrastingly lush with little green hills, shrubbery and little ponds and lakes fringed with rushes. A wild nature site filled with sounds from birds, swans and mewing seagulls. It is also here the protected European Green Toad, has made a new home for itself.

With this very unique context Soil Centre Copenhagen grows out of the landscape with its characteristic shape and rusty red facades. The building has a distinctive silhouette against the vast horizon, and is an integrated part of the landscape and an obviously man-made object.

The facades are clad in stretch metal made from rusty weathering steel. On the roof tall grass and, in time, even smallish bushes and trees will grow. In this sense the building makes up for the piece of the landscape it has occupied, and will help preserve the natural biodiversity of the area. The weathering steel is protected by a red layer of rust, visually connecting it to the area and the ambitious environmental profile of the building.

The building consists of an office section for employees, laboratories, dressing rooms, two large workshops, garages and storage spaces. At the centre of the building the office section makes for a peaceful oasis with a view of the surroundings through the carefully placed windows, each offering beautifully framed views of the landscape or the waters of Øresund. At the same time, placement of the windows in the facade optimises the use of natural light, so the character and quality of that light becomes an integrated part of the architectural narrative.

A green and luxuriant interior

Two large indoor trees, along with the lush plant wall, create a green and delightful internal contrast to the dusty and rough exterior environment. A large number of roof windows shower the building with a pleasant light from above, and along with the facade windows, allows for some very good natural light conditions in the office section. The floor plan encourages interdisciplinary synergy between the centre’s very different departments ranging from engineers to excavator drivers.

The first DGNB certified building in Nordhavn

Soil Centre Copenhagen is the first DGNB certified building in Denmark built after the test phase has ended and the very first certified building in Nordhavn. It is a zero-energy building, which combines passive and active energy efficiency measures based on an overall view, which encompasses energy efficiency, building materials and social aspects. The design of the building results in an extremely low energy consumption and the necessary energy is provided using geothermal energy from the many kilometres of piping underneath the black asphalt in front of the building as well as solar panels and solar cells integrated into the slanting roof surfaces.

Soil Centre Copenhagen
General contractor: CPH City & Port Development
User: Copenhagen Municipality. The Technical and Environmental Administration
Area: 1,800 m2.
Architect: Christensen & Co
Engineer: Grontmij

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designed to look like piles of mud appeared first on Dezeen.

Rather than slotting onto chains, these 3D-printed pendants by Italian designer Maria Jennifer Carew hang from the edge of the wearer’s clothing (+ slideshow).

Maria Jennifer Carew stripped the pendant necklace down to its most essential component and created her LessIS collection of simple geometric designs that clip onto garments.

“Today accessories are a key element in any outfit, so I decided to focus on the concept of necklace where often the most important role is played by the pendant and not by the chain that supports it,” she told Dezeen.

Each design is based on a continuous strand of material, which loops back on itself into a thin element that hooks behind a lip of fabric.

Shapes range from circles, triangles and squares to more complex polygons. Some pieces have extra bars within the outer edge for added decoration.

The jewellery can be clipped onto the collar of tops, and can also be placed over the placket of a shirt or into the top of a chest pocket.

The pendants are printed in bronze, brass and black or white nylon.

The post 3D-printed jewellery by Maria Jennifer Carew
clips onto garments appeared first on Dezeen.

Ben Davidson of London studio Rodić Davidson Architects designed this garden shed in Cambridge, England, to the exact proportions of his grandfather’s old workbench and added pegboard walls for displaying a collection of handmade tools (+ slideshow).

The Garden Workshop is one of two wooden sheds that Rodić Davidson Architects has built at the end of Davidson’s garden. The other functions as a home office, but this one is used by the architect as a model-making workshop.

The building is designed around the size of two components. The first is a series of glazed panels the architect had been given for free by a contractor several years earlier, and the second is an old workbench originally belonging to his grandfather that he inherited after the recent death of his father.

“My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and extraordinarily talented; he should have been a cabinet maker,” said Davidson. “I recall many summers in my early teens, being packed off for two weeks to go and stay with my grandparents in Norfolk and spending the entire time with him in his workshop.”

“My father sadly died in 2012 and this led me to inherit my grandfather’s workbench and tools which had sat in the garage, unused and rusting, for almost 30 years since his death in 1985,” he added.

The building has a simple wooden box frame that is left exposed inside, fitting exactly around the old workbench.

The square recesses around the frame are infilled with pieces of lacquered pegboard that accommodate hooks for hanging the old tools, many of which Davidson says he made with his grandfather at the age of ten.

Modular wooden shelving boxes also slot into the recesses, while an extra workbench made from maple runs along one wall beneath a window.

Two skylights offer a view up to the sky through the canopy of an adjacent tree and a concrete base gives the shed its floor.

The exterior is clad with black-stained plywood over a layer of rubber waterproofing.

Photography is by the architect.

Here’s a project description from Rodić Davidson Architects:

Garden Studio, Cambridge

A black timber garden studio and model-making workshop

Hidden in amongst the trees at the end of a long garden in Cambridge, we have designed and built two separate timber-framed buildings for use as a home office/studio and a model-making workshop. The structures are clad in vertical black-stained softwood boarding of varying widths – wider on the studio and narrower on the workshop. On the studio, the cladding forms a continuous rainscreen and wraps the entire building. The larger studio building is very highly insulated (using 150mm Cellotex combined with Super Tri-Iso) and incorporates a super efficient air-source heat pump. Calculations indicate that the annual heating bill will cost less than £21 in electricity costs. The building is wrapped with a black timber rain screen over a complete wrapper of a rubber membrane for water-proofing.

Free glass

We moved to Cambridge in 2008 and, not long after having done so, I was offered – free of charge – some large Velfac glazed panels from a contractor that we were working with who had incorrectly ordered them for a new school. If I hadn’t have taken them, they would have gone in the skip.

The panels arrived at my new house in Cambridge on the same day that we moved in. For 4 years they sat in the garden under a blue tarpaulin.

Beautiful tools to restore and display

My father sadly died in 2012 and this led me to inherit my grandfather’s workbench and tools which had sat in his garage, unused and rusting, for almost 30 years since his death in 1985. My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and extraordinarily talented: he should have been a cabinet maker. I recall many summers, in my early teens, being packed off for two weeks to go and stay with my grandparents in Norfolk and spending the entire time with him in his workshop.

The two events – my father’s death and came together and led me to design and build the workshop. The design was led by numerous very specific criteria: The size of my grandfathers workbench, the size and number of glass units, the wish to not only store – but to display the wonderful tools (most of which my grandfather had made – indeed some we made together when I was 10).

The final briefing constraint was the wish to build the buildings under Permitted Development.

The design

The workshop is made using a timber frame on a concrete base. The frame is set out precisely so as to form internal square sections. The timber is cheap 6×2 softwood used for stud work. The frame was clad with ply (2 sheets on the roof) and then cross battened and clad again with staggered roofing battens (50x25mm). Internally, pegboard was cut and placed between the stud work squares and the entire internal space was then prepared and sprayed with 7 coats of Morrells satin lacquer. This was extremely time consuming. Birch ply cupboards were then fitted into the openings.

A workbench was made from maple accommodating a lower platform for the Meddings pillar drill and a sink. The elevation above the workbench is fully glazed and north facing.

Two roof lights were installed which look up into the canopy of the lime tree over.

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workbench and a collection of handmade tools appeared first on Dezeen.