03-11-2017

Sprayed concrete roofs at Copenhagen’s Nørreport Station – COBE architects.

COBE,

Copenhagen, Denmark,

underground, Stations,

Modern,

Cement,

The busiest station in Copenhagen’s metro system, redesigned by COBE Architects, combines technology and design with skilful ease




	Sprayed concrete roofs at Copenhagen’s Nørreport Station – COBE architects.

COBE redesigned Copenhagen’s Nørreport station with a series of shotcrete platform roofs.
Nørreport station had been in need of redesigning for a long time, as volumes of metro and passenger traffic have grown since the ’60s, and the station is now the city’s busiest metro station. The new urban plan includes bicycle parking, various access points for the metro, and bus parking areas. All stitched together with a uniform formal vocabulary, composed of an archipelago of microstructures arranged on a 10,500 m2 area. Differences in level are eliminated with the creation of flat surfaces that are easy to walk on, improving pedestrian flows that were much more vulnerable at one time.
In technological terms, the columns on the structures are made of tubular steel profiles 300mm in diameter, filled with concrete so that they look almost invisible in relation to the volume of the roof, the true focus of the design. The weight-bearing steel and concrete structures are assembled on the basis of the scheme of a frame with rods and struts, to which the metal body of the roof is attached, made out of steel panels perforated with 380x380mm holes over which gunite (quick-setting concrete) is sprayed in three phases or layers. The first two layers are 20mm thick, both smoothed over rapidly after inserting a fine metal mesh between the two. The third, finishing layer is 5 mm thick and is more carefully smoothed over to create the best possible appearance. The thickness of this tub structure does not exceed 45mm, and must support not only its own weight but that of the grass planted on each of the platform roofs. Lastly, 10 mm black rubber dilatation joints are positioned at varying distances of 15 to 30 metres so as to emphasise the curved design of the roofs, focusing attention on the forms and the lines of the “ship hull planes”.

Fabrizio Orsini 

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Client: Banedanmark, DSB, City of Copenhagen
Program: A new Nørreport Station
Size: 10,500 m2 urban space, 2,500 parking lots for bikes
Status: 1st prize in international competition 2009, completion 2015
Architects
: COBE and Gottlieb Paludan Architects
Engineers
: Sweco
Contractors
: Aarsleff Rail
Lighting consultant
: Bartenbach LichtLabor
Image credit
: Rasmus Hjortshøj – COAST
Drawing credit
: COBE and Gottlieb Paludan Architects

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