Glostrup Town Hall Park and Nyvej
Location: Glostrup. Denmark
Client: Municipality of Glostrup
Team: Stig L. Andersson, Hanne Bruun Møller, Stine Poulsen, Christian Restorff-Liliegren
Design phase: 1997-2000 (Nyvej 1995)
Construction: 2000 (Nyvej 1996)
Area: 1,2 ha. (Nyvej 5.500 m2)
Cost of construction: 1,2 Mill. € (Nyvej 1,7 Mill. €)
Funded by the Realdania Foundation
This project in Glostrup has not only changed the town physically: it has caused the residents to change their behaviour. The residents in the area say that they re-route their journey to work through the Town Hall Park and often choose to stay a while to enjoy the sensory pause.
Pollarded lime trees from a previous road have been preserved as a contrast to the new interventions, supplemented with trees otherwise found in the surrounding gardens. In this way a connection is created between the public space of the Town Hall Park and the residents’ private gardens, thus establishing intimacy.
The Town Hall Park is constructed as a square in the centre of Glostrup’s modernist suburban space, and is the last link in a project to connect the central parts of the town between the station, church, town hall and shopping centre. To create experiences in the heterogeneous built environment, the square has been given a prominent character, i.a. by the surfacing of Norwegian ‘otta pilarguri’ slates, that abut the facades of the surrounding buildings. The surfacing is contoured so the visitor becomes aware of his or her own body and balance when he/she moves through the park.
On Nyvej lime trees have been planted in double rows, that in time will transform the road into a classical avenue. The light is in the surfacing as on a runway and separates cyclists and pedestrians.
