Vejle
Kong Gauers Gård
Denmark’s first combined nursing home and kindergarten
Gauerslund Fællesinstitution is the first construction project in Denmark to combine a nursing home and daycare centre in one overall building. The project shows the way for rethinking how we build institutions and public buildings in Denmark – and how people can live together across ages and provide added value to each other in everyday life.
- Location
- Vejle
- Year
- In progress
- Developer
- Vejle Municipality
- Area
- 27.000 m2
- Services
- Architect and engineering consultancy and building design
- Sustainability
- UN Sustainability Goals 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,13, 14, 15, 16 and 17
Activity centre for the whole city and the local area
Gauerslund Fællesinstitution is a unique project that will contribute to increasing the cohesion in this local area in Vejle. Many Danish nursing homes already include visits from local kindergartens with great success, and the shared experiences are rewarding for both children and senior citizens. The vision of the project is to create a building that, with its design, will support meetings and interaction between children, nursing home residents and the rest of the city.
A central element in the project is therefore a large activity centre, where nursing home residents, nursing care personnel, the daycare centre guests and citizens from the rest of the city can gather for, for example, café visits, creative workshop days, bingo or market square days – and meet in natural contexts.
Communal outdoor areas with focus on well-being and health
The outdoor areas of the shared institution are designed with the focus being on ensuring that they can be used by many different users daily. For example, the outdoor areas at the daycare centre, which are arranged with activity elements, can be used as playing fields and mountain bike routes that can be used by the daycare centre during the daytime or by children from the neighbouring residential area and the schools of the city. The areas can also be used as balance and motor activity training courses for exercisers who pass by the area on their way through the city, whereas a possible animal garden will be to the great please and benefit for the children of the daycare centre, the nursing home residents and the families of the city.
The SDGs as screening and design tool
In the development of Gauerslund Fællesinstitution, Sweco’s architects and engineers have screened the entire project in relation to social, environmental and economic sustainability based on the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Using the SDGs as a screening and dialogue tool, the team assessed the sustainability potential of the project in the initial design process. This assessment showed that it was possible to incorporate measures that contribute to a greater or lesser extent to 15 out of the 17 SDGs in a Danish context – for example Goal 11 on ‘Sustainable cities and communities’ and Goal 13 on ‘Climate action’, where, for example, work is done on rainwater collection, small-scale food production, biodiversity and healthy and robust building materials with a long life.
