the metro, the bus and the harbour ferry in Copenhagen

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With the start of a new year this is clearly a time for new plans and new schemes in the city. On the 24th January, the government launched a reorganisation of public transport in Copenhagen.

Metroselskabet - the company who now control the city Metro - will be combined with Movia who run city bus services and the Havnebuser or harbour ferry service.

The new overarching organisation is to be called Hovestadens Offentlige Transport / Metropolitan Public Transport or HOT for short and will cover the provision of transport across 34 municipalities.

Will HOT replace or at least change the responsibilities of DOT - Din Offentlige Transport / Your Public Transport that was set up in 2014? This was formed by DSB - the operators of regional trains - with Movia and Metroselskabet in order to coordinate strategy and to provide a single access point for passengers who need information about ticketing and times and so on across the system.

The reorganisation appears to be a sensible attempt to coordinate transport across the city and certainly at a sensible time … so before the completion and the opening of the new inner ring of the metro. Metroselskabet was set up by the city and by the port authority and has been organised primarily for the construction work and for the completion and opening of the metro system and not for the ongoing running of the metro system.

However, there has already been criticism - not least from Movia.

Current transport is organised across the region - so across Sjæland - and includes the suburban rail system but at this stage, as far as I can see, the S trains will not be included in the remit of the new body. Some have also been critical because this does not include any new money so seems to be simply about co-ordination and synchronisation and does not tackle capacity or improvements as such with no provision for additional equipment. This is important because the current metro line is running at almost full capacity … good in terms of the economics but not so good for passenger comfort.

To be fair, it may well be better to make further decisions after the new metro line opens this summer because the new line is bound to establish very different travel patterns for people in the city … at the very least it creates important new interchange points for swapping between one mode of transport and another and in the months after the opening will certainly reveal new congestion points in the system.

Metroselskabet
Movia
DOT

note:

Back in June, Movia announced that new harbour ferries will go into service in January 2020. These will be electric - recharging overnight but also topping up batteries at both ends of the route at Refshaleøen and Teglholmen. The new service will run every 30 minutes. As the service carries 425,000 passengers each year, this is an important and - with so many new apartments being built at the south harbour - a significant part of the city transport system.

well-known Copenhagen landmark could be under threat.

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The image of a girl on a bicycle on the gable of a building in Nørrebro was painted in 1993 by the Finnish artist Seppo Mattinen who was born in 1930.

Apparently the building is now owned by a relatively new housing association and they do not have the funds to restore or maintain the painting. Unfortunately, it has been vandalised several times so keeping the painting does mean quite a substantial and ongoing financial commitment. In a prominent location just before the lakes as you head into the city, it would certainly be missed by many if it cannot be kept.

update:

latest news is a proposal to take down the painting and move it to a new site

Gable art-6.jpg

Patterns Shimmer Scenes - photographs by Joachim Koester at Statens Museum for Kunst

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I was at the opening for the exhibition of work by Joachim Koester but decided, on balance, that the subjects shown in his series of images are not close enough to the city or to architecture and design in Denmark to be relevant for a review here but going back recently, to spend more time in the exhibition on a quieter day, I realise I was wrong.

It is not the subject of the photographs, although those are interesting, but it is about ways of seeing - about having a viewpoint - and it's about the selection of that view point, the artist editing the scene, to create or, at least, to hint at or imply a narrative, that is an important lesson.

Koester was born in Copenhagen in 1962 and studied at the Schools of Visual Arts at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and he works now with photography, sound and video.

The images shown in Patterns Shimmer Scenes are presented in clear groups and come from very specific projects including with others:

  • Some Boarded Up Houses that is a series of photographs taken in the United States after the financial crash of 2007-2009

  • The American artist Ed Ruscha documented a number of empty plots in 1970 and collected them in a book Real Estate Opportunities. Koester recorded some of the same plots in his work Occupied Plots, Abandoned Futures Twelve (Former) Real Estate Opportunities 2007.

  • photographs taken in Kaliningrad follow the route of a daily walk taken by the philosopher Immanuel Kant when he lived in the city that was then called Königsberg

  • a series of photographs of amazing buildings in Calcutta traces marked changes from an Imperial past - where affluence was based in part on money from the British East India Company trading opium that was grown in Afghanistan and shipped on by the Company to China. *

These are “enigmatic images of abandoned places with stories that reveal incredible pasts” and generally record desolation and waste. Apart from the photographs from Calcutta, there are rarely people in the images. Particularly in the American photographs, Koester takes his photographs straight on to the façade, and with parallax removed, and sharp detail across the image, he removes or flattens the sense of perspective or distance so the buildings become specimens to be examined closely and, with boarded up windows and empty yards, the photographs expose decline and abandonment that has taken place over years or over decades.

Some of the photographs are selenium toned silver gelatine prints that have deep rich tones of warm greys and that also creates a curious sense of detachment in a world where now it seems anyone and everyone takes so many colour photos.

Many of the buildings are boarded up - most look unoccupied - so, above all, the photographs record waste … how humans construct buildings that are extravagant, are expressions of wealth or of optimism or both but they are abandoned and history or events leave them stranded.

 

 
 
 

note:

* a recent article in The Guardian included the astounding statistic that the British shipping company P&O transported 632,000 tons of opium from Bengal to China.

 

the exhibition continues at Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen until 3 February 2019 

 

more images of the city in the snow

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L1054613.jpg

 

Just a few more photographs of Copenhagen in the snow.

This view of the recently-completed work on the public square in front of Christiansborg shows the new arrangement rather more clearly than the photographs with the recent post.

The dome of the Marble Church was taken in the middle of the afternoon. It's not the best of photographs but it does show how the snow reduces the buildings and the roof scape to soft outlines in grey and is possibly a better way of judging the shapes and the relationships of buildings without the distraction of colour.

From the courtyard of the palace of Charlottenborg, there is a view out across the square of Kongens Nytorv to the equestrian statue of Christian V at the centre. The soft light and the lack of traffic emphasises the distance across this huge public space - the largest square in the city - and reveals a strong central cross axis in this complex area of large-scale city planning. This square is where the city turns through an angle from the line that runs roughly west to east running across the city through the old city gates - the east gate was on the far side of the square - to a new alignment of the new town - of the grid of streets of Frederiksstaden - laid out through the 18th century with the main streets running out to the north east towards the Kastellet.

The Dursley Pedersen bike in the snow is just a bit of self indulgence … you rarely see them out in the wild and the snow across the road behind emphasises the geometry of that extraordinary frame.

snow in the city

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We had fairly heavy snow today that settled and, on days like this, people tend to stay in so there is less traffic, certainly fewer bikes, and sounds are muffled.

It's a good time to take photographs of the city and not just because it makes a pretty picture.

If the cloud lifts, and the sun comes out in a clear sky, it's different because then the colours seem more intense and deeper with light reflected up off the snow but when snow is falling, colours are muted to greys and soft mauves and then what you see is a simplification of the solid blocks with strong lines and edges emerging and it is the underlying geometry of the streetscape that survives … the blocks and the mass of the city.

 
 

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.

Resource Rows, Ørestad Syd by Lendager

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June 2018 - rapid progress

 

 

A major housing project in Ørestad by Lendager is moving fast towards completion.

This is housing around an enclosed courtyard on a plot about 250 metres south of the new Royal Arena

It is a wide site from east to west but relatively short north to south and there will be three-storey row houses along both long sides and taller blocks across the shorter east and west ends of the courtyard.

Drawings for the scheme show extensive planting in the courtyard with well-established trees and with climbers or plants on the walls of the courtyard and extensive gardens and green houses across the roof.

drawing by Lendager Group

But it seems, from walking around the site, that there could be a very real problems with shadow across the building and across the courtyard. This is not just a problem with this development but a significant problem across the district.

A masterplan for this part of Ørestad was produced by the Finnish company ARKKI in 1995 and although the specific form of key buildings - like the new Royal Arena and the recently completed school - have changed from the layout shown then, the arrangement of roads and building plots has survived. However, the housing and apartments as built, over the last year or so, appear to be much higher than originally planned with more floor levels - to increase housing density - so the buildings have a much longer and unbroken area of shadow and that is obviously much more of a problem at this time of year when the sun, although often bright and in a clear sky, is low in the sky.

Here, there are tall buildings immediately to the south with just a narrow road between the two developments but the higher blocks at the east and west ends of the Lendager building itself will also throw shadows across the courtyard from the early morning and the evening sun.

To be more positive, the really striking feature of the building will be the facing panels of recycled brickwork. These are not old bricks that have been salvaged and cleaned and re-laid but they have been cut in panels from buildings as they were demolished … in this case buildings on the Carlsberg site in Copenhagen.

Old lime mortars tends to crumble away as a building is demolished and individual bricks can be cleaned and reused but modern mortar is so tough that bricks are damaged or shatter if you try to salvage them individually.

This method of creating facing panels for new buildings has been shown by Lendager at exhibitions at the Danish Architecture Centre.

 

Resource Rows, Lendager Group

January 2019 - a much clearer idea of the final appearance with windows fitted and the strong black skyline but note the deep shadow across the south-facing row houses on a bright winter day early afternoon - general view taken from the south-west

 

Nansensgade 57

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This plot on Nansensgade - a street a few blocks out from Nørreport - has been empty since the late 1980s … simply a gap in the street frontage with a garden behind a fence.

The new building here was designed by Christensen & Co and completed last summer.

Built by the city social services, the apartments are for vulnerable young people and are used as a staging post to give them help and support before they move on to more independent lives.

It is a narrow plot, so the entrance door is set off to one side - leaving space for one shop on the ground floor and the staircase is at the back, turned to run up across the garden side. On the floors above, the apartments are arranged to follow the well-established Copenhagen form with two apartments at each level, one to the right and one to the left, with the pattern broken at the top floor where there is a ninth apartments on one side and a roof terrace to the other.

To the street the façade has a checkerboard pattern of plain copper panels that step forward boldly to give privacy to the balconies of each apartment and narrow windows in the sides give views up and down this lively street.

My career has been spent working on historic architecture and conservation but that does mean that I can't appreciate good modern architecture even if, as here in a good street of good buildings with a distinct character, it seems to break many of the conventions.

Breaking rules or breaking conventions or, as here, breaking forward of the regular line of the facades along the street, is fine if it's done knowingly. Rules and conventions should not be broken just for the sake of it but here it clearly adds a dynamic to the street frontage and the choice of material and the colour is spot on.

Christensen & Co

 

new information panels on the Metro

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Metro stations in Copenhagen are to have new flat-screen information panels on the platforms and these are part of a new information system.

The first of these new signs were installed at Vestamager and Ørestad at the end of 2018 but all the old-style signs will be replaced in all the stations over the next few months.

This is part of the preparations for July this year when Cityringen - a new inner city line - is to open.

It will be interesting to see not just how platforms and linking staircases are laid out at the new main interchanges - Kongens Nytorv will be an exceptionally busy station where the exiting lines and the new line cross - but also interesting to see where signs are placed and how signs and graphics will be used to control and direct the movement of people.

Commuters tend to move fast on auto pilot but at Kongens Nytorv, but also at Nørreport and at the new station at the City Hall, commuters will come up hard and fast against huge numbers of tourists who are new to the city and its transport systems and that's where that interface between design and human behaviour is crucial.

Can anyone explain why people stop in their tracks at the most inconvenient places - like immediately at the top of an escalator or the bottom of a flight of steps - to look at a map or gaze up to the ceiling? Are they looking for divine intervention?

There should be a new code of conduct … if you are lost step to the side.

And actually the same should apply when your mobile phone rings. Watch. It's amazing just how many people either stop walking wherever they are or at best slow down noticeably when their phone rings. I'm not sure that signs with even the cleverest graphics could deal with that problem.

 

Bornholms Stemme / Voice of Bornholm

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glass by Morten Klitgaard

 

Bornholms Stemme / Voice of Bornholm - an exhibition on now at Officinet - the gallery of Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere in Bredgade in Copenhagen - has been curated and arranged by Bettina Køppe of the gallery Køppe Contemporary objects in Nexø on the island of Bornholm.

Bornholm is the large Danish Island in the Baltic that is about 35 kilometres off the south coast of Sweden. It's about 30 kilometres wide and possibly 40 kilometres from north to south and is renowned for it's landscape and for it's archaeology … with its position it controlled traffic through this part of the Baltic with major medieval fortresses. It's important not just for tourism but for artists and crafts makers who live here and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts schools of glass and ceramics are based on Bornholm. 

The exhibition has works from four major ceramicists - Michael Geertsen, Nynne Rosenkrantz Christiansen, Christina Schou Christensen, and Jeanette List Amstrup - pieces by the glass maker Morten Klitgaard - works in wood by Tyge Axel Holm and jewellery by Kaori Juzu and Per Suntum.

the exhibition continues at Officinet until 26 January 2019
there are profiles of the artists and the works on Køppe gallery site Voice of Bornholm
Køppe Contemporary Objects

detail of Barrel Ceramic by Chistina Schou Christensen - top right
Stoneage Decon ceramics and works on paper by Michael Geertsen - bottom left
ceramic by Nynne Ronsenkrantz Christiansen - bottom right

 

skud på stammen at design werck in Copenhagen

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Skud på Stammen - an exhibition of furniture by students from NEXT - the technical training college in Copenhagen - has just opened at Design Werck.

The students work in partnership with designers to produce the furniture to demonstrate skills and trial new ideas.

the exhibition continues until 10 March 2019

NEXT
Skud på Stammen
Design Werck, Krudløbsvej 12, 1439 København

note: Design Werck does not open on Mondays or Tuesdays

 

street lighting in Copenhagen

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Around the city, artificial lighting in streets and squares is designed with real care.

The new lighting for Slotsplads in front of Christiansborg is a good example where light levels are subdued and subtle … bright enough to feel secure and warm rather than having sharp white electric light so about as far as you can get from crass spotlights and appropriate for what is one of the most important public buildings in the city.

Light fittings here tend to be low rather than on high posts although traffic junctions are still lit by larger lights set higher, often suspended from wires, because they have to cover a wider area simply for safety.

But on many foot paths and cycle routes the lighting at night is from lamps set in relatively short posts - so below waist height - that throw a pool of light across the paving and where there are steps these are now often illuminated by lights under the hand rails or by small lights set onto the surface.

The annual Copenhagen Festival of Light will be from 1st February through to the 24th.
It’s a good time to visit the city if it feels as if there is still a very long wait for Spring because the festival gives people a reason for going out on a dark night.

 

lighting the square at Christiansborg

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Back at the end of November, there was a short post about extensive work across Slotsplads - the public square in front of Christiansborg - the parliament building in the centre of Copenhagen.

The main reason for remodelling this large and important public space was to bring some order to the area where, as a temporary security measure to thwart attacks with vehicles, a line of rough boulders had been set out in an arc on the outer edge of the square. The boulders have been replaced with large granite spheres and new setts were laid across the whole area. Security barriers were in place that drop down into the ground for access to the front of the building but work was ongoing - particularly along the canal in front of the square where new paving has been laid and a line of new trees have been planted.

Plans for this work showed the old lights but in a new arrangement in a straight line across the facade. There were electric cables in place with a rough gap in the cobbles where each light was to go but, given the time of year, there was a line of large Christmas trees here across the front of the building and all strung with fairy lights.

Now, with the new year, the Christmas trees have gone and the new lights have been installed in a straight line across the front, regularly-spaced and just out from a line of shallow steps. Ornate historic iron lamps are set on simple grey, marble bases and the effect is good … ordered and appropriate in a down-played but monumental sort of way.

Out of Office at DAC

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Out of Office was established by the landscape architects Adam Roigart and Martin Hedevang Andersen who both trained in Copenhagen.

They work on urban landscapes on public streets and in courtyards in the city and use prototyping to test ideas and to understand and to explore user needs and the users are involved in the construction work to establish a strong sense of ownership.

Materials are recycled and for the urban garden in the staircase gallery at DAC (The Danish Architecture Centre) they are growing zucchini in bricklayers' buckets on recycled pallets. The plants will be cared for by local school children.

The Out of Office on-line site has photographs of their projects including courtyard gardens for apartment building on Jagtvej and Sjælør Boulevard in Copenhagen, a Winter Pavilion, and a street garden in Krusågade in Vesterbro.

The garden at DAC has been set up with the Klima 100 exhibition in the gallery at the next level down.

Out of Office

Dansk Arkitektur Center,
Bryghuspladsen 10,
1473 Copenhagen

Klimabyer / Climate Cities at the Danish Architecture Center

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On the staircase at DAC (the Danish Architecture Center) there is currently a small but important exhibition that was initiated and funded by Realdania.

Eighty two of the 98 municipalities in Denmark submitted projects that tackle problems caused by climate change From those solutions 100 were chosen for publication in Klima 100 2018 and a selection are shown here in the exhibition.

These examples confront a range of problems caused by adverse effects from changes in the climate. The best solutions were implemented at a local level and involved local communities but these projects can be adapted or scaled up to be implemented more widely … locally, regionally or globally.

All the projects have been judged against the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

What can be seen here is not just an impact in the way these solutions mitigate potentially serious and destructive problems but, at the same time, they can be seen to improve our built environment and can make positive differences to the way people live.

For some of these problems there are relatively straightforward and obvious solutions - so, for instance, by planting more trees or replacing hard surfaces with grass to control the run off of surface water - and some solutions employ existing technology while others require imagination and ingenuity to reverse the impact of a man-made environment A good example of this is where former streams and water courses have been reinstated where they had been taken down into culverts and drains or where natural wetlands are restored to manage drainage.

There are gains where nature has been brought back into cities and particularly where children are encouraged to understand how food is produced and to develop a positive and more informed attitude to the natural environment.

Other solutions have focused on encouraging people to change their behaviour. Recycling should no longer been seen as optional or as a chore and one of the projects featured in the exhibition has focused on how we can up-cycle more by using new facilities at city waste centre that can help people repair rather than dump possessions that are broken. 

In all this, at so many different levels, applied design has a crucial role.

 
 

note:

Headings below are taken from the information panels at the exhibition but are also active links to a relevant page on the Global Opportunity Explorer Klima goexplorer site and the numbers refer to the page in the publication Klima 100 2018 where the project is described and illustrated.

 

Sustainable city center [26]

The new City Hall in Middelfart has set new standards for the proposed life-span of its building materials and for energy use and water consumption both through the construction work and now when the building is in use. Solutions here may now seem obvious - so offices and functions spread around the town have been pulled together into a single location; floors use recycled wood; the building has 700 square metres of solar panels on the roof; waste heat is transferred to the district heating system and waste food goes to make natural gas - and together they are clearly effective. But perhaps what is more important is that the appearance of the building is of a thoroughly modern construction where there is no compromise of modern aesthetics. To put that another way, this building shows that nailed on old planks and chunks of moss and weeds on the roof are fine if that is what you want but it is not obligatory to achieve the very best green standards.

 

Sustainable renovation [27]

This is an important project for Copenhagen where the city has a substantial number of well-built apartment blocks that date from the 19th and 20th centuries although these may not be arranged in the best way to provide an arrangement of accommodation that people now expect and almost-certainly do not come up to current standards for insulation or for good natural light or for energy use.

This block on Gammel Jernbanevej in Valby was constructed in 1899 as purpose-built apartments with shops on the ground floor. The location is good, close to a railway station and in a pleasant street, and the building materials are durable but the apartments are small, lack bathrooms and the indoor climate is not good.

The aim of the renovation is to preserve historic features but optimise natural daylight so a new glass façade will be constructed out from the courtyard side to form a climate screen that faces west. This will add 10 square metres to each apartment and, with triple-glazed folding screens and flexible glazed sliding screens, on the line of the present back wall, that space could be used like a large balcony in the summer but during the winter will be a warm and well-lit extension of the living space.

An extra floor will be added to the block - to generate financial returns - and solar panels will be added on the new roof.

This is a Living in Light project 

Fremtidig-snit.jpg
 

A sustainable village from the ground up [31]

This is a new-built residential neighbourhood in Lisbjerg about 7 kilometres north of the centre of  Aarhus. New buildings have been designed to reduce environmental impact and citizens have been involved. The area will develop over 60 years and the municipality has produced a long-term plan for sustainability and has produced “inspirational catalogues” to guide architects and builders working on the next phases.

Building density is high and commercial buildings - and with them employment - have been brought back into the residential areas to reduce distances to travel to work or school. Water is collected after downpours and is filtered through limestone for flushing toilets and washing clothes and that reduces the use of treated drinking water by 40%.

Projects like this show that we have reached an important turning point in our approach to climate change and sustainability. For many of the first solutions, the focus had to be on adapting to the problems - so retrofitting solutions - but for new buildings we can now be proactive.

 

A new concept for food and knowledge production [58]

Impact Farm is a two-storey greenhouse that was installed in Nørrebro in Copenhagen in 2016. Intense cultivation on the top floor can produce between two and four tons of leaf green a year that is sold to local restaurants and cafes and the ground-floor space can be used for work and recreation including education workshops and food festivals.

Rainwater is collected and recycled so growing food consumes 70-90% less water than a regular farm. Components are pre fabricated and the greenhouse is built around a shipping container and after 15 months it was packed up and moved on to a new site.

Schemes like this have a vital role in helping children in towns and cities understand and appreciate how their food is produced.

Human Habitat - Impact Farm

Impact-Farm-Abdellah-Ihadian-2898-800x600.jpg
 

Robust nature in the city [67]

A new area of park and extensive urban garden has been laid out around the Marselisborg Centre in Aarhus with a focus on biodiversity and with integrated wetlands that utilise rainwater both for nature and for children so they develop a positive understanding of the natural world through play and exploration. Schemes like this are changing radically our preconceptions of what urban landscaping should look like.

 
 

Courtyard garden project [75]

An imaginative scheme for a courtyard of 3200 square metres at the centre of an existing apartment building.

Many of these large courtyards in the city simply have grass or low maintenance hard surfaces but neither deals well with the heavy rainfall from storms. In this courtyard, a "climate wall" built with recycled concrete will create a temporary lake to hold back water when there is a storm - in a heavy storm in Copenhagen enough rain can fall over a few hours to flood the ground floor and cellars of buildings, flood streets and overwhelm and damage drains and sewers.

To control storm water by holding it back on the surface, rather than letting it surge immediately through storm drains, is now described as a "blue solution". Here the planting, described as "biomimicry", is closer to true or wild nature and, again, schemes like this are changing attitudes and expectations about planting in urban landscapes.

More information about Fremtidens Gårdhave / Courtyards of the future can be found on the site of the Lendager Group.

 

Ancient landscapes shapes new urban space [96]

In this landscape project in Vejle, Jutland, rain water is held back as it drains down into the fjord.

This is another good example where climate resilience, over a large area, not only creates an attractive new landscape but also creates popular and well-used space for physical activity.

 

Securing the coastline for the future [104]

Le Mur / the wall protects the harbour of Lemvig against rising sea levels and destructive high tides. The solution here has been to build a concrete wall in sections with steel gates to close gaps that normally give access to the water.

Hasløv & Kjærsgaard Arkitekter with the engineers COWI

 

Recycling and upcycling for the future [157]

A former paper factory - Maglemølle in Næstved - is now a centre for green companies that recycle and upcycle materials including the collection and sorting of glass by Reiling Glassrecycling that is then reused by Ardagh Glass Holmegaard.

 

Klimabyer / Climate City
5 December 2018 - 15 February 2019 

The Stair Gallery,
Dansk Arkitektur Center,
Bryghuspladsen 10, København K

 

Danish Architecture Center

Goexplorer.org/klima100

Klima100 2018

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This is the publication that comes with the exhibition or - to be strictly correct - the exhibition illustrates some of the projects that are set out in this publication from Sustainia and Realdania.

This is the work of eight researchers and lead writers and eight contributors and shows 100 climate change solutions from 80 Danish municipalities. That 82 of the 98 municipalities in Denmark submitted their climate projects for assessment indicates how seriously and how widely across the country problems of climate change are appreciated. This is no longer about theory - about the possibility of climate change and a need to tackle a problem sometime in the future - because these are real and serious problems that have been identified with solutions that were initiated after 1 January 2013 and are now up and running - up and running and open for assessment and with the potential for wider implementation.

 
 
Klima Map.jpeg
 

These 100 solutions were chosen for the strategies they adopted and for their impact because they inspire change and they were judged on several criteria including for collaboration, for possible scalability, and on how they demonstrate that knowledge can be shared.

A third of the projects - as you might expect - tackled climate adaptations. In Denmark, generally that means anticipating and dealing with the consequences from an increased frequency of rain storms and, of course, the probability of floods caused by rising sea levels that could increase by 35% in the next 100 years. Denmark is a nation of islands, is low lying land and has long coast lines to the North Sea and to the waters of the Baltic so climate change has to be taken seriously now and solutions have to engage and motivate people.

Klima 100 2018 identifies the lack of projects from both agriculture and food production so these industries appear to be slower in anticipating or pre-empting the consequences of climate change but there were also new approaches that have emerged recently so there has been a growing understanding, at a popular level, of the potential of a circular economy and a growing appreciation of possible gains from these schemes so it is not just a matter, for instance, of controlling inundation, but of understanding how the community could gain distinct benefits from new wetlands or new water courses.

A growing number of solutions depend on accurate data so, for instance, monitoring of weather for a quick response to problems or, for buildings, precise monitoring of the current and long-term use of energy.

The projects or schemes were divided between 12 categories:

Responsible procurement and construction
Green behaviour and education
Renewable energy
Green land us and recreation
Climate-proof cities
Energy efficiency and technology
Climate action plans
Storm surge protection
Climate adaptation of streams and lakes
Transportation
Sustainable communities
Circular economy

 

The list of categories also shows that problems and solutions can sit across categories … so, for instance, new drainage might tackle an immediate threat of damage from storms but might also provide new areas for recreation and that positive gain can, in turn, be used as an incentive for a community to move on to a next stage of work. Publications like this and the exhibition have a major role in ensuring that the community is engaged and involved.

Klima 100 2018 has been published on line in Danish and in English and can be read an issuu file or can be downloaded in full as a pdf file and these projects have also been set out in a different format on the Klima pages of the Global Opportunity Explorer site.
 

Realdania

read on line as an issuu file or download pdf file

goexplorer.org/klima100 Klima 100 2018

... and in with the new

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The start of a new year is probably as good a time as any to look carefully at how this blog does or doesn't work and to consider changes.

danish design review has been going for well over five years so one obvious problem is that there are now so many posts and so many photographs that it can be difficult to find things and inevitably some links, particularly links to other sites, may be broken. Over the next month or so, tags and categories will be reassessed and checked so some links might be changed and might not always work as expected but that is a work in progress. That’s basic housekeeping.

The quantity of material is also pushing limits so loading pages can be slow. One solution would be to compress image files but the photographs are an important part of these posts so images will keep as high a resolution as possible and continue to open in a full-screen slide show if you select them. Looking at analytics and at Google search it is interesting to see that the site comes much higher up the rankings if you search for a name or a topic by image rather than by text references.

Analytics also show that relatively few people come to the site on their phone but there are no plans to reduce content or clip it to make it phone friendly. Squarespace software does a good job of scaling content but posts are still aimed at readers who look at the site on a large lap-top computer or use a desk-top screen. I’ve just checked the stats and over 75% of readers look at this site on a desktop or laptop computer. All work on editing and layout here is done on an high-resolution Apple A3 size screen and I guess that shows in what you see.

The focus for the news and for the reviews over the rest of the winter and into the spring will be to look at housing and planning in Copenhagen. Huge areas of new residential buildings are going up on the old Carlsberg site and in new areas of the North and the South Harbour; there is extensive new work on land around the new Royal Arena in Ørestad and new apartment buildings are transforming the beach area of north-east Amager so this is a good time to see what has been completed and maybe a time to criticise.

Much is written about the important role that Denmark plays in design and in prestigious international building projects but the country has a long tradition of building good housing - after all Danes have to have somewhere to put all that good design - and the country has a well-deserved reputation for creating good well-planned towns with a high approval rating among residents and, on top of that, the country is ahead of many nations in trying to tackle the consequences of climate change so, as more and more people in the World are moving into densely-packed cities, Denmark's most important role as a driving force and model could actually be in urban planning and development.

A new series of posts here will look specifically at the townscape of Copenhagen to work out - or not - just why it is such a good place to live. There will also be a new series, long in the planning, to meet and talk to architects and designers and makers in the city to look at their work but also to find out why they are here in Copenhagen and ask them about how they see the future of design in the city.

In the design review half of the site it will be back to writing about more of the chairs designed in Denmark through the 20th century but there will also be a new and separate series of posts on chairs designed and made since the start of this century. In writing about designs from the 1940s and 1950s I kept thinking that there are questions I really wished someone had asked those designers then about what they had done and why as they worked on a specific design … I'm hoping that I can ask some of those questions about designs now.