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This glass pavilion atop Greenland UNESCO World Heritage site celebrates Inuit culture and heritage

2022-07-20T14:54:00-04:00

A recent project designed and built by Swedish architect Konstantin Ikonomidis located within a UNESCO World Heritage site in Greenland celebrates Inuit cultural heritage and traditional knowledge of the environment.

Called the Qaammat pavilion, the structure is situated in Sarafannguit, a cultural landscape in West Greenland and a World Heritage site since 2018. It was developed in cooperation with UNESCO, the Qeqqata Municipality, and the Sisimiut Museum.

Image: Julien Lanoo

The pavilion’s location is defined by the two fjords that meet on Sarfannguit’s eastern tip on the hills. This was carefully chosen by the local community, site manager Paninnguaq Fleischer-Lyberth and Ikonomidis. The installation will serve as a landmark and gathering space where the World Heritage site’s surroundings can be experienced by locals and visitors.

Image: Julien Lanoo

As per the architect's project description: “The Qaammat pavilion is designed as a poetic and aesthetic object, but most important...

Greenland is melting

2019-08-02T14:52:00-04:00

More than 11 billion tons of ice was lost to the oceans by surface melt on Wednesday alone, creating a net mass ice loss of some 217 billion tons from Greenland in July. The scope of Wednesday’s ice melt is a number difficult to grasp. To understand just how much ice is being lost, a mere 1 billion tons—or 1 gigaton—of ice loss is equivalent to about 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the Danish Meteorological Institute said.

The Associated Press reports that a summer heatwave that recently scorched Europe has moved north to Greenland, where the elevated temperatures have produced record glacial melt.

While 82-percent of Greenland is covered in ice, nearly 60-percent of the island's total ice sheet is showing signs of melting, a record high, the Danish Meteorological Institute tells The Associated Press.

According to the institute's Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist, global sea levels are due to rise .01-inch for every 110 billion tons of ice melt that occurs on the continent.

Is Greenland melting before our eyes? It looks like yes.

The Chinese government is building affordable housing in Brooklyn

2014-12-16T14:44:00-05:00

Greenland’s affordable housing venture in Brooklyn, 298 apartments in an 18-story building in Prospect Heights, is part of a larger 15-tower apartment project in Atlantic Yards, (now rebranded “Pacific Park) adjacent to the Barclays Center, which will cost an estimated $4.9 billion to build. Half of the 298 units are supposed to be for families that make as low as 40% of the median income for the area—that’s about $33,560 for a family of four.

schmidt hammer lassen + Friis & Moltke to Design Correctional Facility in Greenland

2013-05-21T17:40:00-04:00

schmidt hammer lassen architects, in collaboration with fellow Danish architects Friis & Moltke, landscape architects Møller & Grønborg and contractor Rambøll A/S, has won the competition to design the correctional facility Ny Anstalt in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. This is the first such facility in Greenland.

’Greenland Migrating’ at Denmark’s Venice Biennale Exhibition

2012-08-30T18:39:00-04:00

Last week, Bustler presented the project Connecting Greenland: AIR+PORT, designed by BIG, TENU, Julie Hardenberg and Inuk Silas Høgh, as part of the exhibition Possible Greenland in the Danish pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, Italy. Today's featured project from Possible Greenland is Greenland Migrating, developed in a collaboration between Henning Larsen Architects, David Garcia Studio and KITAA Architects.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

BIG at the Danish Pavilion in Venice

2012-08-23T15:36:00-04:00

BIG in collaboration with TENU, Julie Hardenberg and Inuk Silas Høgh present Connecting Greenland: AIR+PORT as a part of the exhibition “POSSIBLE GREENLAND” at the Danish Biennale di Venezia Pavilion, exploring the potentials and challenges that Greenland is facing as the country gains global attention.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.