Based on a simple architectural concept, titled ‘The Green Circuit’, a combination of permanent and flexible building elements ensures the Danish Armed Forces a long-term strategy for sustainable solutions and a visionary showcase project.
Description project by ADEPT
‘The Green Circuit’ is a tool for development that connects the barracks area in one fluid landscape movement and ensures a strengthened sense of community as it embraces the widespread barracks. In a simple way, the proposal sums up the idea of a clearly understandable string that connects the barracks, the city and the landscape– and replaces older and obsolete buildings with standardised and flexible building systems, developed to meet existing and future demands of saving resources and optimizing operational costs.
The winning proposal establishes a significant visual identity by emphasising the flexibility and adaptable character of the Danish Armed Forces. The combination of ‘sustainable and flexible’ not only points to the actual rebuilding of the Aalborg Barracks, but also unfolds the potential to create a global showcase project identifying a modern version of the armed forces with an evidently sustainable profile.
‘The Green Circuit’ counts, besides a clear and visual landscape structure, three new buildings of approx 9.000 m2. Parts of these buildings is designed as flexible building structures made from 20- and 40-foot containers, that rapidly and efficiently can be transformed to match the sudden changes of function and areas that characterise the armed forces due to political conversions and military operations.
The three new buildings, the Multi-Building, the Workshop Building and the Office/Barrack Building are quite simply put together from two architectural elements: a central “Hub” and a “Circuit”. The Hub and the Circuit are supplements to each other and make it possible to transform the building structures into a new functionality and at a new location in a very short time. The Hub is flexible and permanent, while the Circuit is flexible and movable. The building elements are constructed from a simple load-carrying system consisting of components that allow facade elements to be dismantled without affecting the constructive principle of the overall building.
