Recently there have been articles in the press about the plans for a new underground car park on the island immediately to the south of the opera house.

The main concern now seems to be about the disruption from heavy lorries removing soil from the site and then traffic for the construction work and this would be at the same time as the work that has barely started on a major redevelopment of the nearby Papiroen/Paper Island site.

One suggestion has been that material from the excavation could be removed by barge but there is no obvious place to take this waste at this time.

The problem that is perhaps as much of a concern that should, perhaps, be more widely discussed is the form of the new planting for the new park once the underground car park has been constructed.

Natural, woodland-type planting, with informal groupings of trees is suggested in the drawings and the photograph taken in the botanic gardens in Copenhagen shows just how attractive the careful arrangement of specimen tress can be but this is a difficult site in that it is primarily urban and maritime. Would a ‘natural’ arrangement of large trees undermine the character of a site that is at the centre of the city and still very much at the heart of the harbour or does that not matter?

post on the Opera House park 6 September 2019