Copenhagen Urban Lab 2018 - Coastal Resilience
For the 2018 Copenhagen Urban Lab Challenge, Steven Buck was selected as one of eight young professionals to travel to Copenhagen and co-develop a toolbox for multi-purpose storm surge adaptation design and apply it to a case study area (Amager Strand).
As their toolbox, the team created a stakeholder engagement tool, the ‘Copenhagen Lens’, that provides a pathway for municipalities to develop a guiding vision for coastal adaptation. The Lens is a visual tool that provides a method for capturing, understanding, and balancing the set of present and/or future stakeholder values unique to a coastal region. These values are then used to guide the coastal adaptation planning and design process for a holistic outcome.
The Lens is structured in the form of a Ven Diagram between the three broad principles of sustainable development: Social, Economic, and Environmental. Each of these principles are represented by five core values, which serve to aid the local application of the Lens.
The Lens is designed to be flexible enough to relate to local contexts worldwide, to be used with a variety of stakeholders throughout planning, design, and implementation, and to be used as a facilitation tool for both internal and external discussions.
The Lens can be offered in different media depending on need; from a facilitated workshop using a physical ‘disc’ to a virtual and interactive tool. The Lens can provide guidance towards physical interventions that are incorporated into planning, design, or construction as well as non-physical strategies such as social programmes, regulations, policies, or communication strategies. To ensure the applicability of the tool, the Lens was applied at Amager Strand and a conceptual design for storm surge protection was created.
The design process was highly inclusive and creative. It included key stakeholders from the City of Copenhagen, the Danish Technical University (DTU) and several private organisations, including architects, landscape architects, artists and consultants to ensure an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges related to storm surge protection.
The 2018 Copenhagen Urban Lab concluded with a presentation and the publication of an executive summary. The presentation stirred great interest from key stakeholders involved, including members of the International Water Association (IWA).
The executive summary was prepared to circulate the outputs of the program and communicate the experience. The executive summary can be downloaded via the following link:
https://ramboll.com/media/rgr/see-climate-adaptation-through-the-copenhagen-lens