All

ENGHAVEPARKEN – CLIMATE PARK

The historical Enghavepark has been transformed and is now the largest climate project in Copenhagen. With a 22.600 m3 water reservoir the park answers the need to handle future water challenges. The challenges are positively transformed into a large variety of new recreational, relaxation and sensory opportunities to be used both in an everyday situation and in the event of cloudburst. The park will continue to be a unique space with its own poetic, lush fairytale-like atmosphere.

FAKTA
Partner in charge: Flemming Rafn Thomsen
Employees: Anders Juul Jensen, Kirstine Lorentsen, Christian Kuczynski, Anna Sissela Michalsdotter, Sofie Mandrup Andreassen, Jeppe Ecklon, Max Moriyama, Manabu Yamaya, Liane Filtenborg Laustsen
Client: City of Copenhagen, Greater Copenhagen Utility (HOFOR), Areal Renewal Project
Place: Copenhagen, Denmark
Type: Prequalified project competition. 1st prize.
Role: Landscape and masterplan
Size: 35,000 m2 (380,000 sf)
Cloudburst Capacity: 22,600 m3 (800,000 ft3)
Team: COWI, THIRD NATURE and Platant
Period: 2014-inaugurated december 2019

HISTORICAL BREATHING SPACE IN THE CITY
Enghaveparken has been an important green space at Vesterbro for more than 90 years. A respite for the working class living in the neighborhood. The park is built as a strict neoclassical park with a reflecting pool, geometric axes, playground and stage. With the challenges like rising population growth and more frequent cloudburst, there is a need to rethink our urban spaces smarter and more multifunctional. Enghaveparken has therefore been selected to become a part of the overall cloudburst strategy for Vesterbro. The park is one of 300 cloudburst projects that the City of Copenhagen and Greater Copenhagen Utility (HOFOR) plan to finish in the next 20 years to protect Copenhagen against future flooding. The listed park has been transformed into a climate project with a 22.600 m3 water reservoir. The transformation of the park has turned the water challenges to a variety of new experiences for recreation and interaction.

ENGHAVEPARKEN LOOK LIKE ITS (OLD) SELF
The large green and popular park is fenced and protected from the outside world. It appears as a closed universe with it owns poetic, lush and fairytalelike-atmosphere. Here you can put your everyday life behind, charge the batteries and respite. The avenue of trees creates space and room for each function; the foyer, the Fountaingarden, the Rosegarden, The Multi Pitch, the stage, the playground and Library garden. Everything in its place.

Everything is like before, and yet not. Time and climate change have caught up, which is why we have lowered some of the parks spaces to collect water during cloudburst. A levee has been created in the outline of the park that can hold onto the rainwater. Both the everyday rain and the extreme rain amounts. In dry periods the levee can also be used as for play and as a bench for sitting. Enghaveparken is now ready for the next 100 years of water challenges.

Oveview of Enghaveparken under construction, where you can see the different areas take form. In the back ground is Carlsberg Byen. Foto: Astrid Maria Rasmussen.

ROOFTOP WATER RECYCLED AND DELAYED
Carlsberg Byen is the water catchment area for Enghaveparken, which means that the rainwater that falls in the area naturally will flow towards Enghaveparken. The everyday rain from the roofs of Carlsberg Byen will be led to Enghaveparken and be collected in a 2000 m3 underground reservoir built by Greater Copenhagen Utility. The collected rainwater can be used for sweepers and watering the trees of Copenhagen. The recycling of rainwater will spare the use of clean

drinking water. The remaining rainwater will be filtered and reused for recreative activities and contribute to the parks renewed identity. However, big amounts of rainwater will not enter the park until measures are taken in the local area that will bring the water to the park. Enghaveparken is therefore the first step of many towards a climate protected Vesterbro.

LOCAL CLIMATE ADAPTATION
Enghaveparken has been transformed to store 22.600 m3 rainwater. In order to improve recreative functions and store large amounts water the Multi Pitch, Rosegarden and Watergarden are lowered areas to collect water. When the underground reservoir is filled the water is led to the Reflecting Pool and thereafter to the Rosegarden reservoir. We have used the park’s existing 1 m terrain drop from west to east to establish a levee. The levee is 1m high at Enghavevej and functions

like a “dustpan” that can retain 14.500 m3 water. In extreme cases of cloudbursts, the 5^th reservoir the levee will be filled to the park’s total capacity of 22.600 m3 will be reached. In this case the park will be closed for the public. After 24 hours and when the sewer system is ready to take water in again the water will be emptied from Enghaveparken and it can be accessed again.

THE LEVEE – WATER MANAGEMENT AND PLAY
The levee is the last reservoir in the surface water management in Enghaveparken and it is only supposed to function is extreme cases of flooding. At extreme cloudbursts the gates in the levee will automatically be raised and the park will be filled with water. In the daily use the water will tell the story of the Climate Park and the water will be

a recreational and educational element. The daily rain will be collected in the underground reservoir under the Rosegarden, filtered and reused for recreative purpose in a trench at the top of the levee. If there is water in the reservoir, the trench will also have water running.

A NEOCLASSICAL DESIGN
According to the original design and drawings from 1927, Arne Jacobsen’s stage and pavilions were the central objects in Enghaveparken. The structure in the park has been preserved and enforced with the restoration of the tree alleys going through the park. The different areas in the park are formed in Enghaveparken’s original character and designed with great additions of new experiences. The

original pavilions by Arne Jacobsen have been rebuilt and placed at the entrance of the park. The renewal of the original designs of Enghaveparken will reinforce its cultural values and telling, as well as strengthen the architectural context of Copenhagen (cf. the city’s Tree Policy and Architectural Policy).

A CLEAR STRUCTURE GIVES SPACE TO DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES
Neoclassicism is characterized as robust architecture. Its clear structure gives way to the contrast, framing and emphasizing details in a simple and understandable geometry. With a clear structure, the rooms are programmed with great variety and without hierarchy. The access to the park has also been renewed with two new entrances. The spaces within the park have been visually and physically connected. The number of benches has been increased and supplemented with informal recreational areas on edges on the lowered part of the Multi Pitch and the Rosegarden.

The levee functions as a long element for play and seating. The plants and trees around the alleys are emphasized and recreated in the main axis. The park has been supplemented with lights along the main passages, integrated lighting in the levee for increased safety and for lighting up the Multi Pitch. Rainwater has become a part of the renewed identity of Enghaveparken. The water is visual in all spaces and will communicate the important message of climate change.

A TIGHT FRAME AND WILD NATURE
The Enghavepark is a green breathing space for people and animals. The urban nature is for everyone, a picnic on trimmed grass, for people/visitors who enjoy flowers in all seasons, and people who pass by. 83 new trees have been planted in the park, spread across 10 different varieties. Most are planted in connection with the re-establishment of the alleys. The biodiversity in the garden is further enhanced by

the 11,000 perennial plants, consisting of 55 different varieties in the Library garden as well as 950 fragrant roses planted in the Rose garden. All over the park 220,000 bulbs have been planted, which together with the rest of the planting will help make the park attractive to the eye and mind all year and create habitats for urban wildlife as insects and small animals.

Well on it’s way towards a third nature. The winning proposal is like a meteor strike in the functionally divided city

Boris Brorman Jensen in The Architect

It is captivatingly futuristic and, alongside the other comparatively simple schemes, speculates just how advanced we could be if we hadn’t neglected our urban waterways for so long.

Financial Times on HOW

A jury member described it as ‘academic hippie platitudes – plenty of feel-good, but completely unnecessarily high readability index’.
The most original is in the solutions presented. Not least what a jury member call ‘the Big Rainwater Penis’.

Creative Business Cup jury

The winning project of the Europan competition presents a visionary proposal for how we draw nature back into the city and utilize the qualities that it can give to the cityscape.

City Architect of Copenhagen, Tina Saaby

ENGHAVEPARKEN – CLIMATE PARK

Recent Work

Recent Work

Testimonials