Opinion piece by Thomas Scheel, partner at Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects. Published in Politiken BYRUM on 4 October 2018.

Krøyers Plads – for many years Copenhagen’s enfant terrible for developers, architects and the municipality, but in my opinion also one of the best recent examples of the difference citizen involvement can make. And yes, it is a difficult discipline, but as the Director of the Danish Town Planning Institute pointed out on 11 September, it can be the difference between success and failure.

Unfortunately, citizen involvement often ends up as a practice focused more on avoiding opposition than creating value and quality.

In 2003, one of the first development attempts for Krøyers Plads began with a large-scale architectural competition, but the winning proposal for 55-metre high-rises met with such massive protests that the City of Copenhagen rejected the local plan in 2005.

History repeated itself with a new architectural proposal in 2006, where yet another project met the same fate.

In the wake of the financial crisis, NCC acquired the site in 2010 and wanted to give the area another chance. They contacted us, Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, but this time with a desire for a radically different process anchored in the local community, the municipality, and politicians. That was the starting point that made us say yes to a project that, on paper, seemed destined for headwinds.

Together with GHB Landscape Architects, NCC, the City of Copenhagen and the City Architect, we created a process plan aimed at producing a new local plan with support from all stakeholders, especially the residents of Christianshavn.

Not information meetings in disguise

The solution was three open, public workshops in Christianshavn, each with its own theme: City Life, Urban Spaces, and Buildings. The premise was that these should not be information meetings in disguise, but genuine workshops with facilitated group tasks, where all suggestions were recorded and worked on – but with a clear message that no promises were being made.

It quickly became clear that most attendees were not opposed to developing the site, but had clear views on the type of development and, in particular, its content.

The purpose of the first workshop, City Life, was to map residents’ wishes for the type of urban life. We were very aware that the project’s development had led to the closure of the popular street food venue Luftkastellet, and that residents had, in effect, lost an active social space. We therefore communicated that we wanted to try to create the basis for new urban life at Krøyers Plads.

In the next workshop, Urban Spaces, we moved closer to the project’s framework, which focused on openness, access to the water, green spaces, and ground-floor retail.

Buildings was the final and most challenging workshop, but it laid the foundation for the final classic solution with two warehouse buildings and one block, with height concentrated where it would cause the least inconvenience. An idea that arose from dialogue with the citizens, but was, quite simply, the best solution for the site.

We processed the results from the three workshops and passed on two possible proposals for further development of the local plan.

The citizens co-created the right solution for the site

Today, it is clear that citizen involvement helped create the right architecture for the site: considerate, classic, and open buildings with a vibrant urban life. Many of these qualities can be traced directly back to the three citizen-focused workshops – the green courtyards, access to the water, open sightlines, and not least the placement of the buildings themselves.

Citizen involvement was an important part of the foundation for our thinking, giving the project crucial local anchoring and a sense of security. Architecture gains another quality and dimension when the community is involved, and the final project becomes more binding and carries greater legitimacy with both the client and the municipality.

As architects, we have a central role in the involvement process, identifying the professional qualities in citizens’ input. We are not there to compromise with citizens but to extract quality from what comes in – not just to hold onto our own visions. We must show humility and reflect on the fact that most of the buildings we design must be considerate – they must fit into a place and a context.

Public and sensitive sites carry obligations

Should architects involve citizens in everything? Absolutely not.

We should involve when there is a need – when we build in public places that have special significance or sensitivity. In those cases, we are obliged to create special processes.

My appeal is for more people to start seeing citizen involvement as a tool for creating well-functioning architecture – and less as a way of avoiding conflict. At the same time, we as architects should view citizen input as part of good architecture, not as a threat to aesthetic visions.