a "dark store" in Copenhagen has to close

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A grocery store on the south side of Holmbladsgade - on the corner of Geislersgade - has been ordered to close by the city council.

It's a large retail space across the ground floor of a relatively new apartment building and it has been open since December 2021.

Although, looking in from the pavement, this appears to be a fairly standard supermarket but there are no tills or check.out counters. This is not a traditional retail space but a Wolt grocery store so the problem for the city council is that the shop is not open to the public and is, to all intents and purposes, a warehouse where groceries, ordered on line through the Wolt App, are taken from the shelves and packed by warehouse staff and then collected and delivered to customers by bike riders.

It does not comply with the local plan for this part of Amager -designated as residential with appropriate retail - and there have also been complaints from nearby residents about noise and specifically about loud mopeds some of the riders use to deliver groceries.

From what I have seen, fast electric trikes used by some of the riders are much more dangerous. Recently, I heard some choice Danish words and even saw a fist raised in Christiania as a delivery driver from Wolt, riding on a wide electric trike with hefty tyres, raced through lanes packed with pedestrians to cross over the foot bridge to Amager at a fair lick and, believe me, it takes a bit to make the laid back residents of Christiania that angry about anything.

In 2023 planners closed an other Wolt Store on Enghavevej after complaints from the local residents committee.

When notified, Wolt appealed the decision by planners to close the Holmbladsgade store and suggested that they could sell hot drinks and baked goods to customers coming in from the street but it appears that that solution has been rejected so, sometime before Easter, this particular dark store will go permanently dark.

At Wolt the delivery riders are called partners - because they are not employed directly by the company - and they claim that they can not dictate what sort of bike or moped their riders use.

The company started in Finland in 2014 but in 2022 the business was sold to the American DoorDash. Wolt came to Copenhagen in 2017 and there are now 10 Wolt stores across Denmark, in main cities, so this type of store with bike deliveries has created a new planning problem.

These stores are defined as "dark" because they are not open to customers although that is a misnomer because this store is open until late - much later than other shops along the street - and it is brightly lit which is, I presume, for the security of the young warehouse workers and the delivery riders coming and going late into the night.

 

Along with groceries, Wolt delivers meals from restaurants that have been ordered on line and the app also has flowers and sex toys so they bring to your door almost everything you could want if you are staying in for an evening.

Before writing this post, I checked out the Wolt App - I don't use delivery services - and spotted immediately a glaring irony. The delivery riders I've seen racing around the city with their distinct pale blue delivery boxes are generally fairly fit - they have to work hard and fast to earn their money - but for customers this is such an easy way to bulk load calories because you only have to walk from the sofa to the front door and back with your delivery of your large hit of calories on demand.

Dark stores have been banned in Amsterdam so presumably problems there have been enough to prompt strong action by planners.

 

Dansende Par / Dancing Couple on Lizzies Plads

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After a fair few years I'm still exploring the city and still finding streets and squares I have not seen before. If I'm heading back from anywhere - and I'm not in a hurry - I usually aim in the general direction and just see what I come across or where a road takes me and I always have a camera with me.

This afternoon I was in Sunby - heading roughly in the direction of the metro station at Amager - and ended up at the junction of Lyongade, Wittenberggade and Frankrigsgade. About 300 metres east of the shopping centre, the roads meet at anything but right angles. at a triangular area - a public space. It’s known locally as Lizzies Plads in recognition of the work of Lizzie Liptak - a local chair of a residents association for Røde Møllegård - a large housing complex immediately south of the square.

There, in the middle, is a couple dancing and they are accompanied by a woman playing a fiddle and a man on an accordion.

It's a work by the Danish artist, sculptor, musician and farmer Knud Ross Sørensen (1945-2018).

The dancing figures were installed here in 2008 and in 2014, following a deal brokered by Lizzie Liptak, a figure of a seated accordion player by Sørensen was traded in as part exchange and funds for another figure were razed through various bodies so there are now two musicians to accompany the dancers.

Apparently the area was overgrown and had been used before as a bit of a rubbish tip but this is the city where problem areas are given new libraries to help turn them around and sculpture and lighting to show locals that actually people do and should care about their streets and public spaces. Landscape design was by Birgitte Fink.

The figures in concrete are bold and naive and jolly and dance their dance at pavement level and they made me smile and I guess that's the point.

World Toilet Day

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Today is World Toilet Day.

Almost certainly, if you are reading this, you live in a country where easy access to a toilet is something most people can take for granted but when 3.6 billion people do not have access to sanitation then we cannot be complacent about what is clearly a serious world-wide problem.

Dealing with sewage and waste water, in huge quantities, efficiently and effectively, is a surprisingly recent development in even our wealthiest cities so the history of dealing with the effluence of the affluent is a fascinating one.

In Copenhagen, the construct of pump houses and pipes for a safe supply of drinking water and building new sewers - for toilets flushed with water - only became a priority after a devastating outbreak of cholera in the city in 1853 when, over that summer, nearly 5,000 people died. Work began almost immediately on a new water works that opened in 1859 but the first indoor toilet in the city - or, rather, the first private toilet in the city that was flushed with water - was installed in an apartment building in Stockholmsgade in 1894 when there were well over 300,000 people living in the city.

Stockholmsgade was then a new street on the north edge of the city, on the north side of the park of Østre Anlæg, and there, even in those large and expensive apartments, the toilet could only be flushed because a new sewage pipe had been constructed that ran straight down the slope to the east and straight out into the Sound.

As recently as 1952, the well-used swimming areas - the bathing stations - in the inner harbour were closed because there was too much raw sewage going straight into the harbour and swimming, or, at least, officially sanctioned swimming in the harbour, did not return until early this century with improvements to the city drains and with the building of a new public swimming area at Islands Brygge.

Even now, in the city, cloud bursts - floods from sudden and heavy rain storms - can mean that the system is overwhelmed and raw, untreated sewage, has to be released out into the harbour and sound to stop it flowing back into basements or out into the streets.

I’m not getting in a dig against the city …. the same story, or very similar problems, will be found in every European city. It’s simply that large urban settlements are only possible and only safe if water supplies and sewage systems are in place and are not only well maintained but are also improved and updated as the city grows.

 
 
 

from the grandest to the most humble thunder box …

In Copenhagen , until the middle of the 19th century, human waste from the densely-packed city was either emptied into open street drains or it was collected by cart and taken over to the island of Amager to be spread onto fields there as fertiliser … from the early 16th century Amager was an area of small farms that produced food for the city.

Those open street drains emptied out into the harbour and into the lakes immediately beyond the northern defences - actually the source of the city drinking water - or out into the defensive ditches so It was not just the width and depth of the water in the outer ditches that would have put off attacking troops.

For the wealthy, living in larger houses and apartments in the city, there would have been commodes or chamber pots and servants who would take the contents down the back staircases to empty in the courtyard but most citizens, if they had access to a toilet, would have gone down to the yard and used some form of earth closet.

The toilet at the top is in a courtyard behind one of the Nyboder houses that were built in the early 17th century for the navy. Under the wooden seat is a bucket - although barrels were also used - and these would have been emptied onto an open cart and taken away to Amager.

The more refined commode and washbasin are - how can I put this delicately - the en suite for the royal pew in the gallery on the first floor and directly opposite the preaching desk in Vor Frue Kirke - Copenhagen’s cathedral.

In contrast, the double cubicle in a quadrant-shaped structure, with ventilation panels above the doors, was in a courtyard off Adelgade - between the royal palace and the King’s Garden - in an area of slums that was cleared in the middle of the 20th century. The main problems there must have been the lines of neighbours standing outside, waiting for you to finish, or, conversely, everyone having to stand and wait in the cold and rain for someone to come out.

At least the Adelgade toilets seem to have been modernised with water-flushed porcelain bowls that would have been connected to the main sewer system.

Buckets and barrels were used until well into the 20th century - in 1907 there were said to be 32,000 flushing toilets in the city and about the same number of toilets with buckets so how did the city deal with buckets of sewage?

In 1898 a new company was established called Københavns Grundejeres Reholdningsselskab af 1998 - the Landowners’ Cleaning Company of 1898 - but generally referred to as R98 - and it was their job to collect toilet buckets from around the city and take them out to Amager where they were emptied and washed and the contents were either dried and sold to farmers on the island for their fields or it was diluted before being pumped out into the sound.

Apparently, that crucial service was called “night renovation”.

The R98 depot on Amager (below) was on Herjedalsgade - just over the bridge from Christianshavn and to the east of the main road. There is still a water pumping station there and a large recycling station although now it is glass and plastics and paper and discarded furniture that are recycled rather than the contents of the city toilets.

Over the years, so much “night soil” was taken out to Amager that it was called, by locals, Lørteøen or Shit Island and, knowing that now, I look forward to the day when a pilot on an incoming plane, landing at Kastrup, announces “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing shortly at Lørteøen. Would you please put your seats back ..……..”

World Toilet Day

 

UN 17 village on Amager by Lendager

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January 2019 - the site for the UN17 Village by Lendager Group - the view is looking north along what is called Promenade - the west boundary of Ørestad - Kalvebod Fælled is to the left

Recently, it was announced that housing on the last large plot in Ørestad Syd where building work has not started will be designed by the Lendager Group and Årstiderne Arkitekter and the engineers Arup.

At the south-west corner of Ørestad, it is perhaps the most prominent site, in this major development area in Copenhagen with the open ground of Kalvebod Fælled immediately to the west and to the south an artificial lake and then extensive views out over pastures and meadow.

Given the character of the site, it seems appropriate that this project should go to an architectural practice that is establishing its reputation around its innovative approach to sustainability. In fact, the large development of apartment buildings here is being described as a village and promoted as the first development project in the world that will address all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Concrete wood and glass used in the new construction will be recycled materials but also the housing will be designed to provide an opportunity for the residents to have a sustainable lifestyle.

There will be 400 new homes here in five housing blocks with courtyards and rooftop gardens. Rainwater will be collected with up to 1.5 million litres of water recycled every year.

It is planned to be a mixed development - a very mixed development - with 37 different arrangements of accommodation - called typologies - with family dwellings; co living and homes for the elderly along with communal space; a conference centre to host sustainability events; an organic restaurant and greenhouses with plans for schemes for food sharing.

When completed, there will be homes here for 800 people and 100 jobs.

Initial drawings show that the design will break away from the grim style of many of the recent and nearby apartment developments in Ørestad, replacing flat facades of dark brick with what appears to be a regular and exposed framework of pale concrete piers and beams with balconies and glass set back within that grid and although high at the north end, the blocks will step down in a series of terraces so they will be lower in height towards the lake and the open common.

UN17 Village, Lendager Group

 

drawings from Lendager Group

 

UN17 village overlooking Kalvebod Fælled

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Kalvebod Fælled August 2018 from the west edge of Ørestad

 

With the area of Ørestad marked by a dotted white line and the plot for housing designed by Lendager at the south-west corner marked in orange - this aerial view of Amager was produced simply to show the site and the context.

From the air - and, of course, on the ground - you can see how the proposed housing will be at a key point between the densely built housing blocks of Ørestad and the open common of Kalvebod Fælled.

It also shows the extent of Ørestad for readers who have not been to Copenhagen or do not know this part of the city although, actually, the 8 Building by Bjarke Ingels, just to the east of the Lengager plot and also looking across the common, is now a tourist attraction.

The position and the extent of Copenhagen airport on the east side of Amager is obvious but what might not be so obvious is the odd small tongue in the sea in the centre of the east or right side. That is the end (or start) of the rail and motorway bridge linking Copenhagen and Malmö. The road and rail links drop down into a tunnel between the shore and the bridge.

The road and the rail links run east west and straight through the centre of Ørestad which is why Ørestad City, with a rail and metro interchange, was planned as a major business centre.

At the centre, at the top of Amager, are the distinct lakes and 17th-century defences around Christianshavn and above that part of the historic centre of Copenhagen.

It is the first time I have produced a map of this part of the city for this blog and I realised that I have a slightly distorted view of Ørestad. Over the last five years or so I have done the trip out to this part of the city at fairly regular intervals - partly because I like having a coffee in the lakeside restaurant in the 8 Building with a view out over the common - but mainly because I want to observe and to photograph the area as it develops. A standard trip is to get the metro out to the end of the line, have a coffee and then walk back to where I live in Christianshavn exploring and taking photos.

The metro emerges from its tunnel alongside the university area at the north end of Ørestad and then curves round past the distinctive blue cube of the Danish Radio concert hall before running the full length of Ørestad on an elevated concrete track.

The image I have is of a very large or rather a very long and densely built development but flanked by the much older areas of small plots and gardens and individual houses to the east and open common land to the west and south. That much is true but somehow I had set in my mind that Ørestad was almost a sixth digit on the famous Copenhagen Finger Plan … even if that seems like a slightly perverse understanding of anatomy. But it's not a finger. The Fingers are much much larger, and much longer and much more suburban in character, so each finger is a string of housing and centres for shopping and commerce and based along the lines of the suburban railway. I'm not sure how Ørestad fits in my mind map of the city now … maybe a name tag hung from the wrist.

brick cladding

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Out near the beach on the east side of Amager there are large new apartment buildings that are going up and at an incredible speed because of the method of construction being used with large panels of preformed concrete lifted into place by huge cranes before then being fixed or linked together. 

Then, on the outer face, goes insulation and a veneer of brick in large sheets made in a factory …. and that is where I begin to have reservations.

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Nordhavnsvej and a northern harbour tunnel 

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The planning proposals for Copenhagen dating from 1947, known as the Finger Plan, has served the city well as it expanded out to new suburbs in the north and the west but as the centre of the city becomes more intensively built up - for instance in the area south and south west of the main railway station - and as there is more extensive and more intensive development of the harbour and on Amager - south and east of the centre - in the opposite direction to the spread-out hand of the Finger Plan - then rather different and very ambitious engineering works for new infrastructure are needed. Extensive new road tunnels have been proposed to take traffic around the south side of the city.

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a new road tunnel alongside city hall?

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proposal by Tredje Natur for the new landscape of HC Andersens Boulevard
if most of the traffic is taken down into a new tunnel

possible routes for a new North Harbour Tunnel and a possible tunnel
from Bispeengbuen to Islands Brygge

 

A proposal for a major engineering project, to construct a tunnel down the west side of the historic city centre, is now in doubt.

It would take underground much of the traffic that now drives along HC Andersens Boulevard on the west side of the city hall and would have much more impact on the inner city than a north-harbour tunnel. 

It is also more controversial than the north tunnel because it would be expensive; because there would be complicated gains; some people would resent this as the first stage of banning traffic from the centre with all the restrictions that implies and there could be considerable disruption during construction work … although, actually, most people in the city seem to accept major engineering works as now somehow part of everyday life in Copenhagen with the extent of the works and the time scale for the current work on building a new metro line.

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