Year: 2021
Location: Middelfart, Denmark
Status: Parallel assignment 2021
Collaborators: EKJ Rådgivende Ingeniører, Urban Creators, Bureau Detours, Ellen Braae
Visualisations: SLETH

Lillebæltskvarteret is SLETH’s proposal for the parallel assignment for the port of the future in Middelfart.

The vision for Lillebæltskvarteret has its focal point in the very special character of the Middelfart area and builds on the city’s urban development themes, Livability and the Climate Laboratory. The project proposes a dense district with streets, alleys, squares, colors, materials, and building typologies that are well-known for Middelfart.

The buildings break with the current trend of dwellings with iconic view in both Danish and international ports. Instead of looking outwards towards the world, the architecture looks inwards towards Middelfart and creates a renewed hinge between city and port.

The buildings are based on a classic dense urban structure, where space has been created for common local water management and landscape as part of the streetscape.

The district’s local climate strategy is based on nature-based principles. Rather than raising the terrain with refills, in order to achieve a certain safety elevation, the qualities and potentials of the existing terrain are embraced. The settlements are distributed on a number of plateaus – closest to the city, the neighborhood meets the existing terrain height – high enough to be protected against flooding from the coast. At the far end – at Havnetippen – it is kept free of habitation, but instead a maritime landscape is created that can potentially be flooded. One construction site is placed at the same terrain elevation as the harbor site and is carried out as a pilot project: “houses that can withstand water”. Instead of fighting the water with walls and raised ground floors, the architecture must show that buildings can coexist with the water. New construction methods and material compositions make it possible to build more and more in such a way that plinths are not damaged by the water.

Lillebæltskvarteret proposes a partially car-free urban development area, which is characterized by supporting an everyday life with a smaller need to own and use a car.