Post by Grubb.
Years ago I taught a class about art design in film with an architect who turned me onto Bjorke Ingles, so I was eager to see Bjorke’s 8House. Winner of the Housing category at the World Architecture Festival in 2011, 8House has 476 homes divided into townhouses. “The entire complex is combined by a one kilometre long path that curls around the building and functions as a natural meeting place for the residents of the estate and a safe way of travel for children when they go visit each other.” 8House is in Orestad across an inlet and on the south end of Copenhagen, so it was a short walk from the last Metro stop on the M4.
As I said, I was excited to actually be able to explore the complex, but when Ella and I marched up the street towards the pyramidal structure, I was, well, underwhelmed. Outside of the slanted stack of dwellings and the Danish treat of being able bike up to your town house if you lived on the sixth floor, it was a partitioned set of concrete apartments with large glass windows that was more a complex than community. Jane Jacobs was right; you can’t just pour the concrete and expect to create a neighborhood. Although there are people living in all the town houses, the entire structure, except for a worker repairing a low wall, felt abandoned.
Interesting observations. That’s not the first time I’ve heard such a story about planned communities. It seems that when growth is organic and decentralized things turn out more human.