Alpha and Beta

Alpha and Beta

VIBORG (DK) - The site of a former barracks in the Danish city of Viborg will be transformed into an educational community over the coming years. The completion of the halls of residence, designed by Arkitema, marks the start of the project. Since many of the students are studying Character Animation, the architects took the innovative nature of this study as the starting point for the formal idiom, choice of materials and colour scheme used in their design. The two main buildings on this campus, Alpha and Beta, are simple concrete volumes; what is striking about them is the use of colour and the facade.

This is one of the first Danish projects to use Rodeca panels for facade cladding. Stronger than glass, these polycarbonate panels are virtually unbreakable. Their transparency allows for considerable variation by way of colour, which is especially noticeable in this project because of its basic simplicity. The words alpha and beta, which are printed two storeys high on the concrete, are visible through the blue-green and transparent facade cladding.

The interiors of both buildings are sober in the extreme – white walls and ceilings and black floors. Contrasting with this and the rather cool external colour palette are the colour accents – orange in Alpha and yellow in Beta – used for various details in the entrance area and in some of the communal spaces. The semi-transparent facade panels reflect their surroundings while also allowing a shadowy glimpse of contemporary student life inside these luminous halls of residence. (Hannah Schubert)