Bjarke Ingels Designed This Danish Home to Showcase Its Owner’s Vintage Car Collection

“The challenge was to make a building where the cars are part of the house,” reflects the AD100 star, founder of BIG–Bjarke Ingels Group. “He wanted his collection to be catered for as an integrated part of the home, rather than just hidden away in a garage.”

BIG’s solution responded as much to that mandate as to the site: a onetime agricultural plot that had been embraced by the local community as shared green space. “Alps is a strong word, but by Danish standards it’s as good as it gets,” says Ingels, noting that the sloping grounds had become a popular sledding spot in the area’s otherwise flat terrain. “Our goal was to leave the majority of the land public, so that snow tubing could continue in perpetuity.” Veiby, whose many business ventures include real estate development, envisioned lots for additional houses on the parcel, necessitating a clever master plan with clustered subdivisions. His own house, meanwhile, would sit at the land’s highest point, blessed with the best views but also exposed to the public.

To conceive a home that was both open to the terrain and private, Ingels and his team began with a simple idea: arranging the house into a single long building, with cars at one end and living spaces at the other. “Then we took that logic and wrapped it around the top of the hill, creating a ribbon, or loop, that overlaps itself as it climbs the terrain,” he notes. Cars enter the home at ground level, pulling into a gallery-like expanse that accommodates as many as eight vehicles. From there, rooms snake upward, arranged in a linear plan along a curved, gently sloping corridor that is illuminated by skylights but otherwise windowless. “The hallway has this infinite feeling,” says Ingels. “From many angles, you can’t see the end in either direction.”

When the views reveal themselves they do so magnificently, through floor-to-ceiling glass along the loop’s interior. All of the bedrooms and living areas are elevated above the garage end, affording sweeping vistas of the surrounding meadows, which remain open for public use. Stealing the spotlight, of course, are Veiby’s beloved sports cars, visible across the courtyard. Lined up on a recent visit were several rare Porsches, among them a 1959 356 Outlaw and a 1979 930 Turbo, also known as the Widowmaker. (He keeps additional models beneath the green-roofed carport and in an off-site garage.) Thanks to BIG’s clever form making, Veiby can take them in from the moment he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep, turning off the garage lights remotely from bed.