A new municipal facility in Hillerød, a city in Denmark’s northern Zealand, reveals a bold approach to water treatment by involving the community into its built fabric. The Solrødgård Water Treatment Plant blends the landscape with public utility, where people are exposed to the natural cycle of wastewater treatment in a relaxed verdant setting.

Danish architectural firm Henning Larsen has contributed to the open park with its exterior design and landscape services.

The architectural vision of the project involves the division of various functions into three equal volumes to house a recycling centre, a wastewater treatment plant, and an administration block. Nearly invisible in its surroundings, these volumes are hidden under a rooftop park whose landscape invites the community to the industrial facility.

Various skylights dot the green cover, its glass façade providing visitors a chance to watch the processing and filtration activities of the plant underneath. “The design concept,” the architects explain, “allows the community to connect with their own use of resources, while minimising the visual and olfactory presence often associated with water treatment plants.”

Other than the sized apertures, a web of meandering pedestrian paths weaving through perennial planting beds within the park entice people with its colourful blossoms. The beautifully sprawling roof overlooks the rest of the park, which includes a large water feature, a bird watching tower, and a roosting hotel for local bats amid vast greens.

A service road divides the built volume into two parts, where the sunken space is flanked by the building’s façades on either side and topped by a sculpturesque steel bridge that connects the two sides of the park. Clad in a combination of weathering steel and glass, the exterior, interestingly, renders an impression of a poche section cut out of the earth. A small creek trickle through a narrow garden within this space, demonstrating how natural foliage cleans and filters groundwater, an apparent organic contrast to the industrial treatments inside.

“It’s (central passage) symbolic of us cutting into the landscape to look within, creating a contrast between the natural water cycle and the constructed process that support the communities,” says Marie Ørsted Larsen, Senior Landscape Architect at Henning Larsen.

Offering a unique setting within the site, the passage allows visitors to get a first-hand glimpse of how their community water cycle works, while being exposed to views of the plant’s internal operations.

The Solrødgård Water Treatment Plant is part of the Solrødgård Climate and Environmental Park that seeks to shine a bright spotlight on the global challenges of climate change and sustainability. Developed from a 50 hectare, 1 billion DKK masterplan, it invites an open dialogue for the community to gain awareness on the fast depleting resources and to take action.

Project Details