In Copenhagen’s new climate park form radically follows nature

In 2020, following a competitive tender, the City of Copenhagen appointed Danish nature-based design studio SLA to transform the 20,000 m2 outdoor areas of Grønningen-Bispeparken – a 1950s social housing estate. The task was to transform the housing estate’s outdoor areas, located in Copenhagen’s Nordvest neighbourhood, from derelict, unsafe, and barren grass lawns into a new climate park that would secure the area against thunderstorms and flooding while also adding social, natural, and cultural values to the neighbourhood and its residents.

The new park design took the values and ideals of the original green areas, designed by legendary Danish landscape architect C. Th. Sørensen (1893-1979), and updated them to encompass the needs and aspirations of a modern city. Utterly transformed today, the original green areas had fallen into unsafe disrepair with no activities, usages, or play areas for the local kids and residents. The existing grass lawn was unable to manage or contain rainwater – resulting in veritable “rainwater motorways” during thunderstorms – while also being very low on plant variation, wildlife, and biodiversity.

Grønningen-Bispeparken is not a romantic promenade park but a transformative paradigm shift in urban development, where form follows nature and architecture’s foremost task is to create spaces for life – all life.

Combining climate bioswales and playful “social swales”

To address these challenges, SLA designed Grønningen-Bispeparken to be Copenhagen’s most radical nature-based climate adaptation project to date.

By letting the form of the park follow the processes of nature, SLA created an interconnected series of 18 bioswales throughout the sloping green areas that can collect, contain, and infiltrate more than 3,000 m3 of rainwater falling in the park and the adjacent courtyards and streets.

The park features five main nature typologies designed according to climate and social functions: the wet Bio Oases where nature and wildlife have the right of way; the small, dry biotopes Between the Trunks for intimate play and relaxation; the larger, dry Common Lawns for sports, farmer’s markets, community dinners, and events; the small, urban Pocket Squares for informal stay and socializing between the buildings; and the Bunker Hills that transform the old park’s Cold War underground bunkers into flexible social places – where you can soak up the evening sun in summer or go sledding and skiing in winter.

By combining climate challenges with social and cultural opportunities, the bioswales double as “social swales” providing the park with a host of playful, nature-rich, and safe meeting places for community and togetherness.

A meandering and dissolving path

A meandering path of gravel and yellow tile (a nod to the iconic neighbouring Grundtvig’s Church) knits together the park’s different areas and typologies and is designed to attract visitors and let them experience the city nature design up close.

The path’s form also radically follows nature, weaving around the park typologies with varying widths and permeable surfaces – some places even “dissolving” into pure nature with the path only visible through cut grasses and small lighting bollards.

A year-round oasis for all life

Designed to be an inviting, all-year-round neighbourhood asset for the local residents, Grønningen-Bispeparken adds 149 trees of 23 different species and more than 4 million planting seeds of specially crafted mixtures. All new trees and plants are native species to preserve and enhance the local biodiversity.

The new planting supplements the park’s preserved historic buckthorn trees, creating a more varied, biodiverse, and resilient planting composition.

Through a dynamic maintenance plan, the park will be balanced between the “wild” and the “orderly” to create optimal social and biological living conditions for humans as well as plants and wildlife.

Playful art and citizens involvement

Alongside the design of the new park, the National Arts Council of Denmark commissioned the artist Kerstin Bergendal to a four-year experimental art intervention. Her project, “Concerning A Meadow”, unfolded in a work between spatial planning, citizens’ engagement, and a new mandate for public art. As such, it offered the city’s planners, SLA’s internal Social Design Team, and residents a parallel process for the unplanned and informal knowledge exchange regarding the park. 

Kerstin Bergendal also added a series of wooden art structures to the park, elaborated in collaboration with the small landscape studio Efterland. The art structures are seamlessly integrated into the park’s natural fabric, giving children as well as adults varied opportunities for play, exercise, and socializing on the wooden art elements.

View and materiality

The spectacular views towards Copenhagen’s famous Grundtvig’s Church – which was the defining feature in C. Th. Sørensen’s original park – have been preserved in the new park design. The new trees and park elements are designed to frame the views of the church, allowing it to shine in new ways.

The existing asphalt paths are removed and replaced with warmer materials that correspond to the park’s surroundings: pocket squares, furniture, and paths are made of yellow tiles, inspired by the surrounding buildings as well as Grundtvig’s Church. Other materials have been recycled and upcycled from the City of Copenhagen’s surplus materials to lower the project’s carbon footprint as much as possible.

Rain as a resource to be celebrated

The park was inaugurated on August 31, 2024. Only five days later, a major thunderstorm hit Copenhagen flooding several major highways and infrastructures. But in Grønningen- Bispeparken, the heavy rain only made the new park more beautiful, sensuous, and lush – while the surrounding houses and infrastructures remained safe and dry.

All proving that in Grønningen-Bispeparken, rain is not seen as a threat – but as a natural resource to be celebrated.