Kengo Kuma's Copenhagen Bathhouse Sinks a Pool Between Five Brick Towers

By Amara Osei

Roughly 300,000 handmade bricks will wrap KAI, the Water Culture House that Kengo Kuma & Associates has built on Copenhagen's Papirøen — Paper Island — and the facility opens its doors on December 5, 2026.

The defining move sits between the towers: an open-air swimming pool set in the valley formed by five brick volumes of varying heights. The 5,800-square-meter public facility gathers ten pools, wellness spaces and cultural activities on the island's northwestern corner, near the city's Opera House and Opera Park.

Rather than presenting one monumental facade, the towers rise to different heights, producing a silhouette that shifts as people move around it. Their peaked forms echo Paper Island's pyramid-shaped residential buildings. Call it neighborly masonry.

What does the brickwork actually do?

Plenty. The bricks, arranged in staggered, stepped patterns on both interior and exterior, carry subtle shade variations that keep the surfaces from reading as uniform planes. Below the towers, a glazed base makes the masonry appear suspended — substantial upper volumes over a transparent lower edge, so the building meets the waterfront without becoming an unbroken wall.

The masonry also handles daylight. Openings interrupt its surface, admitting light and framing fragments of the surroundings. The Danish Architecture Center connects this filtered illumination to komorebi, the Japanese term for sunlight passing through leaves. Here the poetic reference becomes a practical device: light broken into small patches rather than broad glass walls.

How are the pools organized?

By rhythm, not bulk. The ground floor holds a 25-meter pool, a teaching pool and three children's play pools. Upstairs, the outdoor Valley Pool places swimmers between the towers under open sky. A separate heated onsen overlooks the harbor, making the waterfront part of the bathing experience rather than simply the building's address.

According to executive architect Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, four of the brick volumes follow the outlines of the pools beneath them, while the tallest tower — the Culture Tower — will host cultural and movement activities beyond swimming. Each activity gets its own spatial identity instead of one undifferentiated hall.

Where did the project come from?

A public ideas competition in 2015, which drew 160 submissions — most of them asking for swimming facilities. Kuma's practice went on to win the architectural competition with Cornelius Vöge and engineering firm Søren Jensen. The history matters: a waterfront landmark grew from a request for everyday public infrastructure.

Outside, a public timber deck and harbor bath are planned, though the bathing facilities are expected to open in early 2027, after the building's December 2026 debut. That public edge gives KAI a role for people who never swim a lap — which, on a Copenhagen winter day, may be most of us.