MVRDV has converted two Grain Silos on the Copenhagen harbour-front into high-end housing for the few and fortunate. The Brief suggested filling up the circular silo spaces with apartment floors. MVRDV chose to go the other way round the task and hang the apartments on the outside of the silo walls as a second skin of glass on the old silo bodies. The Dutch office has collaborated with Danish office Jensen+Jørgensen+Wohlfeldt on the project.

The relative fragility of the old silo walls led MVRDV to this inside-out solution. The structural weakness of the concrete tubes were a serious limitation to the project because it made it difficult to cut large holes in the walls for windows without endangering the structural integrity of the silos. And thus, instead of making crammed silo tubes into crammed living spaces, MVRDV has achieved very light and almost exterior living spaces thanks to the all-glass skin of the apartments. The interior of the silos remain as an industrial interpretation of the atrium, roofed with translucent plastic.

The open-air character of the resulting living spaces have been underlined by making free plan apartments with very few interior walls and in addition to this by adding very wide balconies. The 84 apartments range from around 90 to around 200 m2 and the balconies add roughly one third of that as outdoor living space.
text MVRDV
photography Rob 't Hart en www.arcspace.com