Award-winning ‘Restaurant Village’ noma, designed by BIG – the Bjarke Ingels Group – has recently opened its doors to a new home on the outskirts of Copenhagen’s bustling city centre.
Recognised four times as best in the world by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, noma previously resided in a 16th-century harbourside warehouse before closing its doors and reopening in February 2018 in Christiania. Now built on the site of a protected ex-military warehouse (once used to store mines for the Royal Danish Navy) the concept of the restaurant has been reimagined as an intimate garden village where guests can escape to, enjoying new menu experiences and embracing its presence between two lakes.
“When we found the location for the new noma, we knew we had to come up with an architectural solution, which made sense for our guests, the team and also the surroundings. I believe that what Bjarke Ingels and the BIG team came up with is the ideal non-pretentious solution that we will enjoy calling our home for years to come. To say that we are thrilled with the end result would be an understatement.” Peter Kreiner, Chief Executive Officer, noma
The layout and design of the new noma is very much built around the beating heart of the restaurant: the kitchen. This was key to BIG’s concept where by the project would be made up of a series of separate spaces which were all connected and gathered around the centred kitchen zone. Working under an oversized hood, the chefs have a clear view of the kitchen area, as well as the guests dining spaces.
“Our collaboration with noma Chef and co-owner René Redzepi, and the noma team, has been brewing ever since I had my first dinner there fourteen years ago. Similar to our own idea of hedonistic sustainability—where the more sustainable city is also the most enjoyable city to live in—noma has pioneered a cuisine built upon shared values for creativity and sustainability.
The new noma dissolves the traditional idea of a restaurant into its constituent parts and reassembles them in a way that puts the chefs at the heart of it all. Every part of the restaurant experience—the arrival, the lounge, the barbeque, the wine selection and the private company—is all clustered around the chefs. From their central position, they have a perfect overview to every corner of the restaurant while allowing every single guest to follow what would traditionally happen behind-the-scenes. Each ‘building within the building’ is connected by glass-covered paths that allow chefs and guests to follow the changes in weather, daylight and seasons—making the natural environment an integral part of the culinary experience.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
Guests are invited to relax and embrace the surrounding nature of the restaurant’s outside environment via the cleverly designed skylight and expansive windows that draw the outside in. Feeding the restaurant with home-grown ingredients are three free-standing glass houses that guests are invited to wander amongst. Alongside these sit a giant, walk-in barbecue as well as a welcoming brick lounge. Connecting these buildings and their Nordic materials, are glass-enclosed spaces meaning you never leave the interconnected space of the noma buildings. Finally, a historic 100m long, single story warehouse polishes off the loop of structures built around the kitchen where the behind-the-scenes action of the restaurant takes place.
Discover more from noma here.
Click here to learn more about BIG’s architectural work.
Project Notes:
Client: noma
Size: 1,290 m2
Location: Refshalevej, Copenhagen, Denmark
Collaborators: BIG Ideas, BIG Engineering, NT Consult, Studio David Thulstrup, Thing&Brandt Landskab
Photography: Rasmus Hjortshoj
Sourced from: v2com
BIG-BJARKE INGELS GROUP
PARTNERS-IN-CHARGE: Bjarke Ingels, Finn Nørkjær
PROJECT MANAGER: Ole Elkjær-Larsen, Tobias Hjortdal
PROJECT LEADER: Frederik Lyng
TEAM: Olga Litwa, Lasse Lyhne-Hansen, Athena Morella, Enea Michelesio, Jonas Aarsø Larsen, Eskild Schack Pedersen, Claus Rytter Bruun de Neergaard, Hessam Dadkhah, Allen Dennis Shakir, Göcke Günbulut, MIchael Kepke, Stefan Plugaru, Borko Nikolic, Dag Præstegaard, Timo Harboe Nielsen, Margarita Nutfulina, Nanna Gyldholm Møller, Joos Jerne, Kim Christensen, Tore Banke, Kristoffer Negendahl, Jakob Lange, Hugo Yun Tong Soo, Morten Roar Berg, Yan Ma, Tiago Sá, Ryohei Koike, Yoko Gotoh, Kyle Thomas David Tousant, Geoffrey Eberle, Jinseok Jang, Ren Yang Tan, Nina Vuga, Giedrius Mamavicius, Yehezkiel Wiliardy, Simona Reiciunaite, Yunyoung Choi, Vilius Linge, Tomas Karl
