[ PLOT = BIG + JDS ] VM Houses

Architects: BIG + JDS = PLOT
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Collaborators: Plot, JDS, MOE & Brodsgaard
Client: Hopfner A/S, Dansk Olie Kompagni A/S
Contractor: Hopfner A/S
Program: 230 Apartments
Construction period: 2004 - 2005
Total Area: 25000 sqm
Photography: BIG & JDS


The VM Houses are two residential blocks formed as the letters V and M. The blocks are formed as such to allow for daylight, privacy and views. The vis-a-vis with the neighbour is eliminated by pushing the slab in its centre, ensuring diagonal views to the vast and open, surrounding fields. All apartments have a double-height space to the north and wide panoramic views to the south. The logic of the diagonal slab utilized in the V house is broken down in smaller portions for the M house. In this project, the typology of the Unite d’ Habitation of Le Corbusier is reinterpreted and improved; the central corridors are short and receive light from both ends, like bullet holes penetrating the building. The VM Houses offer more than 80 different apartment types that are programmatically flexible and open to the individual needs of contemporary life - a mosaic of different life forms.