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With a simple facade design in earth tones, Kolding's new meeting point, Samvaerket, is created to blend in with the scenic surroundings. GPP Architects has designed the centre, which houses the church's activities and cultural events and is clad with facade panels in a raw and patinated look.
Samvaerket is located in an attractive park area in Kolding (Denmark). The new-build complex of 2400 m2 has room for 1000 people, making it suitable for hosting several social, cultural and church activities. Although the centre could already open its doors before Christmas 2021, it has taken time to achieve the final facade look. The building is covered with untreated Rockpanel facade boards that have been coloured by sun, rain and wind.
Lars Schmidt, director of Samvaerket: “We are very satisfied with the result and happy with the positive reactions we receive from locals who think that Samvaerket has become a beautiful and exciting building. It is important that the centre fits into the surroundings, and the earth-coloured facade panels help to ensure this.
“It has been a somewhat exciting process, as the facade panels had a different colour than the current one when they were mounted. Therefore, I initially got a lot of questions from locals regarding the colour of the building. I could happily assure you that in a short time the panels would patinate to the beautiful natural colour that now characterizes the facade.”
Colours create harmony between old and new
Samvaerket is built as an extension of its neighbour, an existing folk high school building from 1954, and the centre's foyer connects the two now. The choice of colour has been crucial in getting new and old to go hand in hand. Cecilie Anhøj Kruse, architect at GPP Arkitekter, explains: “Samvaerket is created with a simple and modern expression that fits to the place as a nice extension of the folk high school building, which is a classic red stone building. Not in the least because the shades of the facade panels in their earth colour scale harmonize with the red bricks. At the same time, the boards have a structure in the surface, which adds character and life to the facade.”
The green location fully comes into its own thanks to large windows that provide unobstructed views of the park and lake. Here, the black window frames form a nice contrast to the golden-brown colour:
“On one side of the building, an open and transparent facade with large window sections faces the green area, while variation with a more closed facade expression has been created on the opposite side,” says Cecilie Anhøj Kruse.
Living facade material – unique facade
Kolding's new church and cultural centre is clad with Rockpanel Natural. Anette Løff Hornung, architect consultant at Rockpanel: “Samvaerket has in many ways got a unique facade. The exciting thing about the chosen product is that it is a living material without surface treatment, which therefore patinates to a different expression depending on the weather conditions at the given location.
“At the same time, it helps to create a facade that is sustainable. The facade panels are made of stone wool, which is sustainable by nature. They are made from 50 percent recycled material and are fully recyclable. In addition, they have a long lifespan of at least 50 years.”
Lars Schmidt confirms that easy maintenance and sustainability have played a role: “It is a great advantage that the boards are sustainable. We have generally thought about the future in several ways, and therefore we have also emphasized that the facade should be easy to maintain, resistant from weather and wind influences and last a long time, and here the natural facade panels are a really good choice.”
