In this animated clip from French film production studio 11h45, penguins have taken over ‘The Iceberg,’ winner of ArchDaily’s 2015 Building of the Year for Best Housing Project. Imagining the building as a literal iceberg, the filmmakers envisioned the designed by SeARCH + CEBRA + JDS + Louis Paillard Architects-designed complex as an antarctic wonderland where penguins could slip, slide and dive down the structure’s sharp rooflines.
The project was an early idea for a video commissioned by JDS Architects’ Julien de Smedt, who tasked 11h45 with portraying the building from an unusual perspective. The final video concept, released in 2014, was to capture the building as it would be seen by a seagull.
See more of 11h45’s work, here.
The Iceberg / SeARCH + CEBRA + JDS + Louis Paillard Architects
140 From the architect. The Iceberg is located at a prime location on the outmost harbour front in Aarhus’ new quarter Aarhus Ø (Aarhus East) and consists of 208 apartments. Like many other worn-out industrial harbour areas, the former container port of Aarhus is being transformed into a vibrant new neighbourhood.
Does it Pay to Invest in Good Architecture? The Case of ‘The Iceberg’ in Aarhus, Denmark
It is often said that architecture only makes projects more expensive. That architects only add a series of arbitrary and capricious complexities that could be avoided in order to lower their costs, and that the project could still work exactly the same without them. Is this true in all cases?