There’s a fine line between love and hate when it comes to industrial buildings. Typically dominated by concrete or brick, they are the landmarks most commonly referred to as eyesores.
But as time passes and heritage value increases, these ugly ducklings of the architectural world realise their swan moment.
A former grain silo in Copenhagen is having such a transformation. The 17-storey silo has been converted into contemporary apartments that cleverly disguise and celebrate its history.
The Silo, by Danish architects COBE, is home to 38 single and multi-level apartments, ranging in size from 106 to 401 square metres. The redevelopment is based in Nordhavn, a harbour area in the country’s capital that is undergoing a masterplanned revitalisation.
The top and lower levels of the former silo have public access – a restaurant with panoramic views on the upper floor and a public events space on ground level.
Architects have obscured the harsh concrete exterior of the industrial building by wrapping it in an angular faceted facade made of galvanised steel. The new cladding, which also acts as a climate screen, changes its monolithic form by adding variety of depth and shape.
Inside, the character of the silo has been retained with largely concrete floors and walls. Given it was once used to store and move tonnes of grain, the internal spaces are open and airy. Ceiling heights in some apartments soar to seven metres.
The top of the building is crowned by a mirrored, glazed box. This will allow the restaurant to be flooded with light during the day and give the appearance of a bright lantern at night.
Inside, the character of the silo has been retained with largely concrete floors and walls. Given it was once used to store and move tonnes of grain, the internal spaces are open and airy. Ceiling heights in some apartments soar to seven metres.
The top of the building is crowned by a mirrored, glazed box. This will allow the restaurant to be flooded with light during the day and give the appearance of a bright lantern at night.
David Sutherland, director of planning and design at Fender Katsalidis Architects, is leading the design work on the repurposing of the silos.
“The silos they’re working with in Copenhagen are square or orthogonal in plan, whereas typically in Australia our siloes are circular in plan,” he says.
“What it means is how you can deal with those is very different to the issues we’re facing when working with circular siloes.
“The floorplan of the silo at the Copenhagen project lends itself quite well to inserting apartments like they have. Whereas if you do that in circular silos it’s actually quite difficult.”
Striking a balance between new and old is a major challenge for Sutherland and his team. Changing the exterior too drastically with windows and cladding means losing the original look and feel of the building. Not updating the building enough renders it unlivable.
“As soon as you start to attack the external circular silo walls to put in things like windows, you start to diminish that very pure engineering and structural expression,” Sutherland says.
“So what we’re doing in Cremorne with siloes is a couple of things – one is we’re leaving the external form as it is because we want to retain that circular, extruded form. With the ones on the freeway we’re inserting a whole lot of uses inside the siloes such as event spaces and galleries, and as you get higher we start to introduce other uses such as function spaces and we can start to use lighting from the top.
“And with the other group of siloes, what we’re doing is adding some new form – almost like a ballerina’s tutu – around the siloes in the middle of them and that will have a boutique hotel. But the bottom and the top of the siloes are there and they continue through that building and you still see all of the extruded forms of the siloes.
“So when you walk into the building to go to your room you’ll get the sense of the siloes soaring above and below you. It’s all very exciting.”
Architects are increasingly recreating industrial spaces. In Cape Town, a square silo has recently been transformed into a luxury hotel. The Silo Hotel houses 28 rooms, a modern art gallery and a rooftop pool, garden and bar.
In Melbourne, Nonda Katsalidis renovated silos at Abinger St in Richmond into apartments during the 1990s.
Sutherland says architects around the world are finding increasingly creative ways to reinvent hard-edged industrial spaces.
“We’re at a time when it’s happening more and more and therefore we’re becoming more skilled at it because previously we’ve never had the chance really to do it,” he says.
“We’re all collectively becoming better at retaining them as well. It wouldn’t have been too long ago where the buildings would simply have been demolished. I think collectively as a community and a profession we’re getting better at keeping these old buildings and thinking of how we can transform them rather than knocking them down to build a new building.”
