Hasta La Ideas

Architects Mette and Martin Weinberg have overhauled a 1940s cottage in Denmark to create a modern home for their family, complete with timber-lined walls and cosy furnishings.

Weinberg Architects collaborated with fellow Danish architects Friis & Moltke on Villa Weinberg, situating it on a corner plot in Højbjerg, a residential area of Aarhus.

Polished concrete floors feature through the house and while some rooms have been painted white, the main living spaces are lined with oil-treated oak boards.

“We used the wooden boards to obtain a warm, cosy feeling to the living room – a social space,” architect Mette Weinberg told Dezeen. “They also help to form a close relationship to the garden space, in an atmosphere and material overhaul.”

Large windows frame views of the surrounding gardens, where flowerbeds are covered with bark chips to recreate the architects’ dream of a little house in the middle of a forest.

The main bedroom opens out onto a small inner courtyard, while a kitchen, study and extra bedrooms make up the rest of the ground floor.

A combined wooden bookshelf and staircase in the living room leads up to the first floor, where a large study and roof terrace also overlook the garden.

In contrast with the natural wood of the house’s interior, the exterior of the house is clad with black-painted timber panels.

Photography is by Mikkel Mortensen.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Villa Wienberg, Denmark

A quiet heart, a setting sun

Both outside and inside, the atmosphere is cooling and calming. As soon as the foot touches the ground of this protected corner-plot, a special feeling wraps itself around you like a soft shawl: A feeling of being pleasantly, mysteriously alone in one of the great forests of Finland – or perhaps of stepping into a universe, where Yin and Yang finally found their perfect balance and harmony. It is quite difficult to believe that actually you are in a very traditional residential neighbourhood, Højbjerg, situated in suburban Aarhus.

Until recently, this little corner-plot nested a small summer cottage, built during wartime in 1942 and later almost hidden behind tall trees. The cottage has now been integrated into a brand new, tall and very ambitious black beauty.

The walls are planked on the outside and the villa opens to its surroundings with windows that are perfectly proportioned for the double purpose of inviting nature in as well as creating a cozy and cooling private space.

The villa, which has been awarded the City of Aarhus Architecture Prize 2008, playfully breaks the strictly square shape of the plot in a careful orchestration of angles and split-levels.

The way it seems to organically grow into the rich vegetation of pine, temple-tree and rhododendron leaves the baffling impression on the beholder that this villa simply grew out of the ground!

Light and Shadow

It was the joint creative forces and dreams of architects Mette and Martin Wienberg that led to this exciting and untraditional framework around their family-life. Atmosphere was the keyword and contrast was an important tool: By creating a covered entrance in a quite strict style dominated by black wood and concrete, they wanted to enhance the experience of the movement from architectural serenity to the open garden – which is organically structured, but sharply defined by raised sleepers that frame and contrast the soft lawn which lies in their embrace almost like a green lake.

The plants and the trees are essential to the design: All the flowerbeds are strewn with coarse bark-chips in order to enhance the illusion of “The little house in the forest” and the natural mosaic of the foliage creates changing patterns of shadows and filters the light: This couple did not seek the great panorama, but rather a dynamic variety of intriguing views bringing a unique atmosphere to each and every room.

Project name: Villa Wienberg
Location: Aarhus, Denmark
Engineer: Tri-consult A/S
Architect: Friis & Moltke A/S and Wienberg Architects/ www.wienbergarchitects.dk
Area: 184 m2
Construction period: 2007-2008
Text by: Susanne Holte

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Friis & Moltke contains cosy oak-lined rooms appeared first on Dezeen.

Mark Nixon of London studio CZWG has turned a bridge in Aarhus, Denmark, into a musical instrument by hanging metal pipes from the underside.

Varying in length, the 600 gold-anodized aluminium pipes move freely in the breeze, sounding like a traditional wind chime when they collide.

People on the bridge can touch interactive nodes on its surface to activate the chimes in a controlled order, playing the instrument.

Named Chimecco, the sculpture forms part of this year’s Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, which takes place entirely outdoors.

More projects in Denmark on Dezeen »

Here is some more information from Nixon:

Chimecco, an interactive instrument

Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus Denmark

Mark Nixon’s kinetic sculpture ‘Chimecco’ has been realised as part of the exhibition ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ in Aarhus, Denmark: one of the most popular outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the world – which last year drew crowds of over 500,000 people.

Mark’s design for a large interactive wind chime was selected as one of the winners of an open competition from over 350 submissions.

Mark has spent the last month in Aarhus helping to construct the piece together with a team of assistants.

The piece is constructed from 600 50mm diameter gold anodized aluminium pipes ranging in length from 120 mm up to 3750mm.

These pipes are attached to the underside of a bridge and with a series of interactive nodes on the top surface that allow for people to “play” the instrument.

The design is based on three conceptual ideas.

• The idea of music and interaction as a catalyst for conversation and play.
• The non-visual object. The sculpture is ‘hidden’ beneath the bridge. A constant varying in wind conditions on the site mean that the sculpture will hide and reveal itself through the creation of sound when the wind choses to blow. Some days the sculpture will be discovered, creating a beautiful moment of realisation in the viewer, while other day the sculpture will remain still and may be completely passed by. The use of interactive nodes on the top creates another interesting effect. Due to the object being hidden while it is played a condition of performers and audience is created. The piece can be experienced in a number of different ways but never in its totality.
• Creation through the combined interactions of human movement and natural movement.

See also:

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Garden of 10,000 Bridges by West 8	Slightly Windy by José Ferrufino	Trees for Lycée Germaine Tillon by Matali Crasset