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Architects: Christensen & Co Architects
- Area: 13500 m²
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Photographs:Adam Mørk
Text description provided by the architects. The City Hall, also known as the Crystal (Kristallen), stands as an iconic frame with a profound social impact and an ambitious green profile, using only a fraction of the energy normally consumed by this type of building. The first step of The City Hall was completed in 2014 and hosts 13.500m2 of Citizen Service Centre. When fully completed, the building will have 25.000m2 of offices, conference facilities, a public ground floor and a green rooftop terrace that overlooks the city of Lund and its surroundings all the way to Denmark.
The jury of the Kasper Salin Award nominated Christensen & Co Architects for creating a building that links the distinguished historical city centre of Lund and a new public park with an original architectural idea in the continued urban development in the area. As well as creating a welcoming building that brings life to the area with its public program and dynamic facades.
The building volume consists of a pleated W-shaped plan that brings light, variation and playfulness into the volume. The building appears facetted, constantly changing from glass and solid panels, with a broken down scale, thereby integrating the relatively large building into the urban structure of Lund. The sculpted shape and varied facades facilitates an appearance of life and vibrancy, both internally and externally. Behind the building’s open and transparent west façade is a full-height atrium space, which draws in the adjacent park’s lush green atmosphere and connects all the amenity spaces across the floors. The space creates an open and vibrant area connecting staff and visitors.
The façade design is key in reducing the total energy consumption. All facades are oriented to efficiently utilize the sun’s heat during the cold season, and the climate screen is optimized to balance out heat loss and heat gain. North-facing facades are covered with smooth glass panels from floor to ceiling, allowing a maximum amount of light to fill the office spaces. The south-facing facades have dynamic solar-control panels, operating according to the amount of daylight, giving optimal light and shade conditions inside the building and creating a dynamic façade to the surroundings. The facades towards the historic part of Lund are of a more classic character, open and closed parts of concrete plates, giving a calm rhythm and dialog with the cityscape of Lund.
Lund City Hall is a sustainable building adherent to the Swedish Green-factor; Green-factor states that the vegetation and green areas of the site must be at least 100%. The buildings green roof plays an important role in cooling the building, storing rainwater and ensures that the building becomes part of the local ecosystem, supporting the biosphere already existing in the park and the area.
