Sustainability startup Lendager Group have beat out BIG and Henning Larsen in a competition to design a new eco-village in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the project UN17 village, Lendager Group designed the first project in the world that will translate all 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into tangible action. After nearly 25 years of planning, the 400 new homes will complete the new city district, Ørestad South.
As Lendager states, "The built environment is responsible for more than 40% of our global emissions. However, it does not have to be this way. In nature, waste does not exist: organisms regenerate themselves and use dead organic materials as building blocks for future growth." The UN17 Village showcases how to decouple growth from emissions by looking at waste as a resource, and by making sustainability and growth support each other without compromising on quality, aesthetics or price. The UN17 Village will be built of upcycled waste – such as concrete, wood and window glass. Lendager Group has developed upcycled materials designed for use on an industrial scale. The products are harvested and processed locally, creating local jobs and enabling the construction of tomorrow’s cities from today’s waste globally.
The UN17 Village is designed to be sustainable from multiple perspectives: environmental, social, operational, indoor-climate-related and bio-diverse. As one of the world’s most alternative and sustainable building projects, the waste materials used are upcycled to create nontoxic and certified materials. The houses are designed with a spacious feel, all their elements helping to promote sustainable living and to create a good indoor climate. With rooftop solar panels, the houses are potentially self-sufficient. The biodiversity of the neighborhood increases with the roof gardens: this is a housing project with a design that encourages sustainable living.
Anders Lendager, CEO and founder of Lendager Group explains that “with the UN17 Village, we wanted to create not only an iconic and sustainable building from recycled materials, but also the opportunity for a sustainable lifestyle. So far, the focus in sustainable buildings has mainly been on their operational carbon emissions. We are looking at the whole life cycle of the building – including materials use, health, and quality of life. We have developed a scale-able process that brings all 169 milestones from the SDGs into focus. By translating these into concrete solutions, we have created a tool that makes it possible for everyone in the industry to implement the SDGs and to evaluate the result.”
- Contributing Architects: Lendager Group, Årstiderne
- Project leader: Philip Rufus Knauf
- Client: NREP
- Engineering: Moe and Arup
- Project Team: Team: Jacob Blak, Sophie Daugaard Andersen, Majken Lynge Gribskjold, Kristian Knorr Jensen, Stephanie Levassor, Agata Marzec, Nicholas Ransome, Daniel Veenboer
- Partners-in-Charge: Anders Lendager
- Project Area: 35.000 m2
- Project Year: 2018
