About Superkilen

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Developer: Realdania & Copenhagen Municipality
Designer: BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group; Topotek1; Superflex
Size: 33,000 square meters

Superkilen is a half-mile-long urban space that cuts through one of the most ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighborhoods in Denmark. The project possesses all that typically makes up a modern park, with trails for pedestrians and cyclists and outdoor recreation spaces. The conceptual starting point is a division of Superkilen into three zones and colors − the red square, the black market, and the green park.

The project is intended to celebrate the area’s multicultural heritage and unite everybody in one global neighborhood. The park contains more than 100 different elements of street furniture, play equipment, sculpture, and lighting from the 62 home countries of the project’s inhabitants. Through an intensive process of participatory meetings and even travel, the local population worked directly with the designers to choose the park’s objects − benches from the Czech Republic and Iran, trash cans from England, bollards from Ghana, and lamps from Italy − which are all present on the site.

The project helps to improve the infrastructure throughout the neighborhood. Superkilen’s design creates nodes of interest in the immediate area, while elements like the Copenhagen green cycle routes strengthen connections to the city.