June 3 . Copenhagen – Amager Island Tour & Carlsberg Brewery Redevelopment Project

Amager Island
In the morning we set off to see Amager Island. The island was created to provide a recreational opportunity for Copenhagen citizens. At one time there was a small beach there but it has since been expanded to over double its original size through a man-made island that juts off the coast. There is ample bicycle parking and numerous public restrooms that are located along this stretch of beach making creating a very nice public beach. It is located just outside of Copenhagen and has two stops within walking distance of the Metro line. Even recreation is very accessible by train here! From Amager Island you can see Gasoline Island (Photo, Right). Gasoline Island is where many of the polluting businesses moved after the city began efforts to clean up the harbor in Copenhagen. Here we are imitating the world's first offshore wind farm is built out in the water here (Photo, Bottom). I think that makes us the first offshore wind farm mime group. Right?

It made a lot of sense on the day we were out there --- it was extremely WINDY!




We also stopped by the new Harbor Baths. I blogged a bit about this in my YES IS MORE post but here, although it was too cold to go swimming, we were able to actually experience what it was like to be there (Photo, Right). A Harbor Bath is essentially a pier with a looped deck at the end that allows persons to get down into the water via stairs. Jill and I tried very hard to stay out of the incessant wind (Photo, Bottom).




Carlsberg BreweryRenewal





In the afternoon a very personable man named Claus gave us a tour of the Carlsberg B redevelopment project. Thirewerys was not your standard brewery tour where you walk around and look at the copper kettles and take in all of the barley scents. We actually toured many vacant or soon to be vacant/converted spaces like this room filled with enormous copper kettles (Photo, Right) or this building filled with generators once used to turn diesel into energy. (PICTURE)




Carlsberg Brewery, located near central Copenhagen has been slowly moving their production and bottling off-site, much of it to Jutland, and eventually those operations will cease entirely. Carlsberg plans to keep their corporate headquarters in Copenhagen but they have been planning for re-use for many of these large historic buildings (Photo, Right), some of which have been here since 1847. New plans for the area are especially controversial because of the generational ties that many of people in Denmark have to employment at this location (and of course the beer itself). In Denmark, Carlsberg is a symbol of quality and purity – even bottled water and soft drinks carry the name Carlsberg.



Some of the buildings have temporary uses – we saw ballet dancers practicing in the old distribution facility (Photo, Left) and some of the buildings have been converted to offices but many have no current activity. The goal is to create new uses that bring "life" to the area at all hours of the day.




It is difficult to compare this project to the Pabst Brewery redevelopment project in Milwaukee because the sites are very different but there are some observations that can be made. Whereas the Carlsberg Brewery is being reintegrated into the fabric of the neighborhood, the Pabst Brewery is in a very isolated location. Carlsberg Brewery has already opened up gardens (Photo, Right) for use as a public park that were once part of a private estate and has plans for creating several public plazas that will help attract residents living in the surrounding neighborhoods to the area. Perhaps the Pabst Brewery project needs to take a look at how creating public spaces and linkages with nearby areas might integrate the public with the private development occurring at Pabst Brewery.

Afterward we talked to the developers that were working on the project. They are regulated by the government of Denmark to bring the Carlsberg redevelopment up to a certain standard. Surprisingly, to most of us, the developers plan on exceeding those standards and become pioneers of eco-friendly development. They feel that in the long term there will be benefits for their company by leading the way through this type of sustainable development. It was hard to tell whether they were driven by their conscience or future profits, but the plan for this area focuses on bringing a high quality of life to this area. They also talked about carbon-neutrality goals.

Transportation elements were a large part of plan for this redevelopment project. The developers wanted to finance a new metro station at the location but since the municipality was not willing to alter the route, they eventually were able to get the regional train station moved from its current location to the Carlsberg area. They also wanted to focus on narrow streets to keep traffic lulled, passages and alleys, as well as roads that will become shared spaces with underground parking facilities for the development.

I liked that the developers were not trying to use radical methods to create this neighborhood as an eco-friendly environment. They have compared themselves to the Dongtan city in China which is trying to be the first zero-carbon city. Instead of looking to these new eco-cities, they have turned around and looked back at the traditional elements that contribute to environmentally-friendly processes. I think people will feel much better about moving into a traditional neighborhood that has started to reinvent itself as an environmentally sustainable area instead of going to a place like Dongtan which is using out-of-the-ordinary methods.

Here's Claus showing me a model of how they anticipate the redevelopment to look when it's all done:



Party by Train?
Unwind time! I think these photos pretty much explain themselves . . . :)