University of Southern Denmark - Campus Kolding

Our design for Campus Kolding was conceived to promote new ideas about education, supporting various forms of learning and encouraging openness and conversation. Located on the Grønborg grounds in the center of Kolding, the building is close to the harbor, train station, and scenic banks of the river. With its striking triangular shape, it has become a landmark for the city, creating a new central plaza that connects with other educational institutions including the Kolding Design School and International Business College Kolding.

The building’s interior creates a new kind of learning environment that challenges the traditional planning of educational institutions. Oriented around a central, five-story atrium that moves learning into the heart of the campus and away from long corridors or closed classrooms, the building facilitates a sense of transparency. Common areas promote group discussions, and its large stairs create visual connections and encourage movement.

The dynamic atrium allows students to choose between varied learning environments and study places. Similarly, each floor above is organized to promote interaction between teachers, researchers, and students, while also offering areas for quiet reflection and concentration.

Completed back in 2014, our design for Campus Kolding prioritized visual identity, social activation, and functional optimization in equal measure. Earning it an Energy Class 1 certification for its minimized consumption, the project is not only Denmark’s very first low-energy university, but also one of the very first in the world.

In addition to decreasing energy consumption for lighting, heating, cooling, and ventilation, our strategy optimized the passive characteristics of the building, strategically using its shape and structure to replace energy-intensive technological solutions. This has resulted in an energy consumption of just 48 kWh/m²/year, equivalent to 20-25% of consumption in buildings of a similar scale.

Inherent to our plan for the school was a focus on interiors, from the furnishings to the typography used in signs around the building. Informed by feedback from university students and faculty, we created custom furniture for every space, and a unique wayfinding system that incorporates iconography and an original typeface. Intended to reflect the school’s physical form and a playful sense of graphic creativity, elements like the curves of the custom typeface and the clean lines of the central atrium carry the building’s identity throughout, establishing a comprehensive aesthetic in gestures of varying scales.