{"id":63,"date":"2025-09-23T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T08:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newtoursagency.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2025-09-23T09:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:26:16","slug":"pihlmann-architects-turns-floors-into-staircases-and-facades-into-pavements-at-thoravej-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newtoursagency.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/23\/pihlmann-architects-turns-floors-into-staircases-and-facades-into-pavements-at-thoravej-29\/","title":{"rendered":"Pihlmann Architects turns floors into staircases and facades into pavements at Thoravej 29"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thoravej<\/div>\n

Furniture built from doors and stairs made by “flipping” concrete<\/a> floors feature inside this community hub, which architect S\u00f8ren Pihlmann<\/a> has created in a 1960s factory and opened up as part of Copenhagen Architecture Biennial<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pihlmann’s studio, Pihlmann Architects<\/a>, won a competition held by commercial art organisation Bikuben Foundation to turn the old factory at Thoravej 29<\/a> in northwest Copenhagen into a space for the arts.<\/p>\n

It now houses studio and production spaces for young artists, as well as workshops, a library, exhibition rooms and offices for a number of organisations.<\/p>\n

\"Concrete
Thoravej 29 is a former factory from the 1960s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After receiving the brief for the project, Pihlmann saw an opportunity to design a building that would make use of the waste created by the renovation process itself.<\/p>\n

“In the competition brief, it mentioned that they wanted something that should be bold, different and thought-provoking,” Pihlmann told Dezeen on a tour of the building during the opening of Copenhagen Architecture Biennial<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I said if they want to achieve that, instead of going for an aesthetic design that most people can achieve, they should use their risk-willingness to do something that nobody, at least in the Danish construction industry, is willing to do \u2013 find value in the things that are already in the building,” he added.<\/p>\n

“The ultimate goal was to look at the house as its own ecological system and see how much we could achieve with things that were already present in the house itself.”<\/p>\n

\"Large
S\u00f8ren Pihlmann has turned some of its floors into staircases<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the main changes to the 6,224-square-metre building that the Bikuben Foundation had asked for was creating double and triple-height spaces, which involved opening up the floors and removing a lot of concrete.<\/p>\n

Rather than letting it go to waste, Pihlmann Architects “flipped” the floors up or down, turning them into concrete staircases.<\/p>\n

“None of the concrete has been thrown out; it’s just been utilised for various purposes,” said Pihlmann.<\/p>\n

\"Concrete
Leftover concrete and wood have been used to make furniture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of the leftover concrete has also been used to create furniture that is dotted around the five-storey Thoravej 29 building, including in the ground-floor cafe space, which is open to the public, and in communal rest areas on the higher floors.<\/p>\n

The studio also made some structural changes to the building, extending its facade by 1.5 metres.<\/p>\n

“It offers a very flexible way in which this building, over time, can adapt to different uses, and it also became a way to energy-optimise the existing facade,” Pihlmann said.<\/p>\n