Unit 4 Lisbjerg Green Quality Plan

The Lisbjerg Green Quality Plan is an overall strategy towards developing the areas of a new city for about 10.000 inhabitants, outside the centre of Aarhus, the second biggest city in Denmark. The layout of the new city is dominated by large green areas laid out in a fan, that references to the old typical danish star shaped pattern. The Green Quality Plan gives out guidelines for the green areas defined in the already fixed master plan. The areas inside the new city will have a high quality of landscape, but also around the city there will be close to forests, lakes and meadows.

The focus points in developing the plan, has been on how to make space for modern living, with focus on closeness, health, identity, togetherness, sustainability, nature and history.

In connection to the focus on sustainability it has been of great importance to focus on handling the rainwater and on how the surplus land from building the city can be used on site as land formations that will give the city identity.

The landscape in the new city shall be the element that connects the high density housing with mixed appearance. The landscape has to be a significant space that is heterogeneous, active, challenging and inviting.

The city’s green spaces should basically be thought of as social spaces that provide people to interact with each other. Parks, sports fields and playgrounds are central meeting places in the new city. It is the kind of place where the very important informal and random encounters between people occurs.

The plan is divided into different landscape characters; the forests, the strips and the avenues.

The forests lie in the edge of the plan and connect the new city to the existing forestland works as a buffer between the new city and the highway.

The avenues works as connecting roads/ paths, that makes the underlined star shape visible, and as connections between the strips. The avenues in the star shape, has their centre in the town common. The avenues, that connects the strips crosses the other avenues.

The strips work as nearby recreational areas that will encourage to everyday activity, different nature experiences, and make space for peace and contemplation. The strips will have a large variety that will give each area its own identity; this will be good not only for the sense of belonging but also towards a better orientation in the new city. In the strips there are laid out a number of different characters and functions all connected by paths. The different functions in the strips are: sports, lakes, ‘superfurnitures’, fruit grooves, historical elements, land formations, water features, meadows, nature, town common and lots more.

In the strips the management of the rainwater will give the spaces an extra dimension with the sound and feeling that water provides. By making water a key element it creates other advantages. Water sounds have a meditative and relaxing effect on people and it can also serve as an element you meet around.

To create a feeling of identity in the strips,’ superfurnitures’ are scattered almost randomly throughout the new urban area. ‘Superfurnitures’ are huge permanent elements designed so simple that they are not perceived as art, but will invite to be sat or climbed upon.

Today the city is slowly being developed and over the next 20-30 years it will be finished. The Green Quality Plan will be a guideline every time a new housing area is being built in the new city of Lisbjerg. The landscape in between the houses will be developed alongside the housing and sometimes even before.