Furniture built from doors and stairs made by “flipping” concrete floors feature inside this community hub, which architect Søren Pihlmann has created in a 1960s factory and opened up as part of Copenhagen Architecture Biennial.
Pihlmann’s studio, Pihlmann Architects, won a competition held by commercial art organisation Bikuben Foundation to turn the old factory at Thoravej 29 in northwest Copenhagen into a space for the arts.
It now houses studio and production spaces for young artists, as well as workshops, a library, exhibition rooms and offices for a number of organisations.
Thoravej 29 is a former factory from the 1960s
After receiving the brief for the project, Pihlmann saw an opportunity to design a building that would make use of the waste created by the renovation process itself.
“In the competition brief, it mentioned that they wanted something that should be bold, different and thought-provoking,” Pihlmann told Dezeen on a tour of the building during the opening of Copenhagen Architecture Biennial.
“I said if they want to achieve that, instead of going for an aesthetic design that most people can achieve, they should use their risk-willingness to do something that nobody, at least in the Danish construction industry, is willing to do – find value in the things that are already in the building,” he added.
“The ultimate goal was to look at the house as its own ecological system and see how much we could achieve with things that were already present in the house itself.”
Søren Pihlmann has turned some of its floors into staircases
One of the main changes to the 6,224-square-metre building that the Bikuben Foundation had asked for was creating double and triple-height spaces, which involved opening up the floors and removing a lot of concrete.
Rather than letting it go to waste, Pihlmann Architects “flipped” the floors up or down, turning them into concrete staircases.
“None of the concrete has been thrown out; it’s just been utilised for various purposes,” said Pihlmann.
Leftover concrete and wood have been used to make furniture
Some of the leftover concrete has also been used to create furniture that is dotted around the five-storey Thoravej 29 building, including in the ground-floor cafe space, which is open to the public, and in communal rest areas on the higher floors.
The studio also made some structural changes to the building, extending its facade by 1.5 metres.
“It offers a very flexible way in which this building, over time, can adapt to different uses, and it also became a way to energy-optimise the existing facade,” Pihlmann said.
Deconstructed barns become cocooning pavilion at Copenhagen Architecture Biennial
The yellow-brick exterior of the building has been retained in areas, while some of it was reused to create a brick pavement that surrounds Thoravej 29.
“When you enter the building, you’re walking on a yellow brick pavement,” the architect explained.
“[It] is actually the lower wall partitions that used to be underneath the windows that have been cut out and flipped down to form this brick pavement that you can also see on the back side.”
Bricks from the facades are used as pavement
Pihlmann’s studio also transformed wooden waste from the building, including old doors, into furniture, shelves and tables for the space.
“We found a supplier in Jutland, Denmark, that was able to take all our wooden waste, shred it into particles and make new particle boards out of our own wooden waste,” Pihlmann said.
“Most of the furniture that you see in the house actually derives from the waste material from the building itself that has just been shredded and formed into new particle boards.”
The community hub is home to artists
Thoravej 29 was designed to be most accessible on the ground floor, which is open to the public, and becomes more tailored to individual users the higher up in the space you go.
It now has 35 tenants, ranging from individual artists to larger organisations.
The goal to repurpose materials that normally would have gone to waste was successful, with 95 per cent of materials in the project reused, according to the Thoravej 29 team.
In addition, the team said CO2 emissions were reduced by up to 88 per cent compared to new construction.
Ninety-five per cent of the material palette was reused
For Pihlmann, reusing materials whenever possible should always be the starting point for renovations.
“Of course, at some point you’ll end up introducing new things, but I think you need to revisit the existing to such a degree that you’re fully aware that when you introduce new stuff, it’s because there’s a reason for it,” he concluded.
The building was among many on show as part of the Copenhagen Architecture Biennial, for which Dezeen is a media partner.
During the event’s opening last week, we spoke to the director of the biennial about why “it’s time for activism” and explored pavilions made out of wood salvaged from deconstructed barns and reclaimed bricks and ventilation pipes.
The photography is by Hampus Berndtson.
Copenhagen Architecture Biennial runs from 18 September to 19 October 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.