27.08.2025
SLA wins competition for new landmark park in Copenhagen
For the first time in a generation, the City of Copenhagen will create an entirely new, large-scale urban park. Team SLA has won the design competition to deliver this landmark project over the next many years.
Team SLA’s project Nordør – New Park in Nordhavn will deliver what is arguably one of Copenhagen’s most important urban design projects in more than a decade: A new 30-hectare (75-acre) coastal nature park in Nordhavn.
The park is a landmark project that will connect people and nature, set new global standards for climate-positive and nature-positive urban design, and redefine Copenhagen’s relationship with its water.
Designed as both a carbon sink and biodiversity driver, Nordør – New Park in Nordhavn will sequester more CO2 than it emits and act as a biodiversity catalyst, both on-site and off-site, for new habitats on land, coast, and sea.
The park combines sport fields, beaches, playgrounds, activity areas, and community spaces within a dynamic framework of wild, self-growing nature – offering Copenhageners both everyday life amenities, ecological resilience, and a much-needed reconnection with nature right outside their doorsteps.
“Today, humanity is more alienated from nature than ever before. With Nordør, we have designed a climate-positive and nature-positive park that not only sets new standards for carbon sequestering and biodiversity, but above all restores our connection to nature. For us, Nordør is a true Copenhagen landmark – rooted in community, wild nature, climate adaptation, and all the city’s amazing diversity of life.”
— Mette Skjold, Senior Partner and CEO, SLA
The design of Nordør – New Park in Nordhavn is rooted in an extensive and year-long citizens dialogue involving residents, nature organizations, local sports clubs, and other stakeholders, and devised with a radical idea: to give nature’s own processes space and time to evolve.
Through minimal interventions, the new park is created from the existing landscape – decades of deposited soil, slopes, and ridges from Copenhagen construction sites – carefully refined into a rich mosaic of lagoons, meadows, beaches, grasslands, forest edges, and marine reefs reshape the site into a dynamic meeting point between land and sea, offering equal space for both people and wildlife.
Nordør – New Park in Nordhavn is designed by Team SLA for the City of Copenhagen and By & Havn, and will stand as a global inspiration for how cities can embrace nature as a driver of livability, resilience, and identity.
Team SLA is comprised of SLA, VITA Engineers, Urban Agency, Aaen Engineering, Pihlmann Architects, Buro Happold, Kerstin Bergendal, Holdbart, and Aiming Spaces.
The construction of the park is set to start in 2028.
05.08.2025
Diana Cruz new Head of the Norwegian Market at SLA
SLA strengthens its Norwegian operations with the appointment of Diana Cruz as the new Head of the Norwegian Market.
24.06.2025
Development plan for Odense Inner Harbor politically approved
We are very happy to share that Team SLA/Vandkunsten’s district development plan for Odense Inner Harbor – set to become Denmark’s lushest harbor – has been approved by the City of Odense.
10.06.2025
SLA creates 104 new neighbourhood parks in Abu Dhabi
We are happy to share that we have completed one of the largest urban greening projects to date in the UAE: 104 new neighbourhood parks across Abu Dhabi, designed to improve health, biodiversity, and the everyday quality of life for all Abu Dhabi’s residents.