Nordic real estate company Nrep is developing a residential project with the lowest ever carbon footprint for a multi-story building in Denmark by extensively using wood.
The six-story timber apartment in Nordhavn, Copenhagen's new harbourside district, will have a total area of 13,100 m2.
Designed by the renowned Henning Larsen Architects, Ripple Residence will offer 115 modern apartments and two commercial spaces. Residents can expect to move in by mid-2026.
Through close collaboration with Henning Larsen, the contractor 5E, and Søren Jensen Consulting Engineers, Nrep has replaced traditional concrete elements with timber for load-bearing structures, walls, facades, and even smaller features like bathroom pods and elevator shafts. This significantly reduces the building's carbon emissions to a mere 5kg CO2 per m2, exceeding even Denmark's new stricter requirements.
Nicole van der Star, investment developer at Nrep, said: ‘The new timber construction builds on the many experiences within CO2 reduction that we have from other projects, including the UN17 Village in Ørestad. We are now using this knowledge to create an even stronger CO2 profile. The project will be an open source project, and we will share both blueprint and construction plans so that others can freely copy or be inspired by the project.’
Troels Dam Madsen, associate design director at Henning Larsen, added: ‘In this project, we have embraced a well-known and beloved typology that is traditionally in heavy concrete materials, namely the Copenhagen block. In our quest to reduce the CO2 footprint as much as possible, we have touched all components that are mutually dependent on each other.’
The construction phase prioritizes electric vehicles for transportation and utilizes a complete cover to protect the wood from moisture. The timber construction acts as a natural carbon sink, storing significant amounts of CO2 throughout its lifespan. Additionally, the building's modular design facilitates disassembly and recycling of materials if necessary in the future. The building will also be nearly self-sufficient in energy, thanks to ground spikes, a heat pump, and solar panels.
Denmark is the first country to implement embodied carbon limits in building regulations. From 1 July 2025, multi-storey apartment buildings must have max emissions of 7.5 kg of CO2 per m2 and a max of 1.5 kg of CO2 per m2 for emissions arising from the construction phase.
