Copenhagen's public spaces that turn into picturesque ponds when it rains
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Version 0 of 1. This week’s collection of our favourite urban stories takes us from Copenhagen to Amsterdam via New York, Paris and a cabin in the woods. As ever we’d love to hear about your favourite stories too – share them in the comments below. Copenhagen’s floodable parks When rain falls in most of our concrete-lined cities (I’m looking at you today, London), at best we are left with a soggy urban landscape, dotted with flooded patches and the occasional impromptu stream. But what if we could design rainfall into our public spaces? What if sports pitches, for example, could be transformed into picturesque ponds when it rains? Well, that’s the plan for Copenhagen’s large urban park, Enghaveparken – where water is being put at the heart of its redesign. “Water storage will be provided by excavating below-grade zones where sports such as football and hockey can be played when the park is dry, but where water can fill up into retention ponds when it rains,” writes Athlyn Cathcart-Keays in Citiscope. The park boundary will also be marked by a dyke which will filter water around the grounds and into 100 small community gardens. It’s part of a city-wide plan to create “climate-resilient neighbourhoods” in anticipation of more rainfall. Rotterdam, a city often affected by flooding, has been doing something similar with its Benthemplein water square, where three concrete basins normally used for leisure activities are transformed into water basins during heavy rainfalls to relieve the city’s sewage system. Cities in the UK, too, are exploring various ways that urban landscapes can be more flood resilient. But I don’t think our sports courts and public spaces are turning into ponds just yet – at least, not deliberately. The perils of cabin porn Last week we had a special focus on gentrification, exploring how the phenomenon is changing cities around the world. But are cities the only places impacted? Apparently not: Pop-Up City considers the gentrification of forests and woodlands, as trends like “cabin porn” and technology fatigue lead the urban creative elite to seek a renewed connection with nature. “It’s no surprise that the recent cabin trend started in the American tech community as a reaction to the increasing digitalization of our lifestyles,” writes Joop de Boer. “People that are most into it seem to be the first to get exhausted by fast urban dynamics.” As well as the desire for a beautiful home in the woods, companies are locating their offices in the wilderness too – some in the form of mobile co-working trailers complete with solar panels and Wi-Fi. Woodland gentrification may not have the repercussions as seen in cities – displaced populations, the loss of affordable housing – but conservation specialists may soon be worried to see their forests populated by creatures of a different nature. Is nowhere safe from the monied hipster? Broadway goes green New York’s High Line continues to be a symbol for all the opportunities and problems that urban regeneration brings with it. But some believe the city needs more transformative linear parks. Writing in the New York Daily News, Perkins Eastman architect Jonathan Cohn and Harvard student Jung Hyan Woo suggest that the primary stretch of one of the Big Apple’s most famous streets, Broadway, should have cars taken away and be turned into the “Green Line”. “The Green Line we envision would be a new type of public recreational space: a combination of a street and a park,” Cohn and Woo write. “Allowing for emergency access and cross-town traffic, it would build on historic precedents of pedestrian-oriented streets like Las Ramblas in Barcelona, integrating landscape in a way that improves the environment and prioritizes the pedestrian experience.” Paris united? Uncube takes a look at one of Paris’s most ambitious housing developments, the transformation of the Macdonald warehouse – the longest building in Paris, situated in the former “industrial no man’s land” of the city’s north-eastern urban fringe – into a residential megastructure. Where once an enormous disused warehouse stood, a project of social housing, office buildings, a school and a library took seed. Situated on the “Périphérique”, which is considered a barrier to integration and growth in Paris, the project is part of a citywide strategy: “[The building’s] conversion is a key element in the ‘Grand Paris’ project, a plan to progressively incorporate the infamous ‘banlieue’ estates of the periphery into the city better and bridge the historical, economic and demographic gap which separates them from the historic centre,” write Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli. In fact, the first president of the new Métropole du Grand Paris region, Patrick Ollier, was elected today. Urban farming with a twist Finally, an unusual feature at an urban farm in Amsterdam: the city’s art institute, Stichting Mediamatic, collects urine from passers-by for it to use as fertiliser. Pop-Up City shares an amusing photo of the side of their building, lined with white urinals. Anything for sustainable city agriculture, right? Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion |