The island of Christiansholm, better known as Paper Island, is about to undergo massive transformation that Artelia is helping to realise

The Royal Library, Amager Bakke, BIO4 and the Royal Danish Playhouse are all to be found among the Artelia projects that grace Copenhagen’s inner harbour. And the new development on Christiansholm means that we will once again be making a significant contribution to this popular harbour area.

A cultural meeting place
For many years, Christiansholm was home to paper warehouses, earning it the nickname of ‘paper island’, although more accurately it is a peninsula. Paper ceased to be stored here in 2012, paving the way for the buildings to be used for cultural activities on a temporary basis, such as the Experimentarium and the immensely popular Copenhagen Street Food. COBE Architects put together the master plan for the area. A major feature of the plan is to build on the intrinsic qualities of urban life that have set the mood here since 2012.

In addition to apartments, general housing and a hotel, the new buildings will also form the framework for a market hall for shops, cafés, restaurants and cultural life. These outward-facing functions will contribute to a creative and vibrant urban space, emphasised by a public promenade along the quayside.

It will be possible to admire the features of the area from its buildings through the huge expanses of glass. The design of the façades will therefore be optimised to ensure the right balance between daylight, energy and indoor climate.

A versatile engineering job
You may already be getting the impression that there will be a tremendous mix of buildings. And you would be right, as this is an element of great importance to the engineering side of the project. The design has to be adapted to the varying requirements for the different building types.

The level of ambition for comfort and energy-efficient solutions is high, and several of the buildings have to achieve Gold DGNB certification. This will also be a process for which our sustainability specialists are responsible.

Last but not least, we are dealing with an entire neighbourhood, where we also need to design the infrastructure in the form of roads and sewers. We will therefore be bringing our skills within the fields of environment, traffic planning, geoengineering and climate adaptation to bear.