Sjakket Youth Club is situated in Copenhagens Nordvest neighborhood, densely populated with old industrial buildings and contemporary housing. In , when BIG and JDS were hired to convert the building, the area was mainly populated by lower income households and immigrant families. BIG decided to refurbish the factory without gentrifying its raw beauty and alienating its original occupants.
Due to its rotational period, as well as its axial tilt relative to the ecliptic plane, its season and day cycles are extremely similar to Earths. It is the home to the highest mountain in the Solar System, Olympus Mons a staggering three times taller than Mount Everest. It is also home to Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos the Greek gods of fear and terror.
When asked to design an apartment block next to a parking garage, BIG saw an opportunity to explore a new form of symbiotic urbanism. Rather than placing a traditional slab of apartments next to a block of cars, BIG proposed mixing the two and exploiting their differences as a strength rather than a weakness: cars need large floor plates and good proximity to the street, while houses want sunlight and views. As a result, the parking is turned into a podium for the buildings homes that form a stepping landscape of houses with gardens.
The museum is comprised of a series of generic gallery spaces where, due to the curved form of the glass windows, the variety of daylight entering the museum creates three distinctive galleries. Stacked vertical, dark galleries with artificial lighting are found to the south, and a large horizontal, naturally-lit gallery with panoramic views is located on the north side. In between these spaces is the sculptural gesture, creating a twisted sliver of roof light.
Daily users and visitors enter directly into the Gastro Hall, the backbone of GOe. This central space runs from the ground floor all the way to the roof. Like a promenade, the grand staircase connects all programs and levels within the building and doubles as an amphitheater for events and lectures, allowing visitors to observe the showcase kitchens and ongoing research during their visit. Moving up, visitors can continue into the auditorium, public terraces, or experience world-class cuisine at the top floor restaurant.