Sustainable housing and a heart of wood

A number of prominent wooden buildings have been taking shape in Denmark in recent years. Spring 2018 saw the completion of the multi-storey development Lisbjerg Bakke comprising 40 flats which are all DGNB Gold-certified. In September, the multi-purpose community and cultural centre The Heart opened in the town of Ikast in Jutland.

Both projects were honoured at the Building of the Year 2018 ceremony, and Lisbjerg Bakke has been included in a collection of cases from the Nordic Wood in Construction Secretariat. 

“Lisbjerg Bakke is an important social housing project that sets an extremely good example. It is still early days for modern wooden buildings in Denmark, but they hold considerable potential when it comes to creating sustainable and appealing environments. Lisbjerg Bakke is leading the way with the development of a scalable building system in a cost-efficient residential project, which can inspire others to construct new and exciting buildings using wood.”

These were the grounds given by the jury for choosing the social housing as Building of the Year 2018 in Denmark.

Lisbjerg Bakke is also highlighted as one of 25 pioneering Nordic examples of the use of wood in construction in a report from the Nordic Wood in Construction Secretariat – an initiative launched by the Swedish Government and the Nordic Council of Ministers. The report states, among other things:

“Lisbjerg Bakke is a vision of what sustainable social housing in Denmark can look like. The hybrid wood construction of 40 apartments is an open source design that anyone can access, and has 70 per cent lower climate emissions and 28 per cent lower lifecycle costs compared to the Danish standard.”

A building system in solid wood

Lisbjerg Bakke is part of a new residential district north of Aarhus, and was built by AL2Bolig and designed by Vandkunsten Architects. Vandkunsten Architects has many years of experience from residential projects, and often experiments with new layouts and materials. Lisbjerg Bakke comprises six three-to-four-storey buildings, constructed from a building system based on solid wood and untreated wood facades, which will patinate with time.

Inside the flats, cross-laminated timber (CLT) has been used on the exterior walls, creating a robust surface, while also ensuring a good indoor climate. The development is DGNB-certified in the Gold category, and all the way back in 2014 – when the project was still on the drawing board – it was named ‘The Future of Sustainable Social Housing’.

The first building includes a communal room on the ground floor, where white Troldtekt acoustic panels with built-in Troldtekt light fittings have been installed. The acoustics have been a key focus here, and also in the stairwells, where white-painted Troldtekt panels and white-painted railings contrast with the raw, concrete grey walls.

The Heart – a community centre for all

One highly commended project at the Danish Building of the Year 2018 awards was the multi-purpose community and cultural centre The Heart in Ikast. Here, wood and Troldtekt also play a prominent role.

The Heart is designed as an all-purpose and all-embracing community centre. With an open and inviting structure, the layout of the centre – which is reminiscent of a collection of small wooden buildings – means that wildly differing activities can all take place at the same time: dance, streetball, teaching activities and quiet reflection to mention just a few.

The Heart comprises several smaller rooms and three main rooms – the multi-purpose hall, the reflection room and the street sports hall. Troldtekt acoustic panels have been installed in all three. For C.F. Møller Architects, which designed The Heart, the acoustics have been part and parcel of working with the versatility of the building which is so fundamental to the concept.  

“The acoustics have been a high priority, because with so many different activities taking place at the same time, creating accommodating acoustic environments has been paramount. We have therefore chosen acoustic solutions that match the character and mood of the individual rooms,” says Julian Weyer, architect and partner at C.F. Møller Architects.