Climate action as art
When flood defences bring communities together.
Taking the train north out of Copenhagen, passengers are treated to nearly 20 minutes of stunning beach houses with expansive views of the coastline. Row after row of mansions whizz past the windows: holiday homes turned exclusive suburbs – only a stone’s throw from the city centre.
The first noticeable change in the landscape comes at Kokkedal, a stop 30km out of Copenhagen, and a town of around 15,000 residents. With a history of flooding, gang crime and low income, the town has had its share of trauma. Compared to a national population of 86% Danish natives, just 44% of Kokkedal’s residents are native to Denmark – and the Kokkedal community has had a hard time settling.
When the town experienced a series of devastating floods in the early 2000s, architecture firms Schønherr, BIG and Ramboll collaborated to find a solution for the struggling town. The challenge: to build a climate intervention that could also serve a social function. The solution: Denmark’s largest climate adaptation project.
Andrew Place, Associate Partner at Schønherr, joins me at Kokkedal station to show me around the project.
From the moment we leave the station, what’s striking is the absence of orientation and ‘sense of place’. Those wishing to walk to Kokkedal town centre must take a shortcut through the forest, which links up with the back of a housing estate.
Yet the beauty of the natural landscape is undeniable; the forest filled with the sound of woodpeckers, and as we emerge, a meandering path carries us alongside the river and marshland. This is first and most important part of the project.
“Our priority here was to keep the landscape looking natural,” Andrew tells me, “It’s difficult to tell that we have climate defences in place, but we’ve actually created these meanders, built a second level into the riverbed, and dug out the lakes on the other side.
However, as Andrew concedes, there is limited tolerance for the ‘wilderness’ in Kokkedal – in deprived areas, wild planting strategies and marshland can begin to look like neglected public space, which in turn can invite crime and anti-social behaviour. It’s a delicate balance between inviting nature in, and maintaining a sense of order.
As we move up towards the town, the flood defence features become more apparent. A zig-zagging wooden staircase carries us up the bank, allowing residents to avoid the water run-off zones in wet conditions. In the town proper, many pathways are decorated by central strands of cobbles; a subtle convex shape that allows water to flow above surface and into carefully placed drains.
“Because of the clay in the soil, it makes more sense to have the water run above ground. Here we make it a feature.”
Reaching the town centre, it’s clear that the project should not be over-glamourised. Andrew and his team have had to grapple with extremely complex and delicate social challenges, not least the community members’ reticence when they were asked to contribute ideas. One of the greater challenges came when thinking about the ‘Black Square’ – the central area of shops – so named for its reputation for attracting crime and gang culture. “We wanted to create a place that feels safer and more pleasant to spend time in,” Andrew tells me, “while avoiding building a seating area for the gang and crime groups already using the space.” Circular benches were part of the answer – a seating area that because of its shape, is inherently unsociable for large groups of people.
The real genius of the project, however, becomes apparent as we reach Kokkedal School. The grounds boast playing apparatus of all creeds: climbing frames, stepping stones, football goals, basketball courts, playing mounds and dips. What’s more, every part of the grounds contains a child at play.
Andrew proudly points out how the features double as climate defences. A cobbled spiral creates a spectacle of the water as it flows into a central drain; a football field acts as a run-off zone during heavy rainfall; even the drainpipes from the school roof
What’s more, the impact of the work has been measured and quantified in an extensive third-party report, which followed the architecture firms, local community members, and space usage throughout and beyond the project. Their conclusion?flow into a central play and learning feature, where children can measure the rainfall.
We finish the tour in some of the residents’ communal gardens. Informed by the contribution of the local community, Andrew and his team have created a series of play, exercise and tranquil gardens behind the blocks of social housing. These, however, are not well used or well maintained. As Andrew concedes, maintenance has fallen through the gaps of responsibility and funding – a reality of many projects in such deprived areas. Crucially, the gardens continue to provide important flood defence services for the residents.
Kokkedal is not a glamourous or affluent town, and this has not been changed by the ‘Blue Green Garden City’. However, today there is a charming honesty and pride in the place that perhaps wasn’t there before. What is striking now is that the once ‘Black Square’ is now filled with women and children, and that there is a total absence of any vandalism on the flood defence features. This feels like a safe place that people take pride in.
What’s more, the impact of the work has been measured and quantified in an extensive third-party report, which followed the architecture firms, local community members, and space usage throughout and beyond the project. Their conclusion?
