BIG · 2010 · Copenhagen
A neighbourhood you can bike to the roof of
Completed in 2010 on the edge of Copenhagen's Ørestad district, 8 House is Bjarke Ingels Group's argument that density and suburban life need not be enemies. Shaped like a figure-eight — hence the name — the 61,000-square-metre block bends and dips so that a continuous public path climbs from street level to the tenth floor: a three-dimensional neighbourhood where you can ride a bike from the ground to a penthouse door past row houses, gardens and shops stacked in one building.
Where most large housing blocks isolate their functions, 8 House layers them — retail and offices at the base, apartments above, and a sloping green roof that steps down toward the canal and open countryside to the south. It won the 2011 World Architecture Festival Housing award and helped define the socially-minded, diagrammatic optimism that made BIG one of the most influential practices of its generation.