Up for debate: architect-activists gather for Rising Architecture Week
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

Many European Capitals of Culture don’t get to be capital of much else. So when they’re crowned, you’d better believe they’re ready. Aarhus, Denmark’s second city and a provincial agricultural hub, has been sharpening up of late – if not for its day in the sun, then for its architectural coming out.
It’s rained most of the year to date. And when Rising Architecture – a week-long festival conceived two years ago in Copenhagen – upped sticks to Aarhus last week, it rained then too. But a lot of folks made the trek.
Tour guides escorted smaller groups between the city’s architectural jewels: the Arne Jacobsen-designed Town Hall, with its 60m lookout; the gentrifying harbour area, undergoing a radical redevelopment by Bjarke Ingels Group (opens in new tab); the DOK1 complex completed in 2015 by Schmidt Hammer Lassen. There were trips, too, to the SHL-designed ARoS contemporary art museum, already a world-class institute before Olafur Eliasson (opens in new tab) built his colourful neon-lit corona on the rooftop. SHL will unveil their cryptic, underground Next Level addition to the museum in 2020.
The conference’s guest curators, Raumlabor, designed the Rising Architecture venue with materials from Troldtekt and Ege Carpets. This cardboard structure was designed with Troldtekt acoustic panels
Aarhus, a city of 335,000, will never outperform even marginally larger cities in sexy product launches. But it does have a direct route to VOLA, the manufacturer of bathroom and kitchen hardware that collaborated with Arne Jacobsen on its iconic (and still ubiquitous) 1968 ‘HV1’ taps. A crucial commercial sponsor of Rising Architecture, VOLA opened its pristine 2008 facility in Horsens to visitors and took the long route around the brass recycling system to introduce the central theme and keyword of the conference: sustainability. VOLA hardware isn’t shaped in moulds; it’s cut away from single slabs of heavy metal, with 100 per cent of the rest of the material poured back into the system.
Back at the festival headquarters in Aarhus, a former freight station called Godsbanen, a schedule of speakers played to the strengths of this college town: reflection, motivation, contemplation and conversation. They spoke to a crowd sprawled on layered carpets, and then they retreated to ‘the playground’, a giant zorb for workshops and activities.
The Terrace of Visions, an installation from List’s ‘Harbour Magnets’ project, discussed during the conference
Architect-activists from Berlin-based practice Raumlabor documented experimental projects that created de facto public spaces and pushed them literally up against the threshold of private space. Tinna C Nielsen, an anthropologist and behavioural economist, flashed a diverse series of portraits meant to trigger our intrinsic gender and ethnic bias, and offered a set of tools to help break global patterns of perception to improve our human-scale design.
Ido Avissar, founder of Paris-based practice List, introduced his ‘Harbour Magnets’, a scattering of nautical-themed installations – a lighthouse, a jetty, a crane – bringing nostalgic interest to the reimagined port. Most rousing was Dutch urban designer Daan Roosegaarde, author of Beijing’s Smog Free Tower and a cycle path near Eindhoven that charges up by day and glows like a Van Gogh canvas in the dark. With a slideshow depicting small-towners tripping up escalators and ‘smart’ ant colonies dozens of metres wide, he lamented ‘cities that are killing us’ and advocated for design that can engineer our way back to good health.
What he said next could apply as much to life as to an architecture festival in a burgeoning European city: ‘Design is not about making another bloody chair.’
The exhibition ‘Collection of Solution’ was installed at the venue of the Rising Architecture conference, in a former freight station called Godsbanen
Paris-based practice List’s ‘Harbour Magnets’ project, discussed during the conference
Studio Roosegaarde’s Lichtpoort concept visualisation
The manufacturing processes behind VOLA’s wares were revealed and explored during the week
A crucial commercial sponsor of Rising Architecture, VOLA opened its pristine facility in Horsens up to visitors to find out about the brass recycling system used in the work, addressing one of the key themes of the conference – sustainability
A sink designed by VOLA
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Rising Architecture Week website (opens in new tab)
-
Lucas Ossendrijver continues his fashion return with Theory collection inspired by New Yorkers
Lucas Ossendrijver looks to the brand’s home city of New York for his second ‘Theory Project’ collection (released 31 March 2023) melding function and elegance in his signature style
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Bosco Sodi’s monumental new Mexico City studio is a multifunctional feat
As Bosco Sodi unveils his new Studio CMDX in Atlampa, Mexico City, we speak to the artist about how the vast Alberto Kalach-designed former warehouse is a feat in multitasking
By Juliana Piskorz • Published
-
Saltviga House is an architectural celebration of leftovers
Saltviga House by Kolman Boye Architects ingeniously uses offcuts from Dinesen planks to create a timber retreat on the south coast of Norway
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Marfa’s El Cosmico campground hotel is getting a 3D-printed revamp
El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas, is being reimagined by BIG, 3D-printing specialist Icon and hotelier Liz Lambert
By Pei-Ru Keh • Published
-
IQON is BIG’s South American debut in Quito
Quito gets a brutalist urban addition – IQON – courtesy of Bjarke Ingels and Ecuadorian developer Uribe Schwarzkopf
By Rainbow Nelson • Published
-
BIG’s Refugee Museum of Denmark addresses ‘one of the world’s greatest challenges’
BIG has converted and extended buildings at a Second World War Danish refugee camp to create the new Refugee Museum of Denmark
By Hannah Silver • Last updated
-
Google Bay View Campus by BIG and Heatherwick Studio reimagines workspace
Google has worked with architects BIG and Heatherwick Studio on the new Bay View Campus in Silicon Valley
By Hannah Silver • Last updated
-
Bjarke Ingels’ Nabr aims to disrupt the housing market
Nabr, the new company co-founded by Bjarke Ingels, real estate entrepreneur Roni Bahar and tech veteran Nick Chim, is planning a housing market shake-up
By Pei-Ru Keh • Last updated
-
BIG news: new book explores form and function with Bjarke Ingels
Formgiving. An Architectural Future History, a monograph dedicated to the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), published by Taschen, delves into the way the mind of the architect
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
BIG designs ‘world's most sustainable furniture factory' in Norway
BIG and Vestre reveal the new design for The Plus, an urban furniture manufacturer company's highly sustainable factory in the Norwegian forest
By Ellie Stathaki • Last updated
-
BIG’s swirling watch museum opens in the Swiss mountains
Taking its cues from the surrounding landscape and the watch brand's rich heritage and product lines, the new Audemars Piguet museum in Vallée de Joux, Switzerland, designed by BIG, throws open its doors to the public
By Ellie Stathaki • Last updated