Old Bits, New Tricks

Refshaleøen was created through land reclamation in the late nineteenth century, initially to accommodate the expanding operations of Burmeister & Wain (B&W). Between 1873 and 1986, the island was enlarged several times to support the shipyard, where approximately 800 ships were built. At its peak, B&W employed around 10,000 workers across its forges, steam plants, and assembly halls—a place where countless individual components were assembled into some of the world's largest vessels.

The island developed as a complete industrial landscape, with buildings that were continuously transformed, extended, and adapted to accommodate changing functions over time. These large halls were organised according to spatial logics closely tied to the specific forms of production they housed. This industrial logic is significant because it has enabled spaces for production and manufacturing to remain in close proximity to the city, even after the closure of B&W. 

After the bankruptcy of B&W in 1996, the island gradually reopened. In the early years, most buildings were still used for manufacturing. But over time, the balance shifted. Industrial uses slowly started to disappear, while cultural and leisure activities increased.

Today, Refshaleøen hosts festivals, street food markets, extreme sports facilities, studios, offices, restaurants, and much more. It has transformed into a mixed cultural and leisure site, with high activity during the warmer months. The larger site, which for most of its history has been a place of industrial production, now features only a few remaining spaces where active production still takes place.

Our project is interested in how Refshaleøen's past logic of manufacturing could be kept alive through education and making, allowing production to become part of the site's future rather than existing only as a visual reminder within its remaining halls.

Refshaleøen is currently undergoing large-scale masterplanning, with dramatic changes proposed to transform the island into a new urban housing district.

Land ownership is divided: 65% belongs to Refshaleøens Ejendomsselskab, backed primarily by pension funds such as PFA and PensAm with direct financial interests in the development, and 35% to By & Havn, the public company behind areas such as Ørestad and Nordhavn.

The masterplan states ambitions to preserve the character of Refshaleøen, work with sustainability, create strong communities, and produce a distinctly Copenhagen city district. Among its sustainability commitments are plans to incorporate reused elements from the island's demolition and renovation process. This project takes that stated commitment seriously, and uses it as a starting point to explore what reuse as a practice could actually look like within the masterplan's vision.

Refshaleøen is defined by a loose collection of buildings spread across large open grounds. The wide expanses of asphalt and concrete left over from the shipyard era have never been built on, and these open surfaces are as defining to the place as the buildings themselves. The built fabric varies considerably, from large industrial halls to smaller sheds and temporary structures, with substantial gaps in between.

This is set to change significantly. A planned metro extension, cycle bridge, and ring road linking Amager through Lynetteholm to Nordhavn will make Refshaleøen far more connected to the rest of the city. The future of Biofos to the north remains uncertain, with open questions about whether industry will be able to stay as the area transforms into a denser urban neighbourhood.

Our site sits within one of the densest and most active parts of the island, surrounded by Reffen and other hospitality programmes, and CPH Village student housing to the south-west. The density here has not been planned so much as accumulated. Temporary structures, sheds, containers, and equipment have been added by different businesses over time, layering onto an industrial landscape that was never designed to be inhabited at human scale.

The building itself has changed many times. In the 1950s it replaced an earlier brick structure, as many buildings on Refshaleøen were rebuilt in concrete to accommodate the larger spans required for shipyard production. It was extended again in the early 1960s. Today it is shared between a photographer, Reffen's own workshop, a car mechanic, and Mikkeller brewery at the far end. Our proposal continues this logic of extension and adaptation, but with a different approach. Where the building's past was shaped by demolition and replacement, we propose re-use as the guiding principle, adding a new layer to the space that reflects a shift in how we think about construction and the built environment.

A steel manufacturer occupies what was once a B&W workshop on Refshaleøen. The building has been gradually obscured by an accumulation of temporary sheds, containers, and equipment that have built up around it over time. While the surrounding area has filled in with street food markets, a climbing wall, and an ice cream shop, the workshop remains one of the few places on the island where the industrial logic of these halls is still in use, and the last place where steel manufacturing takes place.

Production spills well beyond the concrete shell. The surrounding yard functions as an extension of the workshop floor, with storage, delivery, and fabrication bleeding into each other. Inside, the hall is a single large open space under a vaulted roof with a central skylight, cranes running along the ceiling, and between ten and fifteen metalworkers typically present. The space is organised entirely around production. Individual working zones are laid out across the floor, each dedicated to a single person and a specific machine or task. Low partition walls between them serve a practical purpose, stopping workers from being blinded by each other's welding. The zones shift when a larger piece needs to be fabricated, and offcuts and leftover material are stored on whatever surface is available.

For residents next door, the workshop is difficult to live alongside. It raises a question the masterplan has not resolved: how can a working production hall exist within a housing development without being diminished to the point where it can no longer function?

To understand where steel actually goes after a building comes down, we traced the material through several points in its lifecycle. Through conducting interviews with actors within this field we mapped this journey: from design and manufacturing through construction, demolition, and onward to either careful reuse, scrap yards, recycling, or landfill.

Since the closure of B&W, many temporary structures have accumulated across the island for the needs of the different businesses and venues that moved in. With the masterplan planning at 150% density, many of these sheds have an uncertain future. We carried out registrations across several of them, building up a picture of what is available and what is at risk of being lost. These structures are rarely thought into the new development of an area, they are quick to be sidelined. We see that as an opportunity.

What buildings like this contain is not a uniform material but a family of components: beams, profiles, sheets, frames each with different properties, tolerances, and potential for reuse. Identifying and registering that family is the first step toward being able to work with it.