Charlotte Garden

Location: Hjørringgade, Copenhagen, Denmark
Client: Harald Simonsens Ejendomsselskab
Team: Stig L. Andersson, Hanne Bruun Møller, Lars Nybye Sørensen
Collaborators: Lundgaard & Tranberg
Design phase: 2003 Construction: 2003-2004
Area: 1,3 ha.
Cost of construction: 1,1 mill. €

Nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2004.

"A Walk With Stig L. Andersson": WMP / Quicktime

Charlottehaven, a housing complex of about 200 units with a service centre, lies on Strandboulevard next to Nordhavn Station.

Charlottehaven is used more and more by local people. On the way to the café, as a meeting place, chatting at the playground – or because they live in the housing blocks of the same name that surround the open park and courtyards on Østerbro in Copenhagen. The garden has become a place and a room.

Turned into a dune landscape, the garden speaks of the historical proximity to the sea. The planting consists mainly of different grasses such as meadow grass, Festuca glauca, Seslevia and Molina caerulea

The experience of the garden takes place through movement or simply being there. In addition it is experienced as an enriched visual extension of living space from the apartments through the windows, where the interplay of colour and billowing form stands out as a friendly and constantly changing pattern.

Unusually for Scandinavian latitudes there is now colour all year round. Colours that change from blue and green in the summer to golden tones in the winter – a space of nuances. The different and changing spaces are held together by paths crossing through the garden, whilst the delineation of the spaces is achieved by means of change of material. A textural and sensory space with a particular attention to nuances and movement.