The Flower between the Park and Parking

Opera Park, designed by Cobe, will create a new public park in Copenhagen’s inner harbour, as well as an underground car park with 300 spaces. Located next to the Royal Opera House the new green space will occupy the southernmost of the three Dokøen islands (The Dock Islands), which were once part of the port industry. At the heart of the park is a steel and glass café pavilion, which also provides access to the underground car park. The layout is in the shape of a flower, reminiscent of the historic romantic garden. The structural and façade engineers form Lüchinger+Meyer enthusiastically accompanied the design and planning of the lightweight construction.

A cantilevered ribbed steel structure forms the roof of the pavilion. It is point supported by concrete columns and bracing cores. The glass façade follows the outer edge of the steel structure with simply curved glass panels. In order to minimise the deformation of the steel structure in the façade plane due to the large roof overhang to a minimum, the ribbed structure was fabricated and installed in a superelevated position. The roof structure was then pre-stressed using flat steel as vertical tensile members. This significantly reduced the deformation, allowing the glass sheets to be unloaded vertically and thinner sheets to be used. The glass sheet support concepts allow the sheets to follow the movement of the structure without any significant forced stresses caused by structural torsion and temperature induced deformations.

The photo stream illustrates – in reverse mode – the demanding process of creating the pavilion.

Building contractor: HSM Industri

(Photos: Lüchinger+Meyer, HSM Industri)