Display Award, WAF 2013
The Blue Planet will be officially inaugurated on March 21 by Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness The Prince Consort. The following day, March 22 at 10 am, The Blue Planet will open for the public. Due to the great interest expected at the inauguration, the management of the aquarium recommends that visitors travel by Metro to Kastrup Station.
Inspired by the shape of water in endless motion, Denmark’s new National Aquarium, The Blue Planet is shaped as a great whirlpool, and the building itself tells the story of what awaits inside.
Into Another World
The walls and roofs form a single, continuous flow and the longest of the whirlpool’s arms follows the shape of the landscape and the building, moving into the land inviting visitors inside. As soon as visitors arrive at The Blue Planet,
the building will convey a sense of the special experience that awaits them inside. Here, the whirlpool has pulled you into another world - a world beneath the surface of the sea. If you tilt your head backwards, you understand that you are really a part of this aquarium because the roof above the foyer is made of glass, and at the same time it is the bottom of a pool.
Flexible Flows Between Exhibitions
The Round Room is a centre of navigation in the aquarium, and this is where visitors choose which river, lake or ocean to explore. Each exhibition has its own face towards the Round Room, each with its own entrance, starting with a buffer zone – a platform where sound and images are used to introduce the atmosphere communicated in the ensuing exhibition room.
One with the Surrounding Landscape
In the landscape, the great whirlpool continues through the terrain, the pools and the sea surrounding the building. Like watery currents, the building is not static – the movement
continues into the future by virtue of always allowing possible extensions to add more, simply by letting the lines of the whirlpool grow further out.
Complex Building Project
The Blue Planet is a building of great complexity, and 3XN has taken on the role as project manager for 15 sub-consultants / including Kvorning Exhibition Designers and the Australian aquarium experts AAT. Ambitions have been sky high from the outset, and the construction of the special double curved facade has been a development project in
itself, which has proven a great challenge to all parties involved.
The Blue Planet is scheduled for completion in 2013.
CREDITS
Address: Kajakvej, 2770 Kastrup, DK | Client: The Building Foundation ”Den Blå Planet” (Realdania, Knud Højgaards Fond, Tårnby Municipality) | Competition: 1st prize in invited competition 2008 | Project development: 2010 - 2013 | Size: 9.000 m² | Budget: DKK 630m / €84.6m | Architect: 3XN | Engineer: Moe & Brødsgaard A/S | Aquarium Specialists: AAT
