Bypassing the bypass

Competition: Europan 9
Team: Ofri Earon (dk), Thomas Krarup (dk), Erno Langenberg
Year: 2007
Tags: Infrastructure, Architecture, Sustainability, Mixed-use, Scripted, Solar energy

Herning
Herning is one of the fastest growing cities in Denmark and therefore has to be attend to the theme of expansion. Recently two planning actions have changed the future scenario of Herning drastically and challenges the city to rethink its positioning from just a suburb to a regional player.
The first action is the highway 18 which transforms Herning to a town with high connectivity to other major cities in Jylland, the second is Herning municipality merging with surrounding municipalities to form a new super Herning.

The Europan location present a simple paradox for the town; on one hand this is the new artery, which will feed and nourish Herning’s second growth, on the other hand it is this artery, which cuts off Herning from its future expansion areas. The same could count for the future inhabitants, Who is to say that they will work in Herning or that the people who work there, will live there?

However much we wish to hide this cut in the land, or even remove it, we must not succumb to this simple desire for this road is not a symbol of division, it is in fact a hidden symbol of unification. Instead of turning our backs to this infrastructural node, we wish to embrace it. While dealing with this Gordian knot we are dealing with the growing pains of Herning as a whole. Instead of trying to cut this Gordian knot of highway, potential expansion area and lifeline entangled into one, we bypass it. We do this by creating a symbolic connection of monolithic shapes that from the highway look intertwined, but actually stand free from one another. We create a mini-city, an instant skyline. This mini-city is a real urban place on a small scale; mini urbanism. The complex contains a variety of program, private as well as public. A vertical division is introduced, the horizontal part is public program, while the towers are residential, apartments in different sizes. The highway gives the feeling of freedom & movement, the disadvantage of pollution and noise are solved by the design of the façade.