Lernacken Hotel

Lernacken is a unique landscape.
The site has witnessed continuous transformation – and a Darwinist ability to re-establish itself and its own role in ever new equilibrium.
Man made and manipulated by nature, at the same time arena of obvious and extreme natural qualities.

POSITION
The area represents the last frontier towards the continent, exposed and vulnerable for natural forces and human invasions – and innovations.
The buried bunkers on the site are the memory of an exposed and strategic position.

Depository for the calk quarry, dumping ground, and the last 7 years of natural transformation from being the construction site for the Øresund Bridge – are more recent layers of the history of the site.

From military outpost to industrial area and construction site – towards recreation area and a natural habitat – tells the story of frequently changing roles and a living laboratory.

With the Øresund Bridge connecting to Denmark – and its central position in the Øresund region and the internationally acclaimed and expanding Medicon Valley, the Lernacken site is not only physically, geographically connected to a larger continent, but is also given a virtual, global dimension.

SANDPIT
Some unique site qualities have been constant; the plateau, the cliff, the horizon and the ocean.

Simultaneously the site represent an instability, exposed and extrovert – an open laboratory for mutation and change, temporal shifts, seasons, cycles – and a natural habitat for flora and fauna.

This ephemeral quality we have defined as the
”SANDPIT” Throughout history this sand pit has engendered the hiding, exposing, burying, shaping, screening and the planting of new seeds.

Our interpretation of the landscape suggests a concept avoiding a freeze of a “random” status quo, but aims to repair ruptures, initiate/trigger/encourage natural processes and reveal real site qualities.

REPAIR AND REVEAL
By locating the hotel on the existing parking lot, the least sensitive/vulnerable area of the site is exploited as the new attraction – visually screened by the highest peak of the site and the most established vegetation.

While the public facilities of the hotel like spa, restaurants and conference establish a construction as landscape – it is reversed along the waterfront – the landscape is constructed as a new waterpark.

EVASIVE ICON
360 degrees exposure and an new eye catcher from the Øresund Bridge.
Combination of an icon of clear identity, and a dynamic form with constantly changing expressions.

The hotel becomes an abstracted object without front or back side – floating above the recreated landscape.

The horizontality of the landscape is emphasized by the buried part of the hotel – highly visible from the seaside and the bridge.

All the hotel rooms have spectacular views. The triangular shape with maximized façade length, exploits 3 different orientations – towards the new bridge, the old harbour the new culture park –to the future, the past and the constantly ephemeral present.