Site Description

The Municipality of Gladsaxe is located in the north western suburb of Copenhagen. Based on analyses of the development of social balance in Gladsaxe Municipality, the project site represents a city district with a negative social development. The attention is focused on the housing development Pileparken with a total of 1,700 inhabitants.

Health/Environmental/Social issues

The selected site is located in the area of poor environmental quality, high groundwater level which exposes the local citizens to health risk during heavy rainfall, backflow from the sewage system occurs with high risk of infection caused by raw sewerage flooding. These problems could be even more severe due to future climate change and weather extremes. This is one of the most socially exposed areas of the city: low income level, low education level, the number of non-western immigrants increased from 16% to more than 25% in less than 5 years. Increasing number of children is being socially exposed, rising amount of social cases involving children. A large proportion of citizens are physically inactive, 1/3 does not live up to WHO’s minimum recommendations and half of the population is overweight or obese. An increasing number of citizens is considered to have weak social relations. The strategy of City Parts in Social Balance in Gladsaxe Municipality state that all city parts have to be in social balance.

Demonstration activities

Gladsaxe Municipality is a FR in Denmark in developing climate adaption projects by creation of livable cities, in all aspects in some of the largest Danish climate adaptation projects published by Sustainia and C40 Cities16. Using advanced multifaceted evaporation in harvested storm water management and urban pluvial flood and raw sewerage overflow reduction construction adds to the PH and WB benefits. This is making citizens pro-active, healthier and happier in creating MF-NBS based areas for recreation, children’s play, socializing of all residents’ groups, higher biodiversity, producing food by vertical gardening thus create more room for other activities including small business activation. These activities continue and enhance the established dialogue between city management and residents. The euPOLIS set of specific NBS’s at this site will rely on creative development of new solutions for urban revitalization based on facilitation of intensified evaporation to reuse locally harvested rainwater which in parallel support the other NBS. This will secure the unfolding of the recreational potential of the site and reduce the load on the sewer system thus prevent its harmful effects on public health during heavy rainfall events. The specific forms of NBS include: (i) Natural purifying (“cleaning”) of harvested storm water to be used for other purposes; (ii) Evaporation playing field i.e. underground water storage moistening grass and evaporating storm water, (iii) Green sponge hill, i.e. a rolling landscape of artificially grown media to act as a water buffer magazine, an evaporation reactor, a water filtration unit and a lush flower bed,(iv) Pavement irrigation, i.e. sprinkling irrigation of paved areas during hot weather for speeding evaporation process, surface cooling and kids playing grounds, (v) NBS access pathways to make stronger unity in the community by making better connectivity between the facilities of the area, (vi) Water square playground (grove and water mist, art and culture interface, scent gardens) creates a framework for play and mediation for people in all ages, to create awareness of water and environment through play, (vii) vertical gardens and canopy, (viii) Sensory garden, picnic area, (ix) Lake, forest, meadow and wetland biotope.