A city built with care and precision, a city that actively encourages walking and biking, a city where the sentient fabric engages with the built at an almost intellectual level—an all-in-all, intelligent and ‘liveable’ city marinated in accessible and safe public spaces: Copenhagen has been consistently ranked as one of the world leaders in design and architecture, and one of the happiest and safest cities in the world. It makes one wonder whether there is a correlation between the two. Perhaps there is. It is through the quality of a city’s built fabric, where real life unfolds, that the health of a city can be succinctly measured. Relatedly, are design and architecture able to accurately represent multifaceted urban conditions, of living, creating, improving, and growing? Is there a way to strike certitude of better living environments, through democratic and accessible built intercessions?

Emulating, echoing, and narrating this Danish city’s urban living culture is the glass-cloaked, modern monument in Denmark’s capital, BLOX. The stacked contemporary architecture, the Danish Architecture Center's (DAC) new home, embodies the metropolis’s intricacies under one cohesive roof, emphasised by its ‘acrobatic,’ tremendously mixed-use spatial program comprising generous exhibition spaces, numerous offices and co-working areas, a café, a bookstore, shops, a fitness centre, workshops, a restaurant, 22 apartments, a playground, as well as an underground, automated public car park, all while a four-lane road runs through the structure: a city within a building; an international epicentre that reaches out and invites all in, to engage with urban life, architecture, design, and practised sustainability, which has consistently being achieved through partnerships, cross-sector learning, international delegation visits, events, exhibitions, as well as business developments.

"Our aim is to create a sustainable future built upon creativity that seeks to improve the overall well-being (of) the people and the planet. Making sustainable change so irresistible that it is the only option,” the DAC mentions. Based on this agenda and aiming to contain and represent all the functions of a city, the BLOX congregates four organisations that uphold a standardised belief in curiosity, knowledge, and co-creation: the BLOXHUB, the Danish Design Center (DDC), Creative Denmark, and the Danish Architecture Center (DAC).

BLOX and its intended overlapping of activities and spaces were founded on the belief that the challenges of rapid global urbanisation as well as the looming effects of climate change necessitate fresher, progressive, and adaptive ways of collaboration and co-creation: between architecture, design thinking, urban design, construction, experimentation, and tech; between research and practice as much as between young startups and established corporates. By doing so, what do the BLOX and the DAC hope to accomplish?  

An experimental city within a city

Designed by the celebrated Dutch architecture firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) under the leadership of its partner and director, Ellen van Loon, as a 'city within a city,' the redolently named edifice choreographs well into the Danish spirit of doing more, and doing better, of striving towards solution-based inventiveness, while existing as a critique of Danish urbanism, contradicting the dominant ‘comfortable, leisure-focused’ urbanism of Jan Gehl.

The stacked BLOX building is what many might perceive to be cold, confusing, prosaic, or distracted (it has even been called an ‘urban jumble’)—but it promises to be none of those things—the Danish architecture strives to relate and relay to its visitors, the joy, and myriad potentials of architectural and design interventions towards constructing and nurturing the very soul of what makes a city healthy. Yet, according to OMA, the building’s ‘acrobatic’ programming is not its only defining feature—"its ultimate achievement is in 'discovering' its own site," the Dutch architects relay.  

Pronounced as an urban connector and condenser, the BLOX building’s energy is monumentally palpable—as was the forthright demeanour of Kent Martinussen, Danish architect, CEO of the Danish Architecture Center (DAC), and a member of the BLOXHUB management team, who welcomed STIR on a virtual revisit of BLOX and the DAC’s prominent place in it, following its opening and performance since 2018. With social consciousness, sustainable design, and design innovation at heart, BLOX distils the soul of the city under its cohesive roof as a functioning urban microcosm, desiring to relay and perpetuate how pertinent and pivotal the role of architecture and design is to the living of a city and its people.

In the DAC’s own words: Every day we are in touch with architecture and design. But we are not necessarily aware of the great importance it plays in relation to how we live our lives—and live together. Did you know, for example, that architecture and design can help solve some of the world’s major challenges in relation to the UN’s World Goals?

We are passionate about engaging more people in the world of architecture. We want more people to notice the architecture in their surroundings, feel the joy of good design, and feel like discussing it over the dinner tables.

We are for children and adults, locals and tourists, architectural nerds and curious beginners. All of us who love sustainable cities with room for your own ideas and space for diversity. Through exhibitions, tours, events, learning and networking, we create space for inspiration, enjoyment, and immersion.

The built exhibiting the life of a city with inclusiveness as a steering value

Copenhagen’s main ring roads split the Old Brewery site in two, which made it challenging for BLOX to identify it as its resting place in the project’s initial development. Taking more than a decade to reach fruition, the multifunctional building now straddles the road, fostering public interactions both above and below, while connecting the parliament district with the harbourfront and bringing ‘culture to the water’s edge.’ “A space for cars becomes a space for people; a space to pass through becomes a space to reside,” shares OMA.

"The Copenhagen inner harbour has a long industrial and military history. On reclaimed land, the building site initially housed a cluster of brewery buildings which burnt to the ground in the 1960s. Since then, the harbour has become the home of some of Denmark's most notable architectural icons; a linear display of the tenets of Danish Modernism: monumentality, simplicity, and politeness,” they continue.

Martinussen recalls how the mixed-use building, in its formidable and angular geometric volume resting on a waterfront, has supposedly managed to inject a new impulse into the site by linking the water frontages to the city, against a backdrop of traditional yellow buildings. The urban routes through BLOX manage to kickstart unpredictable yet decisive interactions between the contemporary design and the city, contrary to most city blocks which are described by OMA as “often introverted and inaccessible.”

A former playground was succinctly integrated into the new building while a partially covered and terraced public space (which doubles up in the evening as an open-air cinema/ public foyer), as well as the linear park that flows down below the water level, gives relief to the structure’s icy glass envelope intercepted by metal grids. With the DAC as a significant actor in the BLOX project, the interior design of the mixed-use architecture is organised in a vertical sequence of spaces running through the building, beginning below ground and sauntering upwards to the café boasting views over all of Copenhagen.

BLOX has transformed a previously deserted part of Copenhagen into a lively urban space and meeting point for everyone. BLOX makes space for urban life. – BLOX

Martinussen also mentioned how the challenging yet imperative aim of conceiving a small city within a building made it even more obligatory for everyone to feel welcome into the cultural architecture. Despite the huge waterside stack of blocks mirroring the city, BLOX allegedly focuses on being uber-inclusive, despite the complexities that come with it. “It is actually a radical concept,” he tells STIR. Inclusiveness and accessibility are thus described as ‘steering values’ for the centre, connecting it to Danish architectural and cultural traditions and the values of Copenhagen’s city planning.

Furthering this intent is the sustainable architecture's unusually high level of transparency, both literal and architectural, as well as being provocative and thought-provoking in the same measure. According to the design team and Martinussen, this intentional element of severe glass facades and walls, of deliberate permeability, and continuous visual connections through the intersectant building fuels the purpose of inviting people into it, just as the city does.

Friction, Newness, Openness, Love, and Connectivity

A modern, built crucible of ideas, discourses, experimentation, and learned experiences, the BLOX building with DAC at its heart essentially aims to delete exclusivity and privacy to embrace and exercise the inclusive influence of architecture, as a slight redemption: a people’s podium, the building as a machine and a catalyst.

These are based on DAC’s core values of:

'Friction'—We dare to surprise and provoke. We bring creative chaos that inspires critical thinking;

'Newness'—Many museums focus primarily on the past. We primarily look ahead and focus on what is to come. New opportunities, innovations and ideas;

'Openness'—We are proud of our open, transparent and changeable environment. We are open to everyone and always open to new ideas;

'Love'—Beautiful cities, architecture and design evoke great emotions. Even love. We love the city and are genuinely passionate about all aspects of architecture and design. And we want to share that with everyone;

and 'Connectivity'—We work together and across. Gathers and connects people and disciplines. And always connected to our local and global environment.

The DAC thus becomes relevant to those who want to experience, understand, and interpret how architecture and design ‘create the framework for our lives,’ promoting the role of the creative realms in overcoming the challenges of the future. This is expanded upon by cultivated exchanges, by pooling resources together for greater learning and effectual results. "Therefore, we work as an open platform between citizens and professionals, culture and business, Denmark, and the world. An open platform for co-creation, open innovation and democratic engagement that contributes to creating economic, social, and environmentally sustainable development, both in Denmark and internationally. All of (DAC’s) activities reflect our core narrative and thus address issues of sustainable development be it handling the effects of climate change, building to minimise the negative impacts of construction, or creating environments and buildings that are socially sustainable,” Martinussen relays.

That’s the story of architecture: it builds epochs in stone, steel, and in the future, in wood. Things are changing, and we are on that track, to change. – Kent Martinussen, CEO (DAC), and member of the BLOXHUB management team

One such endeavour co-created by the BLOX and DAC is the 'Desire' project, as Martinussen relayed with STIR, "The BLOX is an epicentre for one of the big programmes of the EU, a lighthouse for a new European Bauhaus project called the ‘Desire’—the Nordic, Danish way of trying to contribute towards a development in Europe, to become a CO2 emission-free society through the entire year,” he conveys.

Towards making architecture a ‘people’s movement’

In its active years till now, the building’s metropolitan and corporate energy has welcomed mixed success and reactions. When asked if the BLOX and DAC’s part in it was efficacious in achieving what they set out to do more than a decade ago, Martinussen conveys polite affirmation and relays their plans—of furthering the act of making architecture a ‘people’s movement’ and stepping even more aggressively towards a future that is sustainable and urban in their most definitive sense. According to Martinussen, all at DAC are working hard towards providing solutions to all those who are demanding them: which is what the underlying power of the BLOX’s architecture is, corroborating the power of co-creation towards building better cities. The future is now, and the BLOX is demanding to build a better one. It is on us to demand solutions, and hopefully, the right ones.

With this renewed agency, Martinussen profusely hopes that all those who interact with BLOX are urged to demand resolutions towards co-creating an urban future and in turn, create improved cities for all. He is hoping to positivise, politicise, and activise this intent, for it to snowball into a predominant, serious, and larger movement among the people, essentially putting pressure on governments and policymakers, to persevere to be part of something bigger than ourselves. “What we want to be part of is, to contribute to a broader public movement, on owning the future for our kids, the future generations. It is high time. A responsibility for the future, with a focus on the built environment. We want to reach out, invite in, and empower people through exploring architecture. We are on the side of people,” he assures. 

Watch STIR’s conversation with Kent Martinussen by tapping on the head banner.