studenthouse.dkThe association behind Student & Innovation House
Detail 04 · the building project
From requirements on paper to 3,700 square metres.
After a mini-tender for client advisory services, Arkitema Architects was engaged in April 2016 and drove the development of the final building programme. The full design services and the main contract then went to EU tender. The police station was rebuilt, and the rooms on the other side carried the names the students had given them.
Floor area
3,700 m²
Client adviser
Arkitema Architects
Named rooms
19
Rebuild
2019—2020
Slabs designed 1920
200 kg/m²
Phases of the rebuild
Four project phases · five delivery tracks
The building project ran through four phases, from first sketch to completed detailed design. Then came five tracks concerned with what the house would be filled with. The phase names follow the project material’s own terms. The schedule slipped along the way: handover was first set for the end of 2018, then autumn 2019, and the house stood ready in 2020.
The project phases
01
Outline proposal
March 2018 · Bertelsen & Scheving
Material received
Presentation folder of 16 March 2018 from Bertelsen & Scheving: workshops, original 1920 drawings, concept diagrams and design principles for each room. That same month the engineering report showed the slabs carried only 200 kg/m². See the folder · see the load capacity
The design manual from GXN, Bertelsen & Scheving and Arcgency: co-presence as a principle, four concept floors from Historical to Play, disruptions and a colour palette. See the manual
September 2018 · EU tender for the main contract · construction 2019—2020
Material received
Review of the interiors, 28 September 2018: the behaviour matrix, four layers on every room, and the AV fit-out. See the detailed design
The delivery tracks
05
Client-supplied items
Awaiting material
What the client supplied into the construction. Awaiting material.
06
Furniture
Awaiting material
Furnishing the house. Furniture was one of the items postponed in 2016 to hold the budget.
07
Art project
Awaiting material
The art in the house. The design manual proposed a mirror installation in the atrium and building-integrated works. Awaiting material on works, artists and process.
08
Joinery tender
Awaiting material
The purpose-made joinery — the CNC-milled furniture with the circle as its formal motif. Awaiting material.
09
AV
Awaiting material
Audiovisual equipment — including the AV room on the 3rd floor and The Arena. Awaiting material.
Send the material phase by phase and the rows will fill out with drawings, decisions and photographs. The phase names will be renamed to the material’s own terms if they differ.
The outline proposal
Phase 01 · 16 March 2018
In March 2018 the practice Bertelsen & Scheving assembled the first worked-through proposal for how the house should be laid out. The folder runs from the students’ own workshops, via the building’s original 1920 drawings, to concrete design principles for each room.
The folder’s opening: “Imagine how a house would look, if it had to embody creative thinking, change makers and entrepreneurial spirits”
Axonometric of the building as a whole
The process behind it
Steering group and advisers around the drawings
Reviewing reference material
Working around the model
Sticky notes from one of the workshops
Students in one of the many engagement workshops
Presenting to the participants
The building as it was
Door from the courtyard to the original stair, towards the ground floor and the holding cells in the basement
A door worth preserving
Tiled wall with a floral motif
2nd floor. Architraves in profiled timber
Detail of the existing fittings
Corridor on the ground floor
Looking down through the original staircase
3rd floor. Simple architraves in profiled timber, lightweight partitions
The original 1920 drawings
The main entrance portal, elevation
Detail of the arcade
Section through the vault
Full-length façade elevation
Floor plan from the original construction
Staircase detail
Structural detail with reinforcement
Elevation of the gable
Concept diagrams
The building and the courtyard as a single move
The rhythm of the façade
Repetition along the building volume
The vaults on the ground floor
Section through the floors
The vertical move through the house
Sketches and references
Perspective sketch of the new courtyard entrance with the café extension
Perspective sketch of the courtyard
Reference study
Reference study
From activity clusters to spatial organisation
The building programme’s four activity clusters had to be turned into physical rooms. The diagrams show the move: The Commons lies as a shared base around the main staircase, and the three other clusters unfold from there and distribute across the floors.
The four clusters as overlapping fields. The Commons sits in the middle, around the main staircase
The clusters in colour. The arrows show The Commons opening towards the other three
The movement out from the core
The Commons as a base, with the main staircase as the vertical core
Student Society and Impact Lab are added
Social Science Lab joins as the fourth field
The finished stacking: the clusters spread over the floors around the shared core
Legend
The principle applied: the clusters set into the building volume, with The Commons running through, and toilets and storage gathered at the hatched end
Phase 1, outline proposal · report of 16 February 2018
During the outline proposal phase, Jørgen Nielsen, Rådgivende Ingeniører went through the building’s structural calculations from 1920. The conclusion shaped both the layout and the budget: the floor slabs could not carry the activities the students had drawn into the house.
The structureHollow-tile slabs from 1920Slabs 19.5 cm thick with diatomite blocks between concrete ribs and a 4 cm concrete topping. Single-span and simply supported.
Designed for200 kg/m² on floor slabs300 kg/m² on stairs and circulation areas, under the rules in force in 1920.
The requirement500 kg/m²The flexible use intended for a student house required assembly rooms in categories C2—C4.
The problemEurocodesA change of use triggers a requirement to verify against current rules. The stairs’ supporting beams have less shear reinforcement than the minimum.
Building element
1920
Recalculated
Note
Floor slabs, general
200 kg/m²
250 kg/m²
Equivalent to assembly category C1 · marginally above the previous office use
Circulation areas
300 kg/m²
350—500 kg/m²
The strongest in the house
Stairs
300 kg/m²
300 kg/m²
The stair flights themselves can take 500, but the supporting beams set the limit
Slab over basement, south
400 kg/m²
—
The entrance space was designed to a higher load from the outset
What it meant for the house
Strengthening was difficult for two reasons: the narrow load-bearing ribs are hard to prop, and a concrete topping collides with existing floor and door levels. The recommendation was therefore to place the most heavily loaded functions at the bottom of the building and strengthen only where necessary.
This is part of the reason The Arena and the café sit on the ground floor, while the quiet workrooms sit higher up. Where the rooms are in the house is not only a programme decision — it is a structural one.
The engineer’s proposals
Category C1 can probably be achieved without structural intervention
Heavy load categories are placed on the lowest floors
A concrete topping, easiest on the uppermost slab in the attic storey
Alternatively, replacement with new, stronger slabs without increasing the thickness
With the design proposal, GXN and Arcgency joined the team alongside Bertelsen & Scheving. The design manual answers how a house of many small rooms, long corridors and separated floors could be made to create encounters between people who do not already know each other.
Innovation happens in the encounter between people.
The manual builds on the concept of social affordances from behavioural science: the capacity of physical elements to invite social action. The precondition is co-presence — being present in the same place at the same time, able to see one another, meet, and run into each other by chance.
Layout, furnishing and zoning determine the patterns of circulation, and thereby both the planned and the unplanned encounters. Three focus areas carry the work: visual contact, overlapping use, and the democratisation of knowledge.
The building’s problem
The analysis was blunt: the existing building is the worst typology for facilitating knowledge sharing across user groups.
Challenge 01Decentralised flowWhen the floors are large and users sit far from the main staircase, they take the enclosed secondary stairs. If those sit near the toilets, the tendency is stronger still. The result is fewer spontaneous encounters.
Challenge 02Vertical separationPoor visibility and the distance from the entrance make it hard to draw unfamiliar users up to the top floors.
Challenge 03Many small roomsThe many small rooms create unnecessarily many private zones, splitting users into separate clusters.
Challenge 04The shape of the floorsThe long, narrow plan increases distance and reduces visual contact. A conversation at one end is not heard at the other.
The four measures
Measure 01A unifying main flowThe main staircase is made the natural circulation point, with information boards and storage. The other stairs are played down, and the door onto Howitzvej is closed as an entrance except for conference events.
Measure 02Open it upThe floor separation is opened up in a continuous atrium. Walls are removed or replaced with glass, creating visual contact through the building.
Measure 03AttractorsEach floor’s users are gathered in shared functions by the tea kitchen and toilets. Unique facilities are spread through the building to increase movement.
Measure 04Concept floorsUsers are organised by activity and need, from open gathering points to focused single stations. People come together according to the kind of work they are doing.
The attractors distributed through the house: green gathers within a floor, blue gathers across floors
Four floors, four ways of working
The floors became a ladder from the governed to the self-governed — tuned to the building’s conservation strategy, where the ground floor carries high heritage value and the top floor great freedom. Each floor signals clearly how you can work and behave there.
The ladder from governed to self-governed, floor by floor
Reference images: each floor seen through individual work, collaboration and assembly
Ground floor
Historical
Work where you are
High ceilings, classical elegance. The ceiling vaults, the column details and the preserved timber benches are the first thing you meet. Café, shop, conference area and open workspaces in the same understated register.
1st floor
Work
Work the way you know
Less saturated with historical detail, more high-tech and professional. The Nest, Boardroom and Makerspace house collaborations with external parties. Boards and mounts can be opened, closed and turned, so a war room can become clean desk again.
2nd floor
Live
Work like from home
Informal and inspiring. The student community is based here. Green elements recur to set the mood: edible, air-purifying and scented plants, tended by the users themselves — perhaps with a weekly watering slot as a social event.
3rd floor
Play
Work any way you want
Many existing walls are removed. A monochrome palette as a quiet backdrop, where people and objects come forward. Light organises the space, installations hang from the ceiling, and all the furniture is on wheels.
Ground floor: preserved fittings, original lamps and informal workspaces
1st floor: screened workspaces, flexible whiteboards and hard-wearing furniture
2nd floor: lounge area, a kitchen for conversation, natural materials and long tables for working together
3rd floor: ceiling-hung installations, light organises the space, all furniture on wheels
The disruptions
The house was to hold surprises at many scales. Three moves invite users to leave their mark: leave your mark, display your current interest and share your knowledge.
DisruptionAn atrium of glimpsesA mirror installation across the floors gives glimpses into places you would otherwise never see.
DisruptionGraffitiIn the toilet lobby you can scratch messages into a metal plate — a reinterpretation of the graffiti in the holding cells.
DisruptionZenAt the very top the Zen room is built as a Faraday cage, blocking all electromagnetic signals. A room with no email, texts or Instagram.
DisruptionThe idea bankTransparent storage modules by the main staircase, where results, images and ideas can be curated and seen by everyone.
DisruptionActivated corridorsNiches in the long corridors support different kinds of work and meetings — and help the acoustics.
DisruptionInfographicsInformation boards by the main staircase show the day’s events and where there are free seats in the house.
The disruptions located in the building, marked in red
The base interior
The base surfaces were to form a worthy canvas for the new. Original ceilings are stripped of suspended ceilings, stucco is kept, and visible scars from demolished walls are cleaned up and painted. New surfaces lie on top of the old, so the contrast itself becomes the storyteller.
Every cut and opening in original building elements is left with visible traces and only lightly worked. On the ground floor, a concrete floor with a smooth matt finish is laid in continuity with the existing Öland stone. On the upper floors, linoleum — what the house was originally born with. In the basement, new floors are cast locally and left raw.
ColoursCanvasThe building’s base: wall surfaces, floors and ceilings. The palette starts from the traditional colouring of the period of construction and from Kampmann’s general use of colour.
ColoursFurnishingTextiles: upholstery, curtains, acoustic treatment. The new colours are drawn from those already present in the Öland stone, sandstone, joinery and tiles.
AcousticsWalls rather than ceilingsFabric panels on frames with acoustic material, doubling as notice boards — so ceilings with stucco and vaults can be left clear.
Historical elementsMoved, not removedThe handsome tiles now hidden behind the radiators could be moved to a more prominent place, as cladding for the café counter.
The two palettes: canvas for permanent surfaces, furnishing for textiles
Historical elements in the house: the lamp, the vault, the staircase, the tile and the column capitals
The bespoke
FurnitureThe circle as a motifPurpose-designed furniture for the circulation areas, with the circle as the basic formal element, in keeping with the house’s original language. CNC milling as an interpretation of the house’s history of craft.
FurnitureStanding below, seated aboveOn the ground floor, furniture that invites brief, standing stops. On the 1st and 2nd floors, larger pieces for several people as alternative meeting facilities.
ArtBuilding-integratedA mirror installation in the atrium that fragments reality. Light, sound or colour as surprises in a basement room or a toilet. Screens with a live feed from a Norwegian forest or a motorway slip road.
Visualisation of the purpose-designed furniture in the circulation area, with the circle as its formal element
“Vi indordner verden i sikre genkendelige kategorier. Hukommelsen eller erindringen er en betingelse for perceptionen, fordi enhver perception smeltes sammen med og gennemtrænges af det, som kroppen og bevidstheden husker.”“We order the world into safe, recognisable categories. Memory is a condition of perception, because every perception is fused with and permeated by what the body and the mind remember.”Olafur Eliasson, quoted in the design manual
Space planning
In the knowledge society, work is not a place, it is an activity. Each floor was therefore given an activity-based layout, and the workspaces were divided into four types, organised consistently from floor to floor.
Type ALocked with a keyA fixed workspace for staff. A home base with a sit-stand desk, whiteboard and shelving modules.
Type BCan be bookedA temporary workspace for students. Desks and lockable storage.
Type COpen seatsOpen workspaces with flexible tables. Clean desk policy.
Type DInformal seatsLounge and fixed furniture. Low flexibility, high availability.
The zones run from individual focused work, through collaboration, to assembly. The circulation areas are integrated into the zones and work both as movement and as workspaces of a more private character. Being able to withdraw to a suitable room is decisive for the sense of personal control.
The scale from private to open: individual, collaboration, assembly
The large rooms in two states: facilitated and unfacilitated
The police station’s courtyard had been closed. Now it was to be the arrival point. The task was to find an extension that could hold the entrance lobby and draw people in through the gateway without overshadowing the listed façade. The architects put forward a series of proposals ahead of the planning application.
Proposal A · the continuous arcade
A light, glass-framed arcade along the full length of the façade, its column rhythm answering the house’s own.
Elevation to the courtyard with the arcade at full length
The arcade seen from the courtyard, the gateway to the left
Under the arcade, between the new columns and the old wall
Head-on from the courtyard
From above: the arcade along the whole façade
Proposal B · the small entrance lobby
A smaller, centrally placed entrance lobby on a low platform, leaving the façade free.
The central lobby with the platform in front
From above: a single volume in the courtyard
The arrival through the gateway
The view into the courtyard through the old gateway — the first encounter with the house
Which proposal went forward to the planning application, and what decided it? Write it and the decision goes in here.
The planning application
Phase 03 · June—July 2018
The preliminary design was submitted on 29 June 2018. Local plan 213 listed the façades and roof, so everything the house was to be opened up with had to happen towards the courtyard — and require a dispensation. Three matters were applied for, and the city architect said both yes and no.
The three dispensations
Dispensation 01The lobby outside the building zoneThe local plan allowed a free-standing building within a marked building zone. Applied for: a new 12 m² lobby placed against the existing courtyard façade — that is, outside the zone.
Dispensation 02The terrace against the listed façadeThe local plan prohibited a terrace abutting the listed façades. Applied for: a raised plinth in connection with the new main entrance, linking the ground floor and the courtyard.
Dispensation 03The glass façade and the atriumChanges to the courtyard façade require a dispensation. Applied for: altering the courtyard façade at and above the lobby with a glass façade. Behind it, a new vertical atrium is established.
The meeting with the city architect
On 5 July 2018 the client and the design team met the city architect Claus Sivager and Frederiksberg Kommune’s building case department. Bertelsen & Scheving had drawn three new studies of the extension.
Two of them took arches as a reference to the vaults inside the main building. The city architect rejected those: it became too stage-set. One ought to take the quiet route — classical with a twist.
“Der var større opbakning fra Kommunen til skitse 3 med en let glasbygning med et simpelt bærende system. Dog med en let svævende base i stedet for en tung base.”“There was greater support from the Municipality for sketch 3, with a light glass building on a simple structural system. Though with a lightly floating base rather than a heavy one.”Minutes, 5 July 2018
Version A and version B
The project was in the middle of a cost-cutting round, and the client was unsure of being able to fund an extension at full length. The solution was to ask permission for both at once.
Version AThe extension at full lengthFive bays along the façade. The whole that the project had to demonstrate to the Municipality.
Version BThe shortened versionAbout a fifth — one bay instead of five. The version that could be built now, if the money did not stretch.
The Municipality was open to the smaller version — provided both proposals were submitted for approval, so the whole was demonstrated too. That is why the house can be extended today without a new planning process: the option of the full extension was secured in 2018.
Opening up the courtyard façade
ApprovedWindows become doorsThe city architect supported converting four ground-floor window bays into doorways onto the future plateau — two on each side of the courtyard entrance. This could happen before any extension was built.
ChosenThe two-part windowThree solutions for window openings above the extension were presented: a two-part division referencing the existing openings, a tall vertical window, and a glass façade between the piers. The Municipality preferred the two-part option.
FreeThe rooflightThe rooflight was allowed to depart from the format of the new windows below it — and could well be built at the atrium’s full width and height.
The lift
The building had no step-free access at all — the ground floor sat about a metre above ground level. The lift was placed in the north-east corner of the main wing, where it could serve the most floors and sit close to both the new main entrance and the café, which needed to move goods in the basement.
But the local plan granted no dispensation for changes to the roof. The lift shaft could therefore not be carried up through the roof to the 3rd floor. The solution was a platform lift from the 2nd to the 3rd floor, placed as close to the lift as possible, on the other side of the stairwell.
Rejected locations
Centrally in the main wing to the north — would have needed stairlifts in the narrow flights
By a new fire stair to the south — cheapest, but far from the main entrance
By a new toilet core in the centre of the house — too far from the arrival point
Outside in the courtyard — would have required a dispensation for building
Free-standing in the atrium — would have taken up most of the space and wrecked the whole idea of visual contact
Two new entrances
Entrance 01Through the courtyardA prominent entrance in the centre of the courtyard with a new lobby and a raised plateau giving step-free access between courtyard and ground floor. It was to mark the house’s new use.
Entrance 02Through the gatewayIn the north wing’s gateway, with new glazing onto a newly created arrival space. Expected to become the users’ primary everyday entrance.
The project organisation
Above the dotted line sits the client side: CBS, the steering group, the foundations, operations — and the students as a broad organisation alongside. Below it are the advisers, with Bertelsen & Scheving in design management and as site managers.
The project organisation in June 2018, from page 5 of the preliminary design
The submitted floor plans
Five floors and an attic, some 3,200 m² in all. The room names from the building programme are already on the drawings — The Nest, Student Society, Maker Space, Lounge network, Get away — so the house’s own language reached all the way into the planning process. The drawings are shown here in overview; the legible versions are in the preliminary design.
Basement, 710 m² — archives, plant, stores and the listed cell
Ground floor, 657 m² — café, conference for 94 people, welcome area, atrium, and the courtyard with an 86 m² raised plinth
1st floor, 695 m² — The Nest, workshop with 3D printing, secretariat, Student Union Zone and The Workshop
2nd floor, 590 m² — the co-working space, Student Society, the experiment room and Social Science Lab Workspace
3rd floor, 390 m², and attic, 161 m² — concept meeting rooms, AV room, lounge network and tiered seating
This is where the abstractions stop. The review of the interiors takes the house room by room and lays four layers on each: concept, finishes, furniture and technology. Every decision is measured against the behaviour the room is meant to produce.
The behaviour matrix
Twelve properties, each with two poles. A room is placed on every scale, and its placing determines furniture, materials and technology. It is the design manual’s floor ladder translated into a tool that works on a single room.
Property
Governed
Free
Engagement
Static
Flexible
Flexibility
Focused
Participatory
Orientation
Singular
Multifaceted
Posture
Fixed · reclined
Free · standing
Arrangement
Locked space
Open space
Territory
Personal desk
Clean desk
Personalisation
Single desk
Group setting
Ownership
Private
Public
Exposure
Closed
Open
Transparency
Enclosed
Connected
Density
Few
Crowded
Display
Clean wall
Exhibition
Four layers on every room
Layer 01ConceptThe part the room plays in the house’s story, and the behaviour it is meant to produce.
Layer 02FinishesFloors, walls and ceilings. Cast floors and wall materials in light, muted tones.
Layer 03FurnishingFurniture, textiles and storage — with what is purpose-designed marked up.
Layer 04TechnologyPower, network and AV. To be settled with CBS IT, and budget priorities may change the fit-out.
Decisions that became concrete
Ground floorThe benches get hackedThe existing timber benches are kept, but “hacked” with cushions and fabric so they support the floor’s concept. What is preserved gets used, not exhibited.
Ground floorThe house’s history as an exhibitionAn exhibition concept in the “Get away” conference area is to tell the history of the house. Display cases are considered both new and second-hand — bought on the classifieds.
Ground floorFurniture related to the 3rd floorFurniture at the entrance is conceived as kin to the attic storey’s, so arrival signals that something new happens here, linking the ground floor to Play.
The workshopSecond-hand or sponsoredFittings for the rough workshop can be found second-hand or sought as sponsorship. Workbenches and shelving rather than new furniture.
1st floorWaste sorting as a signalIn the tea kitchen, waste sorting is listed as an item of its own — it matters to signal reuse.
1st floorStudent Union ZoneA young political environment. Open questions noted directly in the material: how do we show political engagement, and how do the users get to choose for themselves?
The AV fit-out
The association itself picked the rooms to be fitted out and marked positions with sketches. The ground-floor conference room got the heaviest solution.
Room 004 · conferenceTwo screens, two projectorsFour speakers, two 360-degree cameras and two microphone channels. Two ceiling projectors so both screens can be used at once, and so streaming in and out of the house can run at the same time. Control box close to the stage.
The café and the atriumBooking and wayfindingA booking and wayfinding screen near the café, a large screen at the south end of the room for bigger events, four speakers and a player in the café.
The holding cellScreen and built-in speakerThe listed cell in the basement, room K27, got a screen on the table, a built-in speaker and analogue signage at the door. The lift got a network-connected speaker.
The AV roomA specialist to be brought inRoom 318 on the 3rd floor got no standard fit-out. A specialist is to be brought in here. Concept room 323 was still unresolved.
The presentation’s reference images are missing — pull them out as with the earlier phases. The idea bank concept was still being worked out in September 2018; was it finished?
The advisers and the team
Advisers, 2013—2018
Rønnow Arkitekter and Bascon drew up the first budget in the summer of 2013. Arkitema came in as client adviser in 2016 and carried the building programme to completion. From 2018 Bertelsen & Scheving was lead consultant, with Arcgency and GXN as sub-consultant architects and three engineering firms on structure, services and electrics.
Client adviserArkitema Architects A/SEngaged April 2016 after a mini-tender · drove the development of the final building programme
PracticeBertelsen & SchevingLead consultant and architect from 2018 · outline proposal, design manual and planning application
Sub-consultantGXNArchitects, green innovation · co-author of the design manual
Sub-consultantArcgencyArchitects · co-author of the design manual
EngineerJørgen Nielsen Rådgivende IngeniørerStructure · authors of the report on loads and load capacities, February 2018
EngineerMartin FunchDrainage, plumbing and ventilation
EngineerISCElectrics
Early advisersRønnow Arkitekter · BasconDrew up the original budget in the summer of 2013
Project managementCBS Campus DevelopmentWent through the budget item by item with Arkitema in 2016
ClientCBSBought the building for DKK 30m in December 2014 and owns it
Missing: the names of the lead consultant and main contractor, floor plans and sections, photographs from the construction period, and a list of the features developed specially for the house.
Purpose-developed features
To be filled in
Some solutions in the house were developed for the purpose. They belong here, with drawing, description and the name of whoever came up with them.
Feature 01Name missingWhat was developed · why · who was behind it
Feature 02Name missingWhat was developed · why · who was behind it
Feature 03Name missingWhat was developed · why · who was behind it
Feature 04Name missingWhat was developed · why · who was behind it
The rooms were named
From the room schedule, 01.09.2020
Not one of them is called meeting room 3. The students named every floor themselves, across 3,700 m² from basement to 3rd floor.
