Kløvermarkskvarteret

Location: Kløvermarken, Copenhagen
Client: The Municipality of Copenhagen and Skanska
Team: Stig L. Andersson, Flemming Rafn Thomsen, Helene Koch, Sofie Jørgensen, Rasmus Andersen, Daniel Carlsen, Lene Dammand Lund, Martin Søberg, Ulla Hornsyld, Sybren Stroo, Tom Brons
Collaborators: 3RW, 2+1, Cenergia Energi Consultants, Transform Rootzone, Peter Stanley (trafic consultant)
Design phase: 2008
Area: 930.000 m2

Urban quarter of the 21st century

With the project of designing a complete new urban area on the Copenhagen island of Amager, SLA accepted the challenge and presented a design that fit the problems and needs of the present day. As the competition required, urban dwellers should be able to afford a decent home and access sporting facilities outside the door. At the same time the urban spaces of the quarter should provide good experiences plus be sustainable for the future.

The contribution of SLA strived to limit the moving out of desirable segments, to reach a high degree of sustainability and to construct a green and complex cityscape. By creating a heterogeneous grid as basic structure, greenery and urban dwelling were knitted together in an ever-changing structure.

In order to grow a harmonious environment in the new quarter, a liquidation of the inherited separation of functions is required. -Instead an amalgamation of functions is needed in the pursuit of making a vibrant whole. By keeping together the different elements in a patchy structure, the urban feel will blossom and let residents encounter each other in pleasant spaces. The aspired density generates increased feelings of safety, belonging and activity.

The intricate mesh of streets, paths and squares forms quirky crossings, niches and fickle courses which all generate meetings. Buildings as well as streets and vegetation differ in form and scale to frame alternating views of near and far to produce the feeling of an heterogeneous urbanity.

The Kløvermarken Quarter addresses a group of people with middle-income who often decide to move out of the city after the first child is born. – People who appreciate urban values and the many opportunities of the city while having access to recreational zones of green. Therefore this project aims for cheap and sustainable housing that can provide the new quarter with a new and beautiful face.