Update 10/24/17: We've added an updated rendering to the post!
Herzog & de Meuron, with landscape architects Piet Oudolf and LOLA landscape architects, have revealed plans for a new residential development in the Stockholm neighborhood of Hjorthagen that will repurpose a series of historic gasholders. The project will represent HdM’s first built project in Sweden.
Located within the world’s first National Urban Park, Ekoparken, the formerly industrial area retains a sensation of remoteness from the city, despite it being within a short walking distance to the Ropsten subway station. The site is home to a number of 19th-century industrial buildings designed by architect Ferdinand Boberg, including two brick gasholders that will be preserved. The main architectural project will surround the two additional early 20th-century steel gasholders located on an adjacent hill.
With more significant cultural value, the structure of the older and smaller of the two gasholders will be largely preserved, with a new exhibition hall to be built inside. Meanwhile, the larger, 100-meter-tall gasholder will be transformed into a 90-meter-tall mixed-use residential tower containing 45 floors of apartments as well as a ground-floor art gallery. Elsewhere around the development will be a public cafe, bar, bakery, deli, shop and day-care center.
The tower’s design is spawned from the cylindrical form of the gasholder, altered in plan to provide all interior spaces with access to natural light and ventilation. A variety of apartment sizes will all be V-shaped in plan, separating bedroom and entertaining functions into wings each optimized for privacy and sun orientation.
Herzog & de Meuron describe the design as “a folding façade with slightly shifting facets that will create an iridescent image of the original gasholder tower.
The surrounding landscape by Piet Oudolf and LOLA will also be transformed to accommodate for resident and public functions, with meadows and flowing walkways taking advantage of the site’s unique connection to nature.
“The landscape design aims to give the gasometers a common natural ground as well as to add a member to the family: a beautiful meadow garden flanked by a stretched sun bench of 88 meters,” explain the designers. “Together with a plaza between the buildings and a serpentine walk connecting to the surrounding nature it forms the core of the design.”
The development will integrate into the larger Norra Djurgårdsstaden masterplan, a new community of residential, retail and commercial buildings planned to house as many as 10,000 residences.
News via Piet Oudolf & LOLA, Herzog & de Meuron, Oscar Properites.
