Bohrs Tårn and UCC

This building marks the entrance to Carlsberg Byen, a new urban district that is coming to life. The enormous structure hosts an educational institution combined with luxury high-rise apartments.

The broad rectangular frame of Bohrs Tower is the first of nine residential high-rises to adorn the skyline of the new Carlsberg Byen district. However it may be interpreted – as an exciting progression in Copenhagen’s contemporary development, or an exclusionary and burdensome eyesore in a historically sensitive area – there is no doubt that the 100-metre-tall tower is the new focal point for the vibrant emerging Carlsberg Campus site.

Bohrs Tårn is named after Danish Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr and it is fitting to his legacy that the first eight floors are merged into a larger complex that hosts the University College Campus (UCC).

The school’s interior is vertically mismatched to create pedagogically inspiring light-filled voids, work areas and social spaces for its 10,000 students.

The tower spans 22 floors with 88 exclusive apartments stretching into the sky. Living rooms are strategically placed in the tower’s four corners, where the windows are broadest, narrowing towards the centre to prevent internal heat loss whilst creating an aesthetic slimming effect to the exterior.

The cladding is a ‘love it or hate it’ rippled brown aluminium sheeting that interacts with daylight to produce various earthy hues – a requirement of the district’s local plan.