A ray of hope on the Danish west coast – The Esbjerg Maritime Center

Anyone approaching the harbor town of Esbjerg on the Danish west coast from the water has recently been attracted by a warm glow of light. This is packaged in extraordinary architecture designed by WERK Arkitekter and Snøhetta. Find out more here.

Working together, they won the competition to develop a new maritime center at this prominent location back in 2019. They were looking for a design that would not only serve as a common space for water sports clubs and visitors along the harbor, but would also become an architectural landmark for Esbjerg. WERK Arkitekter and Snøhetta won the competition with their design “The Lantern”. Their concept focused on the development of a maritime place for the community.

“The maritime center has room for everyone; from the experienced diver or professional kayaker to a crab-fishing school class or a random passer-by. Maritime Center invites everyone to a peek inside the maritime life and outwards to the sea with its the endless horizon,” explains Frank D. Foray, lead architect and project manager atSnøhetta . The planners chose a circular, open design for this purpose. Visitors should be able to access the building from all sides. Inside, the Maritime Center accommodates rooms for several water sports clubs, boat storage, training rooms, a large workshop area and space for social facilities.

The comprehensive room program is spread over two floors. The rowing, kayaking, sailing, diving and triathlon clubs are housed on the upper floor of thebuilding . There are also common rooms, an education center and training facilities. The first floor, on the other hand, is taken up by boat storage and workshop rooms. A bridge connects the lower level directly to the sea, making it easy to manage the logistics for boats. The raised, publiclyaccessible terrace acts as an intermediary level between the two floors. It is connected to the second floor and is accessible via two main staircases that form a kind of amphitheater.

In addition to its sophisticated functionality, “The Lantern” is particularly impressive due to its aesthetic appeal. “The goal has been to create a unique destination that lights up the Danish West Coast, so everyone can find their way to new communities at the sea,” says Thomas Kock, Creative Director at WERK Arkitekter, explaining not only the design language and choice of materials, but also the name of the project. Large windows throughout the building façade provide plenty of daylight inside and guarantee views of the surroundings. Daylight enters the core of the first floor through roundholesin the terrace on the upper floor. A visual and social vertical connection is created. At the same time, the windows in the façade effectively stage the center for outside perception. The warm light that falls through the windows in the dark illuminates “The Lantern” like a lantern visible from afar.

For the materiality and geometry, the architects were inspiredby the craftsmanship of wooden boat building. The Esbjerg Maritime Center thus pays homage to the town’s maritime tradition and highlights the importance of the port for the town. This translation can be experienced not only in the use of wood as a building material, but is also revealed in many design details. For example, WERK Arkitekter and Snøhetta based their design on the element of water and the wave effect that is created when a stone is thrown into the water. The alignment of the individual panels is also anything but arbitrary. The resulting play of shadows is reminiscent of the shape of kayaks. The rhythmic façade also extends to the roof surfaces. Here, the planners also installed several solar cells in a belt around the upper edge.

In addition to wood, concrete is the dominant building material. The building is made of concrete up to the second floor, which was poured in one go. This allows the structure to withstand periods of flooding if the water exceeds the new surrounding dam. The wooden façade was also designed to withstandthe harsh weather conditions on site.

It was precisely this combination of poetic beauty and practical robustness that was convincing in the competition at the time and is convincing today in the execution. With “The Lantern”, WERK Arkitekter and Snøhetta seek a balance between the fascinating and incessantmovements of the sea and the practical day-to-day tasks that arise in the Maritime Center. Or, to put it in the words of the planners themselves: “A symbiosis between the beautiful and the raw, the elegant and the robust”.

Snøhetta has developed a special project on the Norwegian Lysefjord: The Bolder huts seem to float above the ground and blend in with nature.