Meeting with beer drinkers to find a new place. August 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt

Dialogue with beer drinkers about the situation they are faceing. Due to the construction of a new metro ring in Copenhagen they can not stay at Enghave plads during the 8 years the construction work  is in progress. Where could they imagine to stay in the meantime? What criteria and requirements should a new site contain? Walk in the area to find a suitable place. The dog walker site at the end of Enghave plads was chosen. Site is located Enghavevej between the skate park and the organic urban garden. The municipality agrees that the site may be used by beer drinkers.

 

Workshop with beer drinkers. August 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg  v / Thomas Egholm, Spektrum Architects, Wood Couture

Workshop where it was discussed what kind of facilities, furniture and architectural expression the site should contain. There was over 150 pictures shown to the users, of which about 40 were selected as the inspiration for the project.

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Open public meeting. September 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm, Spektrum Architects, local residents, dog walkers, local traders

Meeting with local residents and other users of the site to inform about the project.

 

Design Process. September-December 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm, Spektrum Architects, Chalotte Vad

Spektrum Architects draw a plan of Enghave Mini plads in close cooperation with users. Dialogue with the City of Copenhagen about permissions to users’ desires for the site. Users wanted for example: urinal / weather shelter, benches and tables, lighting, grills, fountain, greenery, water line, cover facing Enghave road, electricity. After much dialogue the municipality permit the majority of users want. These desires and functions are incorporated and further developed in the design of the space and equipment by Spektrum Architects. This is an ongoing process which is constantly adjusted in collaboration with the users.

 

Workshop Valbyparken. November 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm Chalotte Vad

Spectrum Architects has designed a 45 m long bench that follows the entire back of the site, and a small semi-circular bench to stand under a pergola with a canopy. This bench is the first building construction in the project, because the users don´t have places to sit in the square.

Copenhagen municipality, Center for Parks and Nature, has given some of the municipality’s old worn benches to build the new benches.

The workshop took place in Valby, where we could work in one of the Center for Park and nature buildings, to remove the old wood from the benches metal profiles. The old worn mahogany wood was removed and has since been sanded and will be used to build the cover of the urinal at the site.

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Burial of cement blocks and installation of metal frames. November 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm Chalotte Vad

Cement Foundations was buried with great difficulty. The winter has set in with severe frost and snow. We placed insulation mats on the ground to keep the frost of. But in some places the soil was so hard that we had to use an ax to get the ground dug away. We decided only to build half of the long bench, because the ground was too hard for further construction. The rest of the bench will be built in the spring.

 

Installation of new certified oiled mahogany on metal frames. November – December 2010
Participants: Wood Couture

As the users and Kenneth placed the foundation and metal frames for the bench, Petter and Sigurd from Wood Couture started putting wood on the frames. Every section of the bench is unique because of the bench organic form. It required great technical ingenuity and precision in order to mount the wood on the benche. Tove Ditlevsen’s school was kind enough to put a space available for storage of wood and tools. The school canteen also came over with excess food to the working team.

Digging holes and casting of foundation for the pergola. December 2010
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm Chalotte Vad

Kenneth rented an auger to dig the approx. 1 m deep holes where there should be cast foundation for the pergola. It would go fast for a few days later the temperature would drop to minus 10 degrees at night, making it impossible for the cement to harden properly. Fortunately molding using insulating mats and hard work.

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Construction of pergola. December 2010
Participants: Wood Couture

NCC has been helpful with ordering materials through their suppliers to the building of the pergola. Petter and Sigurd from Wood Couture builds the large wooden pergola structure . There was placed a canopy of translucent channel plastic as weather shelter to users on top of the pergola. Again, Tove Ditlevsen’s school helped us by making the school’s gymnasium available, so the plates could be cut in a frost-free room.

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Opening and birthday party. December 2010
Participants: All

Margaret Hansen, or Mama, celebrated 60 years on 16 December and this was celebrated in the square with food and drink. Because of the cold it was then necessary to take a break until the spring with further work on the project.

 

Bench building finished. May 2011
Participants: Wood Couture, users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm Chalotte Vad

We only got to built about half of the long bench, as cold and frost put an end to the work. But in the middle of May we started to put the last metal frames up and Wood Couture could finish to build the bench .

Stone sorting workshop
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm Chalotte Vad

Copenhagen municipality, Center for Parks and Nature, had promised to donate coating to mini park. So we went out on the municipality’s stock room and did a workshop sorting the stones. It was a day where we made large piles of cobbles and setts. The stones were transported to Enghave mini plads by the municipality.

 

Coating. May-June 2011
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm Chalotte Vad

The municipality came and dug out for a path along the long bench. The municipality placed pickle gravel and cobbles along the edge of the path. The agreement was that users themselfs should place all the small cobblestone. It was a big job and took almost a whole month to get all the stones in place. Especially Michael Bornholmer and Jan did a huge effort and laid fine patterns into the path. A sun symbol, a long sinuous snake, a double helix and a Thor’s hammer. The municipality also came with a slot gravel that users scattered under the pergola, so space was leveled and easy to keep clean.

 

Completion of the pergola. June 2011
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Vesterbro Lokaludvalg v / Thomas Egholm, Spektrum Architects, Chalotte Vad

The pergola was not quite finished when the cold stopped the work. There was a part of the crossbar in the design that had to be cut off and finished in a beautiful way. Bornholmeren worked it into a form inspired by the Nordic wood carving. A rear edge of the pergola was constructed in a sinuous organic form. Then we painted the pergola in a dark chocolate brown color. The not so pretty plastic sheeting that users had installed at the back of the pergola as a shelter from the weather, was replaced with a white canvas. Eventually, we planted willow along the back of the pergola. Again NCC was helpful and came and dug holes into the hard soil where the plants should stand. We got the willow as a gift from the organic urban garden.

 

Setting up the grill. June 2011
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt

2 grills has been placed . One near the pergola and a one near the skate park.

 

Bed and plants. June 2011
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Spektrum Architects, Chalotte Vad

There was build a large round bed in front off the bench near the skate park. The bed will stop people to slope across the square and instead follow the path along the bench. It will spare the grass when it is planted. The bed is at first planted with flowers discarded from a nearby florist. Bornholmeren also got a lot of pots with flowers that had been placed around the metro construction workspace, so now the park looks rather a nice and summery.

 

Construction of the bar. August 2011
Participants: Users, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Spektrum Architects, Chalotte Vad
Since there are still missing tables in mini park the users wanted to built a bar. The bar was built as part of the pergola and the covering was extended over the bar.

Future projects:

 

Urinal. October 2011
There must be dug out so the urinal can be connected to sewers.
Urinal construction.
There should be dug out and constructed a path on the last stretch from the entrance to the urinal and bench.

 

Planting. October 2011
There should be planted grass on half of the square facing the skate park.
There should be planted climbers up the pergola.
There should be planted trees and bushes on the piece toward the organic urban garden and also besides the skate park.

Bins. October 2011
There should be more bins up.

 

Opening Party 3. february 2012, 4-7 pm
We´ll make a nice opnening party with beer and music.