will the pandemic have a long-term impact on planning and architecture in Denmark?

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Some disasters, by their nature, end with extensive new building works so, for example, the earthquakes in Lisbon, in Portugal, in 1755 and the earthquake and subsequent fires in San Francisco in 1906 caused so much damage that it meant that both cities were extensively rebuilt.

In Copenhagen, a devastating fire in 1728, that spread across much of the city, and then another major fire in 1795 and the firebombing of the city by the British navy in 1807 explain why there are so few medieval buildings in the city.

The cholera epidemic of 1853 in Copenhagen, when around 5,000 people in the city died through that summer, had a less-obvious impact on individual buildings but had a crucial role in changing planning in the city and began the process of creating the modern city we know.

a testing centres for Covid-19 in a temporary tent on Ofelia Plads in Copenhagen … there were similar centres in huge tents on Frue Plads and on Fælledparken

 

Through the early years of the 19th century, the population of Copenhagen had grown rapidly but that expansion was constrained and contained within defensive walls and the city was closed every night with locked gates .... a very real and complete lockdown. Many leading figures in the city had become concerned about both the overcrowding and the poor quality of the water supply and there was no system for dealing with human waste.

But it was the cholera epidemic that was the trigger that changed everything because within a couple of years of those catastrophic deaths, the walls and gates had been demolished; there was a new water works; a large new hospital had been completed on land outside the old walls and, for the first time, housing was allowed outside the city gates and that formed the first movements for building decent housing for ordinary people.

Then came rapid developments in technology and with the arrival of town gas for lighting and electricity and with new trams for transport and finally, by the end of the century, telephones and large new suburbs, Copenhagen became what we would now recognise as a modern city.

built immediately after the outbreak of cholera in Copenhagen in 1853 …..

a new water works opened in 1857

a large new hospital in the 1860s

the first phase of building the Brumleby housing, designed by Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll for working families, was finished by 1857
the houses were outside the old city defences, so that densely-packed and poorly-built housing in the centre of the city could be cleared.

 

Now, although we have been caught up with a pandemic for nearly two years, and that has had a dramatic impact on our lives, there is little sign so far that it will have any long-term impact on architecture or design.

Centres for mass inoculation have been in existing buildings that have been adapted temporarily to these new uses - I had my first two jabs at the Bella Center in what is normally an area for conferences and exhibitions - and recently centres for jabs and for tests have been set up in huge tents that were set up on public spaces and in the main park.

On, down the line, we may see some more but subtle changes.

Perspex screens on cash desks in shops were quickly put in place but then were replaced with stronger and better screens and these have not been removed yet and the design of entrance doorways from the street and lobbies and circulation areas in public spaces may well be enlarged permanently if people now feel that really they never actually enjoyed being crammed into tightly restricted spaces just to get into and out of a building.

Will more doors open automatically if we continue to feel slightly uneasy about using handles?

We are yet to see how many people continue to work from home, at least for part of the time, so office buildings and huge headquarter offices may change.

There has been a distinct trend recently for new apartments in the city to be smaller - much smaller - with rumours that official building standards might be changed - but surely that now has to be reconsidered. For the first time, in maybe twenty years, more people have left the city than have moved here as they have realised that they could not function well if they were trapped in a small apartment with partners or small children so have reassessed their opinions on living in the suburbs and have moved out, if they could, to houses with gardens.

Maybe the incentive for developers to cram in more and more housing units to maximise profit may now seem misplaced ... at least in terms of people feeling healthy and happy in their homes rather than feeling hemmed in with a small and crowded living space.

My own feeling is that traditional, relatively-large, Copenhagen apartments with dual aspects - so with good cross circulation of air - and with courtyards where people could at least get some fresh air have come into their own during the pandemic. I would like to see a study completed on rates of infection with coronavirus in tower blocks .... buildings with a single entry lobby and one or two lifts used by everyone over twelve or more floors and have that compared with rates of infection in a standard Copenhagen arrangement with apartments on just four or five floors and an entry and a back staircase with apartments on either side so with only eight or ten households sharing public space.

Tuberculosis was not as widespread as Coronavirus through the current pandemic but was a serious and debilitating disease that struck down many families. Friluftsskolen, on the east side of Amager, was designed by Kaj Gottlob and completed in 1938.
It had wards and classrooms with windows that faced south and that could be opened back to circulate the maximum amount of fresh air

 

In 1952 there was a major outbreak of polio in the city when, between July and September, 2,700 patients were treated at the Blegdamshospitalet where other patients had to be moved to other hospitals.
Nearly 900 patients were paralysed and as many as 70 patients at a time required artificial respiration. Following the outbreak, a new hospital - the Polioinstitutet - was built in Hellerup at Tuborgvej 5 and opened in 1955

Coronavirus and lockdown … is this the time to rethink tourism in Copenhagen?

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In Copenhagen in 2004 there were 136 hotels and they provided 4.9 million nights for hotel guests and in that year 250 cruise liners called at the port bringing to the city an annual total of more than 350,000 passengers. Back then, there was no such thing as Airbnb - that only got going in 2009.

And by 2009 the total for overnight stays in hotels in Copenhagen had risen to 20 million and by 2019 risen again to 29 million and that number of hotel overnight stays could DOUBLE by 2030.

In 2019 there were 940,000 passengers "welcomed" to the Port of Copenhagen but the increase in the number of passengers on ships docking here is rising and fast. A new fourth terminal at Oceankaj, out at Nordhavn, will provide facilities for even larger ships - ships with more than 5,000 passengers - so, despite the drastic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and despite the incredibly negative press with newspaper articles and news programmes on TV about passengers trapped in infected ships all over the World, it is still hoped that the number of cruise-ship passengers doing a stopover in Copenhagen will increase and at a significant rate.

Exact figures for the number of tourists staying in Airbnb is difficult to find on line although one site came up with a map showing 26,016 properties in the city that were listed at the end of last month.

That number surprised even me.

Just 4,712 of those listings are for a room in someone's home - of course the original idea behind Airbnb - and 21,766 are for renting the whole home - houses or apartments.

It seems to be impossible to work out exactly how many tourists are staying in Airbnb properties at any one time and Airbnb is no longer the only player in the business. It is also clear that owners and certainly Airbnb themselves have absolutely no idea how many people will actually occupy a place … just the number of beds advertised.

Some of these properties are owned by someone travelling or working away for a fixed time and letting a property to someone to take care of it and bring in a modest income and that is fine but exactly how many of those properties registered with Airbnb are owned commercially simply to exploit what, for now, looks like good returns from short-term rental income? How many long weekends brings in the equivalent of 12 months rent?

The reality is that all, apart from rooms let by an owner in their own home, are homes that should be for permanent residents of the city but are no longer available for long-term rent or to own. By a rough calculation those 21,000 properties could be homes for 30,000 people or maybe more …. about the same number of people that should be housed in Lynetteholm …. the island that will be reclaimed from the sea at considerable expense for new housing and new jobs. Seems sort of crazy.

For three years I lived in an apartment block where there were 16 Airbnb lets around the courtyard. Many people came, stayed, went without a problem. Often the only obvious nuisance was the sound of travel-case wheels being dragged over the cobbles in the early morning or in the evening as people headed out to the metro for the airport … you can tell which wheelie bags are incoming Airbnb just from the noise because they stop at regular intervals to consult a phone map or the app with details of how and where to get the key. Is there no such thing as quiet wheels for rough surfaces and what happened to the days when people packed just what they could carry on their back?

But there were also bad weekends such as the one when two separate groups, with balconies on either side of the street and just a few metres along from my bedroom window, decided it would be fun to share and exchange music by blaring it out turn by turn across the street from their separate all-night parties.

And I now live in a building with just four apartments and only one of those is listed on Airbnb and, thankfully, that is the smallest in the block and let infrequently. But next door the building has three large apartments and all three seem to be let short term and I can tell you that, although with lockdown tourists may be rare, owners are now finding new ways to bring in income and, over the last six weekends, four have had all-night parties and by all night I mean all night with one cove, drunk or stoned or both, still shouting obscenities and witticisms to anyone and everyone walking past until 6am from a balcony that is just 2 metres from my bedroom window. This last weekend was the worst with very loud parties on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and with none of them starting until midnight. And by loud I mean very with women screaming for what sounded like a competition and I'm someone who can and does sleep on any train or bus or deck of a ship … the person who, notoriously, muttered and turned over and snuggled up to the warm funnel of the ship (not a euphemism) and slept through a volcano erupting with everyone on the ship up on deck to watch and ooh and ahh at an amazing spectacle where I was there but wasn’t.

Hotels, cruise ships and Airbnb bring huge numbers of people to a relatively small and densely-packed city and that is becoming more and more of a problem.

One of the major and most positive things about Copenhagen, among many positive things, is that, unlike so many cities, people do live right in the centre. The more Airbnb in the city, the less people living here. The more tourists the fewer butchers and bakers and candlestick makers and the more burger bars and tourist tat.

Most visitors want to see and tick off the same few things and, although the city council have talked about trying to encourage visitors to go out to a wider area of the city, I'm not sure how you get that across and particularly to the cruise-ship brigade who do a quick dash in on coaches to look at the shops and buy an ice cream and to tick off that list but also to complain about just how small and disappointing the Little Mermaid looks “in real life” as if either a small statue or a cruise could ever be described as real life.

In the first stage of opening the borders from lockdown, visitors from Germany, Norway and Iceland will be able to enter Denmark but what is interesting is that they can visit the city but not stay overnight and to enter Denmark they will have to have confirmed bookings for at least 6 nights outside the capital. Apparently that will remain in force until the end of August. It’s a short-term measure but could provide important information about how much it is possible to manage tourism without killing it.

Obviously, tourists bring money in and jobs are created but is there a full and independent audit of how much visitors spend? And a tally of how much profit is exported to international investors; how many jobs are real so good, permanent jobs for local people and how many jobs are temporary and taken by workers from other countries who themselves have to be housed within the city.

I'm a newcomer and I can certainly confirm that people here are welcoming and are very proud of their city and the life-style is very good - as proved by all those life-style surveys - but, curiously, few tourists seem to appreciate that that life style is actually about family life and facilities for schools and libraries and quiet parks and street corners with communally owned picnic tables in communal courtyard gardens that tourists never see but, if the numbers increase, tourists could so easily overwhelm all that.

from the ridiculous to the sublime?
Oh OK maybe the city can be too quiet.

Like most people who live in the city, I avoid Strøget - the Walking Street that is now more like Crowded and Frustrating Amble Street than strolling street - and at the west end, with few exceptions, it is filled with shops which seem to be aimed at visitors rather than locals.

The lockdown has meant that people in the city realise just what it is like to have quiet streets and the city to themselves. The novelty will probably wear off if it turns out that restaurants and shops cannot survive from local customers alone but it is time to reconsider just how much tourism is good for Copenhagen. It's not as bad here as Barcelona or Venice or Prague but, once it becomes as bad as Barcelona or Venice or Prague, then it will be much, much more difficult to back track.

note:
In 2018 OECD published figures for tourism in Denmark in their report
OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2018

 

retrofitting balconies is a problem

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If you live in an apartment in Copenhagen, a balcony can be a real asset.

If the balcony is small but faces in the right direction then it’s a place to grow a few flowers or herbs or if it’s large enough for a chair or two and a table, it can even be a useful extra room - at least on sunny days.

Through the 18th and 19th centuries in Copenhagen, a balcony was usually a grand architectural statement … a feature of bigger and better houses and these balconies were usually on the street frontage and on the most important floor level, so, more often than not, on the first floor and, more often than not, the balcony was defined or marked by a display of impressive or pretentious architectural details … so under a pediment or flanked by columns and with an elaborate iron railing or a stone balustrade and was there to impress … more a place from which to make a speech to the crowd than a place to lounge in the sun.

But by the 1920s, people living in the city had discovered sun and fresh air and, generally, as apartments became smaller and as purpose-built apartment buildings tended to get larger, balconies became more common.

They meant the apartment had a private outdoor space, so people did not have to go down to the courtyard to be outside, and, if the balcony was on the front of a building, then there could be a view out over the street or, in well-located apartment buildings, the view could be over a square or over the lakes or even over the sound. 

With the use of concrete and steel in the construction of more and more new buildings, it became possible to cantilever out ever larger balconies and by the 1930s apartment buildings became common where every apartment had a balcony and with those balconies often forming the dominant feature across the facade. In some buildings, it was almost as if the balconies had been designed first and everything else made to fit behind.

Glazed doors to get out on to the balcony bring more light into the room and on, hot days, the doors can be left open to improve the circulation of air …. so what’s not to like.

But there is a growing problem with retrofitting balconies on buildings that did not have them originally.

Not too much of a problem, in terms of the look of a building, if they are on the courtyard side and even acceptable on the street frontage if secondary balconies are placed carefully and try to show at least some respect for the style and architectural articulation of the building. 

But, too often, these secondary balconies are simply metal boxes clamped across the front and, if nothing else, they increase the visual clutter of the street - diminish the streetscape - and, if not all the owners or tenants want the disruption or the expense of knocking out walls below windows for doorways and for constructing the required supports for the balconies - they can be spread randomly across an otherwise regular frontage.

Worse, when placed across the sunny side of the building, new balconies can throw deep shadows across windows below so actually they mean less light for those lower rooms and, in some cases, balconies above will take away an unimpeded view of the sky when someone is in the room below.

It’s difficult. Obviously people like and want a balcony and who is a mere planner to say they can’t have one?

But now they really do have to be reigned back and controlled.

Copenhagen has a phenomenal stock of well-built apartments that date from across the last three centuries and with modern materials for glazing and with modern and efficient heating systems and insulation we can give these older buildings an important extended life and, without doubt, buildings only survive if they can be adapted for changes in the way we want to live. But too many good buildings are being devalued by poorly thought out balconies and too often these end up simply as extra space to store kids toys or the best bike that cannot be left in the courtyard or a barbecue that once seemed like a nice idea but somehow now is rarely used.

An apartment building on the corner of Sønder Boulevard and Sommerstedgade (left) and an apartment building on Broagergade are two examples where it could be argued that balconies add interest to otherwise stark or plain facades but both show clearly the problem with balconies throwing deep shadows across windows below

Skydebanegade (below left) and Nordre Fasanvej in Frederiksberg are examples where courtyards have been cleared of buildings and new balconies added to rooms at the back of the apartments that look down to the courtyard.

Overgaden Oven Vandet - expensive balconies added to an apartment building from the late 19th century
pairs of window were lowered for access to a long balcony but this meant the removal of aprons or panels below the windows and distinct features like key stones above windows were partly covered so changing the careful articulation of the original design

Tavsensgade housing scheme on the west side of Assistens Kirkegaard was designed by Povl Baumann and completed in 1920

the architecture of the brick blocks is severe but this is a major and influential group of buildings of considerable historic importance.

balconies have been added in a random pattern across the street frontages

Tåsingegade … a scheme to upgrade these apartments in Nørrebro has more justification …
balconies were added across the front of all the apartments to look down on new climate-change improvements on the square and this gives people a stronger sense of community and a stronger sense of ownership and participation in the improvements to their street

 
 

Rejsbygade - an apartment close to Enghave Parken - and a building on Sønder Boulevard have new balconies on what were blank gable walls … both seem to be associated with small areas of garden where adjoining buildings have been demolished

L1066646.JPG
 

Ørkenfortet / Desert Fort, Christianshavn

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Work is moving forward fast on Ørkenfortet, the Desert Fort - the large office building that is at the centre of the harbour at the Christianshavn end of Knipplesbro - the central bridge that crosses the harbour between the centre of the city and Christianshavn.

The interior at all levels has been gutted and all original windows and all external cladding have been removed. Work has started on cutting down new internal courtyards or light wells within the concrete structure of the block and on removing hefty concrete retaining walls along both the street frontage towards Torvegade and at the level of the quay on the end of the building towards the harbour that formed a base for the building.

Ørkenfortet was designed by Palle Suenson (1904-1987) and was completed in 1962 as offices for Burmeister & Wain who were a well-established and major engineering and ship-building company in the city.

They had been established under that name in 1865 and, by the middle of the last century, their main ship yards were at Reshaleøen - at the north end of the harbour - where the main dry dock survives along with the some of the huge sheds and buildings of the yards but the engine works were here at the south end of Christianshavn, immediately south of this office building.

These extensive engineering yards on Christianshavn shut in 1993. Although some of the earlier buildings - including former drawing offices and the works' gates - survive, most of the buildings along the quay towards the harbour were demolished and wharves and docks were filled in for the site to be redeveloped with large new apartment buildings and extensive office buildings that were designed by the architects Henning Larsen.

Several of these office buildings along the harbour were occupied by the Danish headquarters of Nordea Bank including the office building by Suenson but in 2017, the bank moved their offices to a new site, close to the metro station at DR Byen, and the main office building from the 1960s became available for redevelopment.

This is all fairly straightforward history - the recent history of the site and of the building - but what I don't understand is the planning decisions then made for this key site at the very centre of the harbour.

Of course, I can see the logic and the reasons for planning decisions made in the 1950s. As Denmark emerged from the war, the priorities were for economic recovery. These ship-building and engineering works were not only a major employer in the city but these were highly skilled and, presumably, relatively well-paid jobs. The company was well established and, if nothing else, emerging from the widespread destruction of the war, there was an obvious market for new engines and new ships to replace what had been lost. Perhaps, and even more significant at that stage, although the harbour was, in terms of topography, at the heart of the historic city, attitudes to the harbour then were very different.

Then , north of Knippelsbro, were the working naval docks, with all that meant, and with the only road access through Christianshavn. Through the centre of the harbour and below or south of Knippelsbro was a working port with all that meant. Polite, middle-class society in the city would have seen the harbour as a major resource but that was as a major financial resource, so a massive new office building for Burmeister & Wain would not have been seen as an eye sore … even though its within sight of the 17th-century buildings of the exchange, on the other side of the harbour, and close to the magnificent warehouses from the 18th century, of the Asiatic Quay and Gammel Dok, on the other side of the road … but it would have been seen as an astute and positive show of confidence in the industries of the city and in their future.

It has only been with the decline of the dockyard and the working port and those industries that the harbour had to look for and has certainly found a new purpose at the heart of the city but I'm not sure how this massive hotel development actually makes a positive contribution.

On the side away from the harbour, the existing building looms over Strandgade - an exceptionally important street of historic buildings with many that date back to the early 17th century - and it overshadows the stunning Christians Church by Nicolai Eigtved that was built in the 1750s.

The block of the existing building is massive - one of the largest and certainly one of the most prominent at the centre of the harbour. It's 90 metres long by 31 metres deep and about 30 metres high. It's not a bad building as such but simply a product of its period and certainly not the best building for this location.

In terms of planning, the retention of the building and its conversion to a hotel by the Hilton Group, raises lots of issues.

It will have about 400 rooms so how will Christianshavn cope with the amount of traffic a hotel of this size generates with visitors coming and going, staff arriving and leaving and delivery lorries coming and going?

And why, when it is such a large building anyway, has permission been given to add a whole extra floor on the top that will increase the visual impact of the building and ensure that it overlooks even more properties. I can see that a roof-top dining room and roof terraces are a huge bonus for the hotel but I cannot see what they contribute to the harbour or to the neighbourhood.

Consent has been given to remove the hefty concrete retaining wall along the lowest level towards the quay but this means that the hotel can colonise and make use of the quayside as an asset for the hotel although citizens gain little from this apart from some new steps up from the quay to the bridge on this side. Note there are already steps up to the bridge on the other side of Torvegade and steps on both sides of the bridge on the city side so access from the bridge to the quay is actually adequate.

Almost-certainly, the city would not have given permission for a building of this size and prominence if the site had been empty land or there had been much lower buildings here.

Surely, it would have been better for the city and for the harbour if the building from the 1960s had been demolished and replaced with buildings that were lower and more compact, and with new buildings that reinstated or created a reasonable street frontage to the road up to the bridge and a more appropriate and more respectful frontage towards Strandgade.

Planning Statement - appendix to the Local Plan

notes:

In Danmarks Kunstbilbliotek / the Danish Art Library in Copenhagen there is a drawing of the building by Palle Suenson Inv. nr. 53296 - a perspective from Knippelsbro

While tracking down information on the building I came across a web site that revealed that the building was given a nickname by locals who called it Røven or The Arse. Initially, I assumed that was because the building was thought to be butt ugly but actually it was because at lunchtime workers in the office came out onto the forecourt and sat along the parapet of the wall along Torvegade and, for people walking along the pavement below, the only thing that could be seen from the street was a line of backsides.

 

photograph from 1965 showing Knippelsbro and Torvegade with the office building designed by Palle Suenson in the foreground and the engineering works of Burmeister & Wain beyond - along the harbour as far as the canal and around the south and east side of Christians Church

 
 
 

waste collection on Nyhavn

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The photograph of rubbish piled around a street bin - posted with a quotation from Paul Mazur on Black Friday - was actually taken on the morning of Black Friday.

I had planned to post the quote because it seemed appropriate for this odd day that was contrived by marketing men in the States to make people spend. It’s the day after Thanksgiving - that public holiday when you spend time with families rather than spend money shopping - so presumably Black Friday is the bargain sale to hook you back into spending, just in case you forgot how spend having just had a day off. Is the message here that if you buy something you don't need then at least buy it at a knock-down price? Or maybe if you don't actually need it then by offering it at a sale price you might be persuaded to change your mind.

Anyway, I was heading out to take a photograph at the recycle centre on Amager - to go with the quote - but then there was this on the quay right outside my front door.

Everything had been abandoned - including a large and fairly new suitcase along with a good small metal case and various pictures in frames - so it looked as if someone is moving on from one of the apartments around here and what they were not taking with them had been dumped on the pavement sometime during the night. At least it gave me as good an image as any to represent our throw-away society.

Nyhavn, or New Harbour, was constructed in the 1670s for ships to load and unload goods. Over 400 metres long and 28 metres wide - it runs back from the main open harbour to the large public square of Kongens Nytorv

In any case, the bin system here is of interest and I had been thinking about a post for some time. It might look like an ordinary street bin but it's one of a line of bins along the quay that are the above-ground part of a sophisticated waste system from ENVAC.

When rubbish is dropped in, it doesn't go into a basket or inner bin that has to be emptied but it drops down into a buried pipe that is 500 mm in diameter and when the bin is full, triggered bt a level sensor, the waste is drawn through by vacuum to a service access point set down into the road at the end of the quay.

Nyhavn has large city blocks running back from the harbour on either side and is one of the most densely built up parts of the city with tightly-packed back buildings and small courtyards with homes and offices behind the street frontages. Not only is there little space for large modern waste bins in these yards but there is also a problem getting to the courtyards to empty any bins to take away waste. The quay, on this the north side of Nyhavn, was pedestrianised in the 1980s and although there is access for deliveries, the quay is normally thronged with tourists and there are around thirty restaurants just along this side and most of them have umbrellas and chairs and tables outside that are tightly packed together and most are there year round, so getting through to the archways, to get into and out of the courtyards, is difficult.

The only clue that the bins might not be ordinary street bins is the size - large for a street bin - and the slightly unusual port-hole style door but, presumably, very few tourists stop to wonder why.

They are 1.36 metres high and just over 70cm in diameter and are designed to take all the household waste from the apartments above the restaurants and from the apartments in the inner courtyard buildings - so some 150 apartments in total. That waste is dropped in through the small round hatch. For commercial waste - from the restaurants and bars - they have keys to open the full square opening to put in larger bags of rubbish and packaging.

Designed by Erik Brandt Dam and installed in May 2012 - when the system was upgraded - there are eight large waste bins along the quay - along the 760 metres from Kongens Nytorv to the harbour - with eight smaller bins at intermediate intervals for street litter. These smaller bins look more like traditional street bins, with narrow slots for rubbish on each side, but they also drop their contents down into the system.

The Nyhavn waste system, with sixteen bins and the service point down at the theatre end of the quay, deals with 60 tonnes of waste a week.

bins for the new ENVAC waste system in the Bella Quarter in Copenhagen

The advantage is that the waste is dealt with quickly and cleanly and few people are disturbed when the system is emptied but one drawback is that there is less incentive, with this Nyhavn set up, for people to sort their rubbish for recycling. On the quay, there is now one large standard recycle bin for glass, tucked away round a corner, close to the Theatre, down near the main harbour, but otherwise plastic, paper and cardboard, metal and batteries have to be taken to recycle points several blocks away - the nearest are on the other side of the harbour - or people will put everything through the ENVAC system to end at the incinerator.

A decade ago this system was seen as cutting-edge for waste disposal - good because waste was not going to landfill but to a district incinerator as fuel for the generation of hot water for the district heating system - but for new residential areas in Copenhagen there is now an opportunity to build in more ambitious waste collection systems.

In a new development in Ørestad - for the courtyards and pedestrian streets in the Bella Quarter - ENVAC are installing a waste system where there are not single bins but five separate bins at each waste collection point and each marked for separate and different waste to be recycled so residents can sort out waste quickly and easily - just outside their apartment. Then, as with the Nyhavn set up, it is drawn by vacuum to a service point where it is collected for processing.

This keeps the area close to homes free of smells and free of the lorries that take away the waste. According to the company web site, the system can daw rubbish through a distance up to 2 kilometres.

Another problem in Nyhavn is that restaurant staff, for understandable reasons, tired and at the end of a long work shift, drag out rubbish and force it down through the hatch so the bins do get blocked. It triggers a sort of waste indigestion with lots of weird noises coming up from underground.

Restaurants should use smaller rubbish bags but that would mean more trips between the kitchen and the bin.

Some people fail to realise that underground, just below the bin, the vertical drop has to take the waste through a right angle to go into the horizontal pipe that runs along to the service point so I have seen some ridiculously long and inflexible things being forced through the hatch and then the service team have to come out and sort out the blockage. It was only recently that I realised that they can control the pumps for the pneumatics remotely from the van … so clear a bit … suck a bit … repack a bit …. suck a bit until the blockage is cleared. In Danish the vacuum system is called affaldssug and Google translates this rather literally as ‘waste sucks’ ….. a good motto for any movement lobbying against conspicuous consumption.

ENVAC

 

a new library for Nørrebro

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At the beginning of August a new public library opened in the old tram sheds in Nørrebro.

The building is set back from Nørrebrogade with a large square at the front where trams originally turned into the sheds and the original high and narrow openings towards the road have been retained but with new doors that have stylised versions of giant book cases.

Inside, the single huge space of the shed has been retained with arched openings in the brickwork along the east side towards Bragesgade kept as a strong architectural feature and to flood the space with light. The industrial roof has been kept and is now painted black.

Fittings are in pale plywood and divide up the space and there are integral breaks in the shelving with desk spaces and benches that create quiet places to work but also form views through the space.

Across the west side of the library are smaller spaces on two levels with meeting rooms above for meetings and teaching that the community can use and, like all libraries in the city, there is a play area for children to encourage even the youngest to see the library as a fun place to visit.

Further back from the road is a second huge tram shed and that was converted some years ago to a sports hall - Nørrebrohallen - and there is now a large entrance area and large cafe between the two - between the library and the sports halls - as a place where people can meet.

Running back from the road and along the west side of the buildings is the famous city park - Superkilen - with its outdoor play and sports so this area is now a major hub for the community around. It is anticipated that visitor numbers to the library could soon exceed 1,000 a day.

 

select any image to open the set of photographs as a slide show

sport and space consultancy KEINGART have published a pdf file on line with plans of the library and cafe area

 

Growing Smart Cities in Denmark

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This report from Arup Smart Cities was commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was published in 2016. It makes important points that should be considered alongside a recent report on updating the Finger Plan and a major report on an initiative for the development of the Copenhagen region. Planning for future urban growth has to factor in new technology and the role of smart data.

Growing Smart Cities gives a brief overview of the approach to digital and smart technologies in the Danish cities of Copenhagen, Aarhus, Vejle, and Albertslund and, for context, brief assessments of developments in smart technologies in other countries.

The report identifies a growing number of companies undertaking research and developing projects but one aim of this report is to find ways for these to be scaled up and to find ways to ensure that they are carried forward.

The approach is two-fold, looking first at growing smart Cities in Denmark - so at digital technology for urban improvement and mentions several times the word liveability - but, for obvious reasons, looks at the financial and investment potential of developing these new technologies in Denmark.

There is encouragement for education to address a potential shortage of people with appropriate digital skills with a need to teach a new generation of students who will be qualified when research departments scale up projects - to take them forward - and to work with business who now have to assess long-term returns from what is often considerable investment.

The conclusion is that "Denmark has an opportunity to become a world leader in smart cities."

Obviously Copenhagen is an optimal size with 600,000 people in the city area and about 2 million in the greater metropolitan area - there are mega cities but they have specific problems - concepts developed in Copenhagen could be applied to the vast majority of large cities - but Denmark is also trying out smart data systems in smaller communities. The concern is to make systems work together between different cities and across different systems and different standards.

Generally, people in Denmark already have a proactive approach to the problems of climate change with a positive acceptance of new technical solutions that are being developed - from wind-driven energy to the control of cloud-burst flooding - and the report suggests that there could be a similar and favourable attitude to smart technology.

The report emphasises that Denmark has a strong record for citizen participation which is clearly important. There is a high use of current technology in the country - 85% use the internet every day where the EU average is 65% - and the report cites the example of wind energy - a technology where Denmark is now a world leader.

In fact, Denmark is top of the table in EU countries under five criteria: 

Connectivity / Human Capital / Use of the Internet / Integration of Digital Technology / Digital Public Services

It is also interesting that the report identifies that Denmark is strong in design, architecture and technology and education and has a well-developed health system where the benefits of new technology are clear so citizens are receptive to change.

Generally, good urban design is associated with liveability so people should be open to using smart technology if a user-centred approach is taken. There is a caveat. Danes appreciate good design so digital technology should be well received providing it is "simple, easy to use, and unobtrusive." 

The report recommends that to encourage the development of smart technology the government has to:

Develop municipal digital governance
Strengthen city collaboration
Clarify standards and regulation
Address public concerns
Communicate the opportunity

 

download full report from ARUP

 

related sites:
 Copenhagen Solutions Lab
Copenhagen Street Lab
Copenhagen Data
Space 10

Forslag til Fingerplan 2019 - Landsplandirektiv for hovedstadsområdets planlægning

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Suggestion for Finger Plan 2019 - National land directive for the planning of the metropolitan area

the new Finger Plan has a series of maps to illustrate changes to planning in the area around the historic city of Copenhagen

 

A major revision of the famous Finger Plan of 1947 was initiated in April 2016 and after a period of public consultation - when the 34 municipalities of the capital region were given time to submit comments - a first version of a new plan came into force in June 2017,

Published on 24 January 2019, this is the next stage of that report and there will now be a period for public consultation through to 21 March 2019.

The Finger Plan from 1947 was a key planning report that set the course and controlled the form and the extent of development out from the city through the second half of the 20th century and its influence has continued into this century so it has had a huge impact on the city for more than 70 years.

That plan, to control development, was based primarily on existing lines of the suburban railway that radiate out from the centre of the historic city and new development has been centred on railway stations but with a web of green open space between the fingers … protected countryside that has been crucial as space for nature and for recreation that has stopped the expansion of the city from becoming a solid urban block like London or becoming a sprawl of unregulated development.

The new plan is setting out how to allow for but control further expansion of the city and the region through to 2030 and beyond and it will focus on problems caused by climate change that makes green space and the control of surface water and flooding from the sea increasingly more important. Protection of green land is seen now to be a balancing act and new proposals will be controversial as some green areas could be lost - for instance where they are compromised by being close to major transport links - but there appears to be a commitment to add new areas of protected green space and particularly where this has a clear role in enhancing recreational use.

In 1947, the original Finger Plan, set out the principle that development should be along the suburban rail lines with large buildings, such as city halls and shopping centres, close to the railway stations but the new plan will give the municipalities more freedom to plan for larger commercial buildings with some users up to 1000 meters from the stations in the towns of Helsingør, Hillerød, Frederikssund, Roskilde, Køge and Høje-Taastrup.

Three special areas are designated in Nærum, Kvistgård and Vallensbæk, where it will be possible to plan for larger commercial buildings with many users.

Planners and politicians want to strengthen secondary retail development in the metropolitan area with enhanced areas for local retail in Hillerød, Ishøj, Lyngby and Ballerup along with development in Helsingør and a new town center in Kokkedal.

The report includes proposals for major developments on new land that will be claimed from the sea with Lynette Holmen, a new artificial or man-made island across the entrance to the harbour - where there will be housing for 35,000 but also the island will be part of major coastal defences to protect the inner city from flooding if there are storm surges in the sound. South of the city, Avedøre Holme will be a group of new islands that, primarily, will be for major industrial development. It has been suggested that these developments will bring 42,000 new jobs to the city.

Under consideration is a section of new motorway around the city with the construction of what is called Ring 5 north from Køge, to follow a route between Copenhagen and Roskilde. Presumably, this is connected to assumptions that new traffic will be generated when the road and rail tunnel between Germany and Denmark is built. That international link was given final approval by the German region in December and could be open by 2035. An outer motorway west of the centre would be important for the region because it is possible that by the middle of the century a new major engineering project could be justified so building a bridge or tunnel link between Helsingør and Helsinborg in Sweden that would create a Hamburg-Copenhagen-Stockholm axis with the German and Swedish cities just 500 miles or 800 kilometres apart and with Copenhagen and Malmö at the centre point.

The text of the new plan is set out as major bullet points simply because this is a document for the next stage of consultation but, even at this stage, it is worth reading because local citizens should see this as one way, at the very least, of understanding how their city could develop over the next decade and, of course, like the original Finger Plan, it will set the framework for life in the city and for the built environment of the city through to the middle of the century and probably for a much longer time frame. What the report does have, even in this version, is attractive and informative graphics with a series of maps that make the hard data and the stark proposals easier to see in terms of specific areas and their potential extent and their impact on the landscape.

 

 
 

Danmarks hovedstad Initiativer til styrkelse af hovestadsområdet

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Denmark's capital city Initiatives to strengthen the metropolitan area

A planning initiative for the metropolitan area of Copenhagen was launched at the end of January and is based on the findings of a committee that has been working since last May.

This includes proposals for the period through to 2030 and is presented under four main headings to cover Housing; Transport; Growth and the environment with recreation

This is an initiative by the city to bolster the capital area including plans to create homes for 200,000 more citizens. There are plans to improve transport links - so this is for the immediate period after the opening of the new inner city ring of the metro and preparing for the next stages for inner city transport including more metro lines but also improving motorway links in anticipation of the completion of a new road and rail tunnel linking Denmark and Germany.

The initiative also anticipates more work on flood risk from climate change and there are plans to bolster tourism with the potential for carefully-controlled expansion of the airport as a growing hub for a much wider region.

These proposals have been set out as 52 points across those four headings and should be read along with the revised Finger Plan for 2019 that also covers the period through to 2030.

the full report can be read on line or downloaded as a pdf file.

Ét Danmark uden parallelsamfund / One Denmark without a parallel society

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ghetto.jpeg

This was a difficult post to write because it is about sensitive political and social issues but the subject is important and not least because there very specific implications for planning and housing in Denmark that will influence future policies for planning and should have a much wider relevance and for many if not most countries.

In the New Year the government published a report - Ét Danmark uden parallelsamfund / One Denmark without a parallel society - that sets out a policy to tackle problems in some urban areas in Denmark that will now be defined officially as ghettoes.

My immediate image of a ghetto - the picture conjured up by that word - is of crowded and poorly-built and or badly-kept buildings that are occupied by people kept there by poverty, isolated from wider society and from wealthier neighbourhoods, often nearby - so slum housing - so people, for different reasons, trapped and living with high levels of deprivation.

Here, obviously, I have to admit that I have had a relatively privileged and very middle-class life growing up in a very beautiful university town and then in well-designed modern housing in a new town. When I went away to university I went to Manchester to study art history - you can hardly get more middle class - and I loved the grandeur of the Victorian city and lived initially in what had been, in the 19th century, a private gated street of large villas. But that was just two blocks away from Moss Side … then defined officially as being the worst slums in Europe. Worse than Naples or Marseilles or Glasgow. Recently I came across some images of the slums in Moss Side and other parts of Manchester taken by Nick Hedges - a photo journalist - at exactly the time I lived nearby and I was truly shocked because it made me realise that time has blunted my memory of just how grim that area was and my memory had blotted out what was the reality of life for many people who lived there less than fifty years ago.

 

Since then I have driven through Soweto, seen Baltimore and travelled through much of South America so I am not naïve about the reality of poverty and deprivation - just naïve about how you deal with it.

I feel strongly that anyone and everyone visiting New York should go to the Tenement Museum and people should look at photographs of slum housing in London in the 1930s and in the 1950s and 1960s for a realistic context to understand just how recently that sort of housing was a reality in what are now very wealthy cities. There is a tendency in the affluent west to be blind to just how recently that sort of poverty and that sort of housing existed in their own countries.

In Denmark the definition, by the current government, of specific housing or distinct areas as ghettoes does not, in fact, stem from or define that extreme sort of housing but is about what problems that have developed as people migrate to Denmark but want, as most humans do, to be with people who have a common background and often a common language. Many Danes are aware that, in the worst situations, this can lead to isolation of communities and then on to a cycle of relative poverty and problems with education and employment that can trap people. And when people are trapped they do not benefit, as much as they should, from being an integrated part of Danish society. There is a growing concern that being isolated really does increase social problems - particularly for boys and young adults, and their membership of gangs - and it is that isolation that is described as living in a parallel society.

It is difficult because visitors - and presumably many migrants - coming to Denmark see affluence and see tolerance and see a freedom of life with enviable choices and then make the assumption that that was and is an easily achieved privilege. Actually, it has to be remembered that for older Danes, many can remember the slum housing in Vesterbro - as bad as anything in Manchester - or the slums that were cleared away in the 1950s from the area around Borgergade - not far north of the royal palace - and they know that their high quality of life now has been achieved through social and political changes and not simply dished out. I cannot recommend enough a visit to Arbejdermuseet - the Workers' Museum in Rømersgade - to find out more about working conditions and living conditions for many families in Copenhagen through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Of course the problem for migrants, in search of a better life but finding themselves isolated and trapped, is not just a problem in Scandinavia or for the affluent west but is a global problem and not just about the equitable distribution of opportunity and resources but how you can expect people to be taunted by affluence through advertising and merchandise sold to them, but remain content with what they do or, more often, don’t have.

And, of course, the problems tend to be seen as the consequence of migration from one country or one continent to another but is just as relevant with mass movements of people from rural to urban areas within a single country. This is really about managing expectations and managing numbers.

In Denmark, twenty-two initiatives have been set out by the government for urban areas that have problems seen to come from people living in a community that, for many different reasons, are isolated and parallel communities. Funding will now be available for demolishing some housing and for improving some areas but also there will be measures targeted at education with a focus on vulnerable children. Sixteen ‘ghettoes’ have been identified and substantial amounts of funding have been allocated to make the changes set out in the report.

Much of the programme to deal with these ghettoes is about social housing and about the stock of older housing - some from the 1920s and 1930s but also from the post-war period - so housing that would not be built in that way now … and it's about learning lessons and about trying to prevent more problems down the line through intervention now through education and through focused urban planning.

Den Hvide Kødby Lokalplan nr. 562 / The White Meat City - Local Plan - report 562

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the Local Plan covers both the White and the Grey markets ... this is the boundary between the Brown Market to the left and the Grey Market to the right

 

select the image of the cover above and this is a link to a pdf file of the report published on line by the city

the oldest part of the meat market is Denbrone Kødby that was built out over what had been the foreshore with a new quay for ships beyond that marks approximately the line of the present railway as it approaches the main station from Roskilde

 

At the end of June a local plan - number 562 - was published by the city for Den Hvide Kødby /  the White Meat City district of Copenhagen. 

This is the west part of a large area of market buildings and slaughter houses that developed here from 1879 onwards when the meat market was moved from a site further north, closer to the lakes.

The market, sometimes referred to now as the Meat District, is west of the present central railway station and immediately south of a long open public space called Halmtorvet that continues on west into Sønder Boulevard and forms the north boundary of the site. 

Den Brune Kødby, the Brown Meat market, was the first part of the market to be built and is in brick. The buildings to its west - sometimes referred to as Den Grå Kødby or the Grey Market and included in this plan - were extensive additions to the market from around 1900 in grey or white brick and Den Hvide Kødby or White Meat City - primarily low and mainly flat-roofed buildings in concrete with white facades was a large addition to the meat market dating from the 1930s. 

In part because these are essentially industrial buildings but also because of the clean simple outlines with no decoration, then, in terms of style, this part of the market built in the 1930s is generally described as an important example of Functionalist architecture.

Note that the popular reference to the east part as the Brown Meat market only emerged after the construction of the additions of the 1930s - to distinguish the different parts the names refer to the colour of the buildings and not to the colour of the meat.

The area is owned by the city and this is certainly important for the long-term conservation of this area and for appropriate controls on detrimental development .

Changes to the market began around 2005 as meat processing here - from the sale of animals and their slaughter and on to finished meat preparation before selling on to shops and commercial buyers - declined. It is still an important part of the day-to-day life of the area but creative industries and restaurants and cafes began to move in alongside the whole-sale food markets and as new neighbours for the meat traders.

The plan acknowledges this:

"The local plan area together with Den Brune Kødby has a special atmosphere and authenticity with business, cultural and school and leisure activities in conjunction with the original food-producing wholesale businesses. Market functions, galleries, bars and musicals help create city life 24 hours a day."

The local plan for the brown market (Lokalplan / Local Plan 262) was produced at the end of 1995 and updated in June 2005. These plans should be read alongside the City of Copenhagen Municipal Plan published in 2015.

In 2014 a planning decision was made to allow the building of some homes on part of the site … up to 25% by area but mostly on upper floors. In 2017 there was a first official proposal to build a new school on land at the south corner and both will mean the demolition of some existing buildings.

This local plan tries to quantify these changes and it indicates that the commercial wholesale food markets and food businesses will be 40% of the usage but the plan specifically acknowledges the potential that the other buildings have for small craft-based industries.

 

during the summer there are  weekend food markets with stalls set out around the main square

 

 

The area is surrounded by parts of the city that are themselves undergoing major re-development with changes or new building on former brown-field sights so a coherent policy statement and a long-term plan for the meat markets was required: any plans for the White Meat market also has to be seen in close relationship to developments on the other side of the railway along, Kalvebod Brygge; radical changes along the north side of the area with work on Halmtorvet and along Sønder Boulevard and long-term changes that will come to this part of the city with the opening of a new line of the metro next year. It was construction work for the metro that was the reason why the central part of Sønder Boulevard for the full length of the street was behind massive green fences for years as engineering works for the new line were completed.

The published plan has extensive maps that identify the historic buildings and the text describes briefly how the different areas and structures were changed or adapted as their use has changed.

An important part of the discussion is about how the squares and open spaces and the roads and paths through the area are laid out and how they are used now and then suggests how they can be improved.

This is because the plan has to be integrated with what are, in some cases, competing access requirements for transport into and through the area … so there will be new bike parking at Dybbølsbro - the railway station to the south - bike routes that are cutting through the area have to be considered - so people coming from one place outside the area and going to somewhere outside - and the requirements for safe road systems around the school. There will be tight and necessary restrictions to protect the new metro line tunnels so weight limits for commercial traffic and very clear controls on nearby excavations for new buildings or underground services.

It is implied that demolition of some buildings within the area may be allowed for what is considered to be appropriate new buildings so overuse and density of use might become more of an issue … part of the attraction of the area is that it is often empty of people and is an amazing place to explore but that is difficult to maintain or justify in terms of sustainability. There could be a problem with overshadowing and sight lines through and out of the area being compromised by new buildings immediately outside the area. The present sense of large and open spaces are crucial to the character of the area and a serious mistake is being made now with the overdevelopment of the Carlsberg site, where important historic industrial buildings have been swamped by new development, and that should not be repeated here.

The report spotlights issues about dealing with potential pollution on land that had heavy industrial use - there was a gas works here and a large cooling plant using large quantities of ammonia - and there will be ongoing problems with bringing more people and a school into an area that is used for industrial processes that means some heavy commercial traffic.

There are very clear recommendations for controls for a wider area that is primarily domestic but with social and entertainment uses so premises here can be shops and cafes but not banks or estate agents.

The implication is that if an existing building is demolished then the new building must be of the same overall height and number of floors above ground and have the same roof form and have similar facing materials.

There are some general points about the protection and conservation of important historic buildings that apply throughout the historic city but this report also points out problems specific to this district so roofs can be green - sown with moss and so on - but not with gardens or living spaces and roof-top service features like ventilation and lift turrets will generally not be allowed to maintain an appropriate silhouette or outline for the buildings in the west part that gain much of their character from having flat roofs.

Existing trees, several of which are what are called specimen examples, will be preserved but there are suggestions for planting new trees. For the city as a whole this is clearly a good policy but in this part of the city it was and still is a working area that has practical and often stark urban features and there is a problem if planting, however desirable from an ecological point of view, could make the streetscape here softer and more domesticated and polite than it has ever been.

The plan recommends keeping original windows and original glazed doors - in part because of the intrinsic high quality of some of these fittings - that should mean a long potential period of use - but also recommends keeping original glass for the quality of the light and the quality of the external appearance that is rarely matched by modern industrially-produced glass.

When discussing architecture in terms of style, or even when setting out the history of a complicated group of buildings like this, it is much too easy to describe a design as say Functionalism without then actually considering what that means. The meat markets were essentially an amazing and highly efficient factory system so if you want to understand why these buildings were designed and built in this particular form then look at the film made of the working market in 1936 but be warned that it is not a film to watch if you don't like to think about what happened to your meat before it went into the plastic tray for the supermarket. The film also raises interesting questions about architecture used to create an impression that wasn't true in its reality - so here Functionalist architecture implying clean, hygienic and efficient design for a process that was far from that. How can a local conservation plan limit the extent to which any important historic building becomes sanitised and divorced from its original function ... the very reasons it was built like that and looks like that? 

Strategy for Den Hvide Kødby
Den Hvide Kødby - Lokalplan Nr.562
history and old photographs
film of the market in 1936

select any image and the photographs will open in a high-resolution slide show

 

 

note:

People from other cities and other countries will easily and quickly understand planning policies that talk about creating a green city but it is fascinating that in Copenhagen the planning policies now talk automatically about developing a green and blue city. Open water is now seen as a very positive resource in an urban landscape. If you live in Copenhagen that is hardly surprising … the removal of pollution from the harbour - so people can and do swim anywhere - the long beach front of Amager and Hellerup and now Nordhavn have all been and are continuing to be much appreciated as a public asset and the lakes on the west side of the city are really important in terms of their ecology, in terms of their visual contribution to the streetscape and as a place to walk and relax and socialise so it is hardly surprising that water is now included in all planning assessments but of course this also tallies with the need for detailed planning to cope with climate change and cope with storm rain that often means the construction of new urban water features. Here, in this local plan for the meat markets, controls are outlined for protecting services and plant in buildings if there is a storm and drainage will have to be designed so that in the event of a major storm - often described as a once in a hundred years storm - then the surface water of any flood should be less than 10cm deep.