Gellerup
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Gellerup is the largest solitary modernistic dwelling area in Denmark. Once a modernistic dream and the largest development in Denmark with a range of excellent public amenities - it now suffers from a bad image and is referred to as a worn down problem area or a concrete ghetto the mass media. How can we transform this from a monofunctional concrete ghetto into a diverse urban district? The project seeks to radically change Gellerup by adding a network of new roads that opens up the area, and over the next 20 years double the density by adding diverse functions and typologies in between the old blocks and transform the vast semipublic green areas into urban streets, plazas and a revitalized green heart.
PROJECT DATA
Project name
Gellerup
Typology
Urbanism, Residential, Landscape
Location
Gellerup, Aarhus V, DK
Year
2009
Status
Competition entry, First prize, On-going
Size
110 Ha
Client
Municipality of Aarhus, Brabrans Housing Association
Collaborators
Kjær&Richter, Cowi, JWH Architects, Birk Nielsen
Design team
Tue Hesselberg Foged, Sinus Lynge, Søren Martinussen, Morgan Sebastian Helt, Àngel Lallana Diez-Canseco, Thilde Sander Egede
Gellerup was built as an ambitious modernistic dream of creating a whole new city outside Åarhus in the early seventies.
Modern prefabricated constructions were planned with a budget above 1 million kroner. The project even demanded an onsite fabrication facility for rapid production of prefab elements.
The perspective area is 110 Ha wich is larger than the entire city of Århus. It has 2400 apartments of social housing and is enclosed from the surrounding areas.
Gellerup can develop in an ambiguous urban district that also reflects the multi ethnical ambiguety that is already there instead of imprisioning the inhabitants in an alienated set of norms and visual regulations.
