Situation

The Danish town of Kokkedal was hit by very heavy rain­fall in 2007 and 2010. Both times the  adja­cent lake Usserød Lake over­flowed its banks and the floo­ding caused serious damage to many homes.

These critical events moti­vated the muni­ci­pa­lity to estab­lish a unique part­ner­ship with public housing orga­ni­sa­tions, the sewer utility and the Danish Foun­da­tion Reald­ania. Toge­ther they decided to protect the neigh­bour­hood against future floods why crea­ting attrac­tive new urban spaces.

Kokkedal Climate Adap­tion is the biggest and most complex climate adap­tion project in Denmark. It consists of 35 subpro­jects, all desi­gned and imple­mented by Ramboll and the land­sca­ping company Schon­herr.

Climate adaption & social inclusion

Kokkedal Climate Adap­tion covers an area of more than 60 ha in the North of Sealand. it includes a green river valley, a school, a nursing home, a sports centre, a shop­ping mall and a large resi­den­tial area. Around 3,000 people live here.

The project chall­enge was to develop a climate adap­tion which also could promote an improved urban life: connect the frag­mented urban areas, create new attrac­tive meeting points and overall bring nature closer to the resi­dents.

There are many reasons why this project is special. One of them is that it combines climate adap­tion with social inclu­sion by applying flood-risk measures with added social and recrea­tional value.

Program

Kokkedal Climate Adap­tion contains an exten­sive cata­logue of solu­tions for climate adap­tion and water methods. Whereas rain­water form­erly was hidden under­ground in pipe­lines, the rain­water manage­ment is now made visible in a way, offe­ring new recrea­tional urban possi­bi­li­ties.

The new urban spaces include the Moroccan Garden, the Water Garden, the Ice Floe Garden and the Nature Hinge, which is a beau­tiful wooden stair­case connec­ting the resi­den­tial area with the adja­cent river valley.  Moreover, a new square has been estab­lished, the Wave Square, which holds rain­water, but when it’s dry, it provides space for sports like basket­ball, skate­boar­ding and parkour.

The holi­stic approach to the project implies a focus on the economic, social and envi­ron­mental sustaina­bi­lity.

Start doing the same

“Kokkedal Climate Adap­tion has undoub­tedly improved our neigh­bour­hood.”, resi­dent Mari­anne Lund­berg Andersen (64) says. “I see it speci­ally in the meadow where there is much more life by now. There’s a lot of people that I’ve never seen before. People come toge­ther and do barbe­ques  when the weather allows it, or cele­brate birth­days. There is a great animal life in our lakes where you can catch fish like sala­man­ders or eels. School children do sports, running and fishing, and people in my age have started doing the same.”

The project has made people feel more safe. Also people now want to stay and use the local urban spaces even more. The project was completed in spring 2018. The new spaces are widely used and serious floo­ding is history now.

In November 2017, the project received DANVA and Realdania’s Climate Award for crea­ting a project which serves as an inspi­ra­tion for all future climate adap­tion projects.

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