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Alsion
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On the former railway yard, right by the Als Sund in Sønderborg, lies the unusual combination of functions that form Alsion, a centre for research and culture in southern Denmark. Alsion consists of University of Southern Denmark, the private research park, Forskerpark Syd, a concert hall and even a DSB ticket office. Alsion received the RIBA European Award 2007.
The main concept is a series or “comb” of wings separated by atriums. This comb structure breaks down the building complex into a series of rhythmic strikes, and in scale and principle the individual “houses” in the scheme are similar to the rest of Sønderborg’s buildings facing the sound. Furthermore, this structure allows for additions when needed; hence the concert hall was only added during the project design phase. Building volumes with short gable ends alternate with atria buildings, in order to provide sufficient transparency and daylight. Thus in spite of its size the building fits in with the small town surroundings.
Indoor variation and coherence is considered as well. Like in several others of 3XNs institution buildings and office buildings the idea is to create particularly excellent conditions for informal meetings, interaction and knowledge sharing. The main part of the ground floor is reserved functions that will bring together researchers, business people and students in both the formal, professional context, but not at least in incidental, informal encounters in the university library, the café, the auditoriums and some of the other “meeting points.” Tall, bright rooms open up for views to the sea, and create spatial variation by a lot of internal, visual connections criss-crossing the building. The other three floors contain offices, laboratories and classrooms.
The flooring on all three foyer decks is red polyethylene. The wings are built of in situ cast concrete, covered with pale grey granite. The end walls are of glass and aluminium toward south and west and are equipped with silkscreen decorated glass louvers. The atriums have glass and aluminium facades with silkscreen ornamentation directly on the glass. In general, the surfaces are natural materials in warm colours; ash flooring and acoustic regulating walls in the auditoriums, “the lining” of the meeting box, the covering of the side steps on the seating/stairs in the canteen and a unifying Jura-limestone flooring in the extremely trafficked common areas on the ground floor. The floors in the offices and corridors are cement-based floating floors.
The concert hall has become the home of the Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester and great efforts were made to optimise the acoustical conditions especially the reverberation period, for both symphonic performances as well as for amplified music. The hall is sided with ash panels, just as the louvers and floors are of ash. In the foyer in front of the concert hall, the walls into the hall are decorated by artist Olafur Eliasson using titanium-fired “reflective tiles”. On the Alsion project 3XN collaborated with landscape architect Torben Schønherr.
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| Architect |
Herforth Nielsen Kim |
| Country |
Denmark |
| Region |
Sønderjylland |
| City |
Sønderborg |
| End of the work |
2007 |
| Total surface area |
28,500 m2 |
| Photographer |
Adam Mørk |
| Collaborations |
m Herforth Nielsen, Anne Mikkelsen, Rasmus Holm, Egon Jacobsen, Carsten Olsen, Lars Povlsen, Lars Kjemtrup, Mette Baarup, Lars Gylling, Michael Kruse, Kim Christiansen, Allan Edmund Hansen, Christian Dahl, Anders Barslund Christensen, Morten Kramer, Morten Sjørvad, Nicolaj Borgwardt Schmidt, Ritha Jørgensen, Malene Knudsen, Hanne Højgaard Sørensen, Holger Mouritzen, Jeanette Due Andersen, Lars Serup, Ingvar Stefansson, Thomas Pedersen, Jens Knudsen, Jørgen Søndermark, Pia Hallstrup, Maj Quist, Rikke Zachariasen, Jens Martin Højrup, Esben Trier Nielsen, Christian Bolding |
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