Cumulus at Danfoss Universe Science Park

Danfoss Universe is a 5.5-hectare science museum park embedded in the agricultural landscape of Nordborg, next to Danfoss headquarters and its founder’s home.

Af Kirsten Kiser

Here, children and adults gain knowledge through games and learn about the forces of nature, the world of science, and new technologies. The park features inspiring technology, exciting machines and fun activities based on refrigeration, heat, and movement — Danfoss’s core competencies. The very first building in the park, opened in May of 2005, was a giant blue cube with water running down the exterior walls and an artificial geyser in the center. This cube was the Icelandic Pavilion at the Hannover 2000 World Fair.

The two new additions to the park, the Cumulus exhibition building (Curiosity Center) and a cafeteria (Food Factory), extend the park into the winter months by enclosing spaces for exhibitions and scientific experiments.

The Cumulus exhibition building’s cloud-like roofscape (hence its name) is repeated in the cafeteria building.

Communicating between ground and sky, the Danfoss Project can be seen as landscape formations.
— Jürgen Mayer H.

The new buildings, with their metallic facades and tar roofs, rise up from the ground and provide spaces that articulate the fusion of outdoor landscape and indoor exhibition. This active ground modulates according to program and location in the park.

The endpoints of the buildings blur the line between building and park by offering inside-out spaces as display areas and projection surfaces related to the temporary exhibitions inside.

The interior of the Cumulus building is kept in black and white, the only accents being the red cushions on the stairs and the exhibition props.

The Cumulus’s opening exhibition “Bitland” offered visitors of all ages the chance to use, try and test the digital technology we use every day. Interaction was visualized via two large projection walls; a pair of Vista Systems Spyders controlled four Panasonic projectors and permitted edge blending of imagery.

Danfoss Universe is open every day of the week, year-round.