The 8 House is a large-scale urban development project in the developing Orestad neighborhood of Copenhagen, Denmark. Stemming from and also inspiring a modern housing boom in Copenhagen, the project by the Bjark Ingels Group, shaped in a figure-eight, contains over 61,000 square meters of mixed-use commercial and residential space. The contextual involvement of the project, while still developing, is at a minimum, and one may even argue that no contextual sensitivity is involved.
KM Haye's argument that "architecture's tangible presence is always informed by a corresponding virtual field" does not seem to apply to the context of the 8 House. The issue with having a neighborhood such as Orestad is that it becomes a virtual playground for architects to design recklessly and without boundaries. This abandonment creates what Stan Allen refers to as "simulation", or a "focus on reproducing interesting forms of things." Simulation affects the Orestad neighborhood like a virus, spawning wild mega projects that loosely relate to each other while also having little to do with the rolling pastures of the Copenhagen suburbs aside from allowing each unit individual views, in which Bjark Ingels claims is "untraditional...added value, or gold."
Perhaps the aspect of program is what projects such as the 8 House look to find a revolution in, with retail, apartments, walkways, bike paths, and gardens all accessible to each and every occupant in a unique geometry that allows efficient circulation throughout the entire complex. KM Hayes states that "only by creatively examining the role of the architect in these changing urban economies can architecture evolve the means to reengage the world." But this begs the question, does the 8 House actually "evolve the means to reengage the world"?
To make that claim would be a bit of a stretch... as megaprojects such as those in Orestad almost act as worlds of their own, in which occupants are encouraged to never leave unless they must leave to work in a true metropolis such as Copenhagen. In this instance, they leave the complex via direct tram into the city, and only return to enter their own micro-planned environment in a blank neighborhood, thus leaving their only real engagement with the real world. Is this true programmatic development?
This is a fiery indictment of ultra-planned developer mega projects. I wonder if your review would have been as searing if you hadn't actually been there? When we see these projects from distance, published with images and statistics, they are safe from the glare of the eye of the occupier. They more easily remain as ideas or proposals, only intellectual content. As an experiment we stayed in a developer mega project in Milan. The streets were empty, we saw only a few people around the building. The architecture was less interesting than BIG. It was relatively lifeless. In designing 8 House, is it incumbent upon BIG to create an urban environment that matches that of a lived city? Is it even possible? I hope someone visited Borneo in Amsterdam and writes about it, http://www.west8.nl/projects/borneo_sporenburg/, as a contrast. Also, read about Le Corbusier's Pessac. Here are pictures of the "lived in" version (http://www.google.it/search?q=le+corbusier+pessac+lived+in&safe=active&hl=en&source=android-browser&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Lv0cU4r7As_bsgajroE4&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAA&biw=800&bih=1232&norc=1) and here is one article, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/15/arts/architecture-view-le-corbusier-s-housing-project-flexible-enough-endure-ada.html
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