University building in Copenhagen
In order to attract scientific talent, employers need to provide a well-designed work environment as well as good job opportunities. In recent years, the Panum Institute in Copenhagen seemed to fulfil these requirements to a lesser and lesser degree. The building complex, designed in the 1970s and 1980s had become too small for the medical research institute which it accommodated and its brutalist concrete aesthetic was no longer very popular. In 2010, the University and the Danish Building and Property Agency, the state’s property enterprise and developer, invited seven interdisciplinary teams of architects and engineers to participate in a competition for a new building extension.
