Denmark, ‘This is not a Home’

Copenhagen has around 3.000 homeless, people who are outside the Welfare State for different reasons. In winter their situation -with temperatures under minus ten degrees- could become a humanitarian emergency. Our project of containers can receive 20 homeless in the six coldest months of the year.

We proposed this project to different organizations of citizens, however the answer was always the same; ‘we like your idea, but please not in my back yard’. Consequentely we found a local Museum, Den Frie, which offer its garden to develop the project due to the Danish Law accepts temporary art work on the public space for half a year, the same amount of months that we needed to safe the homeless in winter season. Then we presented the project as a piece of art to the commune, in order to enter in the Danish law and to avoid the high costs of the demanding construction level in denmark for permanent buildings. We called to this project ´This is not a Home´ paraphrasing Marcel Duchamp quote who said a century ago in New York 1917 “This is not a Toilet” Duchamp changed the art world forever.

Jorge Lobos, ARCH+H.R. Erik Juul E.Architecture.dk, Den Frie Museum, Velux foundation 2010-2011

AWARD: Finalist 13th Triennal of Sophia INTERACH Bulgaria 2012