My site office in Ørestad

New inspiration for documentation: from ‘A Building is not a Building’ exhibit, Ola Kolehmainen, The Black Diamond, Copenhagen

New development areas in white

I am really looking forward to this time in Copenhagen.  When Jan Gehl came and spoke to Peter Bosselmann’s research methods course last year, he addressed California (especially Berkeley), New York, and Copenhagen as the main harbingers of urban design/public space practices, theories and writings.  To finally experience the European edition of the trio (on the ground and in the flesh)…is rewarding.  This trip has also been my effort to uncover ‘the other’, non-western sources of public space discussion going on mainly in different parts of Asia.

Again, I’m living insitu, or on site.  (This time with a fellow designer.)  This field office allows me to monitor the rate and progress of construction of Ørestad and Crossroads Copenhagen at very close range.  I spent today walking the sites of both projects (which is really just a single long strip of one outrageously bold architectural project after another).  The development websites call this area a “Testing ground for new ideas.”

The weather has created one fantastic dramatic backdrop for all the photography.  Walking around has been surreal.  I’m really making use of the new 18-200mm lens and hood.

Everyone bikes in Copenhagen, but the new metro line to the new cities is a must see for me.  The trains, running every five minutes, have no drivers.