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Arcgency: Temporary student housing in repurposed containers

October 28, 2022

How can we create affordable student housing in urban areas? CPH Village is informed by a resource-conscious approach for making temporary housing of high quality.

Temporary student housing in repurposed containers

The entire life cycle of a building is in focus at CPH Village. Repurposed containers are adapted into housing using the principles of Design for Disassembly that enables the buildings to be easily taken apart, moved and reassembled.

The first CPH Village developed by Arcgency is located at Refshaleøen, a former shipyard in Copenhagen. The student villages are temporary because the only vacant and affordable land in the city is located in former industrial areas and ports, which are currently zoned with restrictions on permanent development. The modular village can be relocated to a new site when the current area is ready for permanent development. This approach incites the use of quality materials as it is only the site that is temporary – the building can have a long life and all materials can be reused or recycled after its end-of-use.

Each housing unit is built into a 40 ft container. They contain a shared entrance and bathroom, plus two private rooms, each with a large window and kitchenette. The aesthetics are raw; all joints are made with visible screws and the walls are dented from the containers’ previous life at sea.

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About Arcgency

CPH Village is a company on a mission to solve the student housing crisis by building sustainable and modular villages with value driven communities. To do the architectural design CPH Village has teamed up with Arcgency – a Copenhagen-based architecture office with an expertise in ​design for disassembly​ and ​adaptive reuse​. At ​Arcgency​, they see it as their responsibility to create a better world and better cities through sustainable development. Other projects by Arcgency: The Krane, Absalon and STACK I+II.

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