COBE unveils designs for green bicycle-friendly university square in Copenhagen

Bicycle heaven Copenhagen will soon be home to yet another cycle-friendly design.

Danish architecture firm COBE recently won a competition for the design of KUA University Square, a new urban space for the University of Copenhagen that will also be one of the city’s biggest public squares once complete. High-capacity bicycle parking will be integrated into the site, as will swaths of green space that tie into the adjacent nature reserve of Amager Fælled.

Located between the Amager Fælled nature reserve and KUA’s newly built university buildings, the planned 20,000-square-meter square will serve as a threshold and transitional zone between the two different landscape types. The architects describe the hybrid park/square design as an “urban carpet” with rounded landscaped mounds, the shapes of which are mimicked by three bicycle parking hills. There are three openings to each bicycle parking hill. These multifunctional hardscape “hills” consist of 2,070 parking spaces both overtop and underneath, and are built with amphitheater-like seating to allow for classroom and event use.

The heart of the new campus is located at the space framed by the three bicycle parking hills and will serve as a central meeting space. “The new KUA University Square will be a well-functioning campus square, offering a vast variety of urban spaces, highly accessible for all users,” write the architects. The project is slated for completion in 2017.

 

Located between the Amager Fælled nature reserve and KUA’s newly built university buildings, the planned 20,000-square-meter square will serve as a threshold and transitional zone between the two different landscape types.

 

. The architects describe the hybrid park/square design as an “urban carpet” with rounded landscaped mounds, the shapes of which are mimicked by three bicycle parking hills.

 

There are three openings to each bicycle parking hill.

 

The heart of the new campus is located at the space framed by the three bicycle parking hills and will serve as a central meeting space.

 

“The new KUA University Square will be a well-functioning campus square, offering a vast variety of urban spaces, highly accessible for all users,” write the architects.