a curious design to get across a serious message?

/

Benches like this have appeared in about half a dozen places around the city.

My first thought was that it seemed like a rather extreme way to stop people stretching out and sleeping on park benches. Then I wondered if it was a particularly thick apprentice in the ironworks who got the measurements wrong but that seemed more than a bit unlikely as these benches have been made here since 1888 so, really, they should know what they are doing by now.

Then I saw an article in the newspaper that sort of explained everything. They are 85 cm too high and that's the height that some scientists have suggested that sea levels will rise by the end of the century if we do not tackle CO2 pollution and sort out climate change.

The pedant in me thought that it's a bit of an obscure way to represent impending disaster and that it only really works if the benches were at the end of Ofelia Plads where the concrete runs down into the sea of the harbour but then anything helps if it makes people stop and think .... even if it is only to think how the hell would I get up there or, come to that, get down without breaking an ankle.

design classic: the Copenhagen bench
the Copenhagen bench
high water in the harbour
Ofelia Plads

 

Monocle magazine top cities for quality of life 2021

/

Since 2007, the magazine Monocle has published an annual Quality of Life Survey that ranks cities around the world as "liveable locations".

They thought that it was inappropriate to produce a list last year, at a high point in the pandemic, but their journalists and research team now see cities "building back bigger and better" so their criteria for the list in 2021 - recently published - have changed to reflect this with emphasis on "confidence and the push for a quality of life that works for all."

In the introduction to the list, Monocle sets out key requirements for a liveable city including "robust, dependable services, plenty of green spaces and strong leadership" and their important message is to "get the basics right and it's easier to weather the catastrophe."

I assume that the typical reader of Monocle is relatively young but well established - so 25 to 45 and professional; well off or affluent rather than wealthy; used to travelling frequently for work or for leisure and with high expectations when it comes to food, eating out and spending on clothes and furniture. This is reflected in their assessment of each city but the magazine has always been astute about and critical of public services - particularly international, regional and local transport - and this makes their survey as much about governance and good business as about simple consumption.

On first seeing the list, the obvious observation is that Nordic capital cities take three of the top four places and these are cities with strong, left-of-centre or socialist governments at local and national level.

The entry for Copenhagen points out the importance for the city of its sense of pride in social cohesion and that has certainly been important as the city went into lockdown.

Most parts of the city have easy access to green space and to the clean waters of the harbour for exercise, swimming, a huge range of outdoor sports and for leisure and through the pandemic these public outdoor areas have been crucial as safe outdoor areas where anyone and everyone can exercise and socialise.

In their short assessment Monocle spotlights the new Metro ring that has “made it easier to access all parts of the city, and the Refshaleøen district is particularly appealing these days due to the presence of of the Copenhagen Contemporary art museum and an eclectic range of dining options."

Quality of Life Special Edition
July/August 2021 issue 145
Monocle

 
 
 

Monocle top 20
Liveable Cities

① Copenhagen
② Zurich
③ Helsinki
④ Stockholm
⑤ Tokyo
⑥ Vienna
⑦ Lisbon
⑧ Auckland
⑨ Taipei
⑩ Sydney
⑪ Seoul
⑫ Vancouver
⑬ Munich
⑭ Berlin
⑮ Amsterdam
⑯ Madrid
⑰ Melbourne
⑱ Kyoto
⑲ Brisbane
⑳ Los Angeles

 

fresh herbs from Irma

/

The large Irma food store alongside the railway station at Østerport in Copenhagen is now selling herbs that are grown in the store and they are growing in full view in the middle of the vegetable section immediately inside the entrance.

There is a large double cabinet with a hefty black frame but with glass on the sides and in both the doors. It looks a bit like the normal cool cabinets used now in many food stores to keep salad stuff fresh although here there are four shelves in each half and on each shelf a turntable but instead of a flat platter these turntables have grooves or channels that spiral out from the centre.

Herbs are sown in a growing medium in a small plastic pot …. cone-shaped and just over 30mm high and internally just 25mm across internally at the top and with a small lip that holds the 'pot' in its place on the turntable. There is no bottom to the cone …. that's where the roots grow out.

In the pots at the centre of the turntable there are just a few shoots breaking out but as they are turned under lights they move outwards and grow as they go so the finished plants are harvested from the edge. The full growth period is three weeks and the cabinets are planted half a week apart to provide a continual harvest.

Plants taken from the outer rim are put in a waxed brown-paper cone with labelling and set out for sale on shelves across the front of the unit.

At the moment the store is growing Greek basil, Italian basil, coriander and parsley.

The herbs are about as clean as any natural product can be; there are no synthetic pesticides and the system is said to use 95% less water than growing the herbs in a glass house and there should be little or no waste …. both for the store who can judge uptake or for the customer.

The whole system comes from the German company Infarm.

It was launched officially on the 21 November 2019 by the Danish Food Minister Mogens Jensen.

oh ….. and that plug of basil in the last photo …. enough to go with fresh pasta and pine nuts that night and a tomato salad the night after..

This system is new to Denmark - the unit at the Irma store is the first in the country - but should be seen within a much wider story of the Danish approach to public transport, to shopping and to life style.

One noticeable difference here, when I moved to Copenhagen from the UK was not simply the number of people using bikes to get to and from work but that many people appear to do part of the journey by train or metro and part by bike … so either cycle to the nearest station and leave the bike there, going into the centre by public transport, or take the bike on the train to the nearest station to work and then cycle from there to the office or some leave the bike at the city-centre station overnight so it's there when they commute back into the city the next day. Complicated? No just the way it's done. One consequence is that many more Danes seem to do their shopping on the way home at night so it's a bag's worth or enough to fill a bike basket so food for that night and whatever else might be needed.

That has an impact on how food is sold …. fresh food here is generally to be eaten that day or the next so is ready whereas in the UK I tended to buy fruit or vegetables that would ripen later in the week and were to be eaten before the next big shop.

This difference is clearly reflected in the arrangement of the Irma store at Østerport. The station has just been rebuilt and a major new metro station is now up and running alongside the old station for suburban trains so it is clear that Østerport will now be a major interchange for people travelling in and out of the city from the north who will now change here from train to metro rather than going on to Nørreport station or to the central station as before.

Irma is connected directly to the main upper concourse of the station and has been completely remodelled and enlarged so it is in exactly the right place to sell fresh food and fresh Irma-grown herbs to any traveller heading in to work or heading back home.

oh ….. and that plug of basil in the bottom photo …. was enough to go with fresh pasta and pine nuts that night and a tomato salad the night after.

Irma - Østerport

infarm

a call to improve life in Copenhagen

/


At this time of year, it's not easy to remember that Copenhagen is not just a city of tourists and the shop window for Danish design and architecture but is a large and complex city with a diverse population that has the social problems and the disparities of wealth and all the environmental challenges faced by any city.

With the approach of national elections in Denmark, a recent article in the newspaper Politiken, charged the current government with failing to create the proper framework of a policy for Copenhagen.

This was an opinion piece by three leading politicians from the city council …. Franciska Rosenkilde, Chair of Culture and Leisure; Sisse Marie Welling, Chair of the Health and Care Committee and Karina Vestergaard Madsen, acting Chair of the Technical and Environment Committee.

The government published a report for the capital region in January this year but this article is critical - suggesting that the report failed to address the biggest challenges Copenhagen faces and they make six demands for specific policies to "create a more sustainable Copenhagen with proper welfare."  

 

  1. They want a new government to remove the economic straightjacket with an appeal for an increase in funding for the provision of social services and increases in funding for cultural and recreational facilities.

  2. They suggest road pricing and the establishment of green zones are introduced to tackle rising levels of traffic pollution.

  3. The proportion of social housing should be increased by implementing a target for 25% subsidised housing throughout the city and the government should initiate policies to reduce the number of empty properties in the city calculated to be 3,000 homes

  4. A new government should legalise the use of cannabis. The argument here is that it would tackle a serious problem because gangs control the current cannabis supply that increases crime and, in the worst situations, has seen a rise in the use of guns on the streets that are used to settle disputes or establish control of the trade.

  5. They suggest a reorganisation of employment legislation

  6. They call for moves to "Stop Blackstone" … a foreign equity fund that has invested heavily in the Copenhagen housing market.


 

Politiken 31 May 2019