Home Detail Inspiration Shop

In order to attract scientific talent, employers need to provide a well-designed work environment as well as good job opportunities. In recent years, the Panum Institute in Copenhagen seemed to fulfil these requirements to a lesser and lesser degree. The building complex, designed in the 1970s and 1980s had become too small for the medical research institute which it accommodated and its brutalist concrete aesthetic was no longer very popular. In 2010, the University and the Danish Building and Property Agency, the state’s property enterprise and developer, invited seven interdisciplinary teams of architects and engineers to participate in a competition for a new building extension. 

Seven years later and the new building by C. F. Møller Architects, SLA landscape architects and the engineering firm Rambøll has been completed at a cost of around 200 million Euros. About 40 % of the construction budget was provided by the foundation of the ship owner Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller who died in 2012. In his memory, the building is now officially called the Mærsk Tower. The new-build sits confidently in the centre of a triangular city block, the north-eastern side of which is held by the 350-metre-long Panum complex. St Johannes Church and its kindergarten are situated to the south-west and five to six-storey high residential buildings surround the site on the remaining two sides. The triangular form of the 75-metre-high new-build is the result of planning regulations for setback distances, whilst the rounded corners, apart from aesthetic considerations, are designed to reduce wind turbulence on the tower facades.