Counselling Center (Hejmdal) Danish Cancer Society at dusk, Aarhus, Denmark. Architect: Gehry Partners, LLP. Engineer: Søren Jensen Rådgivende Ingeniørfirma. Photo: Quintin Lake
Interior view looking up to roof apex of of 45x45cm solid Douglas Fir members and steel junction. Photo: Quintin Lake
This building which opened in 2009 inspired by the Maggie’s Centres in the UK is the Danish Cancer Society’s first new non-institutional counselling centre. The new counselling centre known as Hejmdal or Cancer Patients House is designed by Architect Gehry Partners & Engineer Søren Jensen. The project is a renovation of an existing 1908 building, designed by the Danish architect Rudolf Clausen, which serves as a gateway to the Aarhus Hospital campus.
The design maintains the existing historic house walls and windows and inserts two new floor levels above the expanded lower level of the house. These floors are supported independently from the existing exterior walls creating an uninterrupted space, or canyon, allowing natural light from the new glass roof to reach all levels of the house.
The preservation of the existing masonry facades is achieved by the use of 45x45cm solid Douglas Fir members for both the new glazed new roof and a highly unusual timber structure inserted into the building posed significant engineering challenges.
These photos were commissioned by the engineering firm of the project: Søren Jensen
Like Gehry’s Architecture? See my photographs of his home and the first deconstructivist building Gehry House in Santa Monica, LA and his later Walt Disney Concert Hall, LA
Photography © Quintin Lake, 2011
Geometry & Silence 