Housing, Copenhagen

Big, bigger, biggest

COPENHAGEN (DK) - With over five hundred apartments – 501 to be precise – this apartment building is Denmark's biggest. It stands in Southern Ørestad, which is also the biggest of its kind – Denmark's biggest suburban development, with a projected population of 10,000.

The biggest apartment building was designed by Bjarke Ingels' BIG which, on name alone, would seem to be the ideal firm for this particular job. This is clear and present architecture, accommodated in a building with a figure-eight ground plan, which slopes down at one end and on the other side bulges out into a tower. It sits on top of 10,000 square metres of commercial space, which is no less staggering for the outskirts of a district on the outskirts of Copenhagen.

The apartments vary in size from a compact 58 to almost 200 square metres, and because of the building's shape, the occupants of no fewer than 109 apartments can claim to live in a penthouse.