Elsinore Harbour is the home of a new subterranean maritime museum. Ramboll has made the subterranean museum possible, with its innovative solutions and cross-disciplinary collaborations.
The museum is one of a kind – also on an international scale. It is situated underground and under the sea level, encircling a 150m dry dock where the wharf used to be.
The building is not permitted to extend over the ground and obscure the view of Kronborg Castle. Instead, the access road leading to the castle will pass over the museum and dry dock, thus providing visibility and at the same time ensuring that the castle will not be upstaged. The old dock is preserved and will be utilised as an open exhibition space making the building itself a visual manifestation of maritime history.
461 ground anchors will secure the museum
BIG architects have created the architectonic vision while Ramboll has contributed with a lot of innovation and an intensive cross-disciplinary collaboration, which has made it possible to overcome the technical and aesthetic challenges. The relatively small building site, combined with the sandy conditions and the fact that construction takes place underground, 9m below sea level, has made it necessary to invent solutions not previously attempted in Denmark.
The museum and the dock are secured with 461 ground anchors that are tethered to the layer of limestone beneath the sandy ocean bed, 40m below ground. In order to install these anchors, and to establish the new underground construction for the museum, it was necessary to create a watertight construction pit.
A 40 meter deep cut-off system was achieved by constructing a 600mm thick slurry wall along the circumference of the construction pit, combined with a sheet-pile wall to retain the soil- and water pressure along the edges of the construction pit.
Ramboll’s special services
Apart from geotechnical surveys the planning includes building- and construction work as well as all installations.
Due to the unusual conditions, the construction of the museum M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark has required a number of different consultancy services. Ramboll Denmark has delivered consultancy in relation to levitation changes in the underground, and concerning concrete structures in the soil-covered, levitation stabile and watertight building; tensioned concrete bridge structures; ground water cooling; acoustics and traffic noise; membranes; traffic securing; mapping and studies of polluted ground; storm surge analysis and numerous other areas.