Containers turned into student housing
In the inner city harbour of Copenhagen lie nine blue containers. Together, they form an unusual and innovative student housing project.
The Urban Riggers project consists of nine containers placed on pontoons and turned into 12 student rooms. Like most cities around the world, Copenhagen is short of affordable housing options for students. Lack of land on which to build limits construction and increases the price of housing. The urgent need provides a breeding ground for new innovative ideas: instead of constructing from scratch, Urban Riggers uses containers. And instead of land, they occupy otherwise unused space in the harbour.
All photos: urbanrigger.com
Thinking about students and the environment
To support the creation of a small student community, the containers are placed in a hexagon, forming a common atrium in the middle. The rooftops of the containers are used as common space and for solar panels that provide electricity for the residents.
The floating, CO2-neutral student residence opened this summer. The project does not in itself solve the shortage of student housing in Copenhagen, but it will be interesting to see if there are more Riggers to come, and if the people behind the project are able to export their innovative concept to other cities around the world.
Find more information about Urban Riggers and the ideas behind at www.urbanrigger.com.
Urban Riggers
The owner of Urban Riggers, Kim Loudrup, worked closely with the renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels to bring the project from the idea stage to actual innovative student housing.