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Dan Stubbergaard's architectural firm COBE has created a new meeting place in Copenhagen that features gentle slopes and apertures to accommodate more than 2,000 bicycles. The hybrid parking and public square setup, Karen Blixens Plads, was created in close collaboration with EKJ Consulting Engineers.
The 20,000-square-metre space, located between the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Royal Library's buildings at the university's South Campus, is one of the city's largest public squares. Composed of gentle hills interspersed between open areas designed for various activities, Karen Blixens Plads exalts the virtues of green transportation, climate change adaptation and biodiversity.
The three bicycle hills are comprised of cast concrete clad in hand-laid tiles that reflect the materiality of the surrounding university campus. COBE, EKJ and CN3 created 3D projections of the concrete domes prior to construction.
Servicing the approximately 16,000 students and 2,000 employees of the school in a city where more than 40 percent of residents commute by bike, the space seamlessly houses 2,000 bicycles, two-thirds of them shrouded under the square's hills.
The manmade hills also accommodate an outdoor auditorium with seating for up to 1,000 people, with the remaining hilltops offering standing room for large public events.
"All in all, we have created a unique space based on three main principles: improving the connection between landscape and urban space, integrating optimal green spaces with a large capacity for bicycle parking and creating a space that offers good social meeting places and learning environments," says COBE's founder Dan Stubbergaard. "The almost cathedral-like form of the bicycle hills further offers an aesthetic experience in its own right, both when people park their bikes and when they meet at the hills for lectures, group work, concerts or Friday afternoon socializing."
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