Greenspace for Organics

On Friday, we explored the use of space in Denmark for growing organic food. We started at a small garden space collectively run by nine individuals of different nationalities. These people have turned a space typically used much like a Kolonihaven, and have transformed it into a usable space for producing food. I found it particularly interesting when they described the way they share the space and how they resolve conflicts that sometimes arise from their different backgrounds and ways of approaching a garden. It is amazing that these nine have been able to overcome their differences and have worked together to create a beautiful and productive garden, and it was inspiration to see how much love they put into it and how much joy it gives them. I was also inspired by the way they used foraged foods to make us a delicious snack. One woman made us delicious pesto made from weeds from around the garden, including stinging nettle, which is normally too painful to even touch let alone consume. She told me that the method of boiling the toxic weed makes it edible and delicious! For the rest of the day I noticed these weeds she had pointed out to me, and thought of them not as pesky nuisances but as potential food sources. This visit to the garden allowed me to see that getting food from the land is far more accessible than I thought, especially when you have a team of people working together. I am excited to go home to try out some of these things for myself, and maybe even expand my own garden to include more vegetables and get more people involved in helping me do so. 

The second space we visited was a much larger organic operation, a commercial farm called Aarstiderne. It operates by growing vegetables, mostly out in their other location in Jutland, Denmark, and then delivering orders directly to customers throughout the small country. On the site we visited, they grow some food, but the space mostly serves as an example for their practices, an educational center, and a strategically placed headquarters closer to their primary customer base. This is an excellent business model, as they can utilize the better land that is further out in the country side, while still remaining connected to their suburban community, and the greater Copenhagen area, as well as being nearby the other companies that service them. I found it particularly amazing that they have a partnership with the local school system where every child takes a hands on class in the garden. Children in the third grade are given the chance to develop a love of natural processes, an appreciation for good healthy food, and a chance to see where their food comes from. They are each given a small plot of land in the garden, and plant their own seeds. Once the seeds are planted, they do a "rain dance" around their land to make a particular type of bug come out, and are then taught the important lesson that land is already inhabited and that all people cam really do is borrow it temporarily. They return a few times a month to maintain the garden, and then get a chance to use an outdoor kitchen to cook the food on a rustic wood burning stove. This shows them that they can use their natural environment in fun and productive ways, and gives them the skills to cultivate and prepare their own food if they want to. It is also strategic for the farm to do this, because it teaches the community from a young age the importance of good, healthy, organic foods. 

Contemporary and Historic Urban Parks

The city of Copenhagen is known for its very old historic sites as well as for its prevalent use of very modern contemporary design. Both of these styles are seen in the public urban parks, specifically in the historic Frederiksberg Park and in the extremely modern park known as Superkilen.

The parks both have similar functions in the sense that they both serve to provide users with a space for recreation in the middle of a busy city center, and in both people can be seen either in small groups sitting and relaxing, walking their dogs, riding bicycles, or playing sports (though the types of sports are quite different). For the most part, however, these parks are very different in atmosphere, aesthetics, use of plants/greenery, and the demographics of people who use them. At Superkilen, the atmosphere was quite urban, as busy streets and bike paths crossed directly through the park, and the small trees planted around the park did not block any views of traffic or buildings. Frederiksberg Park felt more like an escape into the countryside, with areas of woods, open fields and waterways.

The most obvious difference was in aesthetics, as the contemporary park seemed to use inspiration from modern art to create an interactive space of geometric shapes, bright colors, minimalistic use of organic shapes and material, distinct and intentional thick lines, as well as some modern sculpture. In contrast, Frederiksberg Park was full of organic material and shapes, as pathways followed the gentle curves of lakes and small channels, and many varieties of plants animals and wildlife could be observed.

In Frederiksberg Park, there were mostly couples without children, elderly people, and single people with dogs, and only a few groups of younger people, some of whom were in the field playing a game of Frisbee. In Superkilen, there were many adolescents playing basketball, a great deal of children and their parents (probably due to the presence of play facilities, which the historic park lacked), and some young adults sitting around on benches and at tables, talking and relaxing

Frederiksberg Park:

 Superkilen:

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Suburban Greenspace

Suburban Greenspace

Today we went north of Copenhagen to explore gardens used by suburban residents outside the city. We started by visiting a community near Fredensborg designed by the famous architect Jørn Utzon, who is renowned for his design of the iconic opera house in Sydney Australia, and then visited the famous oval allotment gardens in Nærum, designed by the Danish landscape designer C. Th. Sørenson.

By creating the private gardens within communal greenspaces, these suburban communities reap the benefits of both public and private greenspaces, but the juxtaposition of these highlights the differences between public and communal spaces. The private spaces tend to be much more densely packed with a variety of types of plants, including flowers shrubs and in the case of the oval gardens, vegetables. People in these spaces have room for creativity to design their gardens as a private and personalized sanctuary. One man and his wife who we met today shared with us their garden enclosed within the Jørn Utzon community, and showed us how they had personalized their space by adding a variety of flowers and trees, and had even built a raised bed to suit their needs.

This personalization can also be seen in the oval gardens, where individuals can basically do whatever they want to within their spaces. In their individual oval shaped gardens, which are surrounded by hedges, community members can have structures of a variety of sizes, including small cottages and greenhouses, and can plant trees, flowers and vegetables to their liking. Like the courtyards of the Utzon community, residents are able to feel like they have a private space to cultivate to meet their individual needs and to feel somewhat separated from the greater community. 

On the other hand, the communal spaces of both areas are noticeably different in appearance and function from the private spaces. They have larger expanses of grass filled lawn, which creates an open feel in some areas, and is useful for larger community activities. The first space we visited has very large expanses of grass, as well as a communal patio with a dining area, and the private courtyards opened up to these spaces allowing the individuals to be connected to the community from their own spaces. According to the man who showed us around, the residents frequently use the dining patio and grassy areas, and these seem to establish a sense of community. 

At the oval gardens, the spaces between the ovals serve as the communal spaces as well as a building for communal use. This building and lawn spaces tended to be much more sparse and grass filled, and seemed to function as a multipurpose space for all community members to enjoy. The daughter of Sørenson informed us that these spaces are often used for children playing and are cherished by the community members.

Private Greenspaces

 Private Greenspaces

Compared to public greenspaces, private greenspaces seem to function similarly as a way to escape the general stress and chaos of life and provide a green sanctuary for city dwellers, but have some significant differences as well. To find these similarities and differences, we visited public greenspaces in two very different areas of town. The first was the infamous district of Christiania, know for its open policies toward drugs as well as its communal style of governing and dwelling. It is also known for its large amounts of private and communal green spaces. 

We later visited a much less well known allotment garden in the neighborhood of Fredericksberg. Here we saw the gardens of very different, more controlled and regulated system. There seemed to be some commonalities between these two types of gardens that revealed how private gardens differ from the public gardens that we viewed yesterday.  

The most obvious of these differences seems to be in scale. While the public gardens must accommodate many people at one time, the private gardens only really need to be able to be large enough to fit the owners of the space, and occasionally a handful of guests. Some of the spaces at Christiania were quite small, such as the several compact personal greenhouses, and some small plots directly in front of or beside the houses. At the allotment garden, the same was seen, as the space was compact and intimate. As the private gardens we saw today do not have a professional staff of gardeners tending to them, it is understandable that the are only as big as they need to be, in order to prevent the owners from being overwhelmed with more space and upkeep work than they can handle.

In addition to being smaller, the private plots we saw seemed to be much cleaner that the public ones, probably for the reason that the owners must do the work in the gardens instead of having hired help. Most of the public parks we have visited do not seem particularly dirty, but there were some bits of trash here and there in all of the parks. This seems to be the product of a sense of responsibility that comes from feeling ownership. The people in the private plots have more control over how they're spaces are used, and also are more motivated to keep there spaces clean because no one else will do it for them.

The private gardens also seem to be much more personalized, as the public parks also need to accommodate for many different types of people who likely want to use the space in a wide variety of ways. In them, the owners of these spaces seem to be able to exercise their creativity and design the gardens exactly the way they want to to serve their particular wants and needs. In Christiania, many unique and unusual styles of design for the spaces can be seen, because the people of these plots are able to create and maintain them in any fashion they desire, including with strange aesthetics of reused toys and handmade designs. The small gardens varied quite a bit within the community, some with large open spaces and playhouses for children, others with spaces for vegetables, some dense with thick natural brush, and others well manicured with flowers and ornamental plants. In the private allotment garden that we had the opportunity to see, there seemed to also be a lot of personalization. The man who rents the space shared with us the story of how he acquired the garden in a very different state, when it had many bushes. He didn't like the way it looked, so he has since dug up every bit of the land and repurposed it to make it work better visually and functionally for him. He has added a grill, a patio area, many plants as well as an addition onto the historic small building that was already in the space.

Urban Greenspace

Functions of Urban Greenspace

Urban greenspaces were initially developed in response to the problematic urban conditions of the industrial revolution in the 1800s. In what is known as the Parks Movement, English philanthropists of this time worked to improve the quality of life for the working and urban classes. To do this, designers like John Claudius Loudon created spaces within cities that felt more like rural areas. Today, people still enjoy the benefits of these and other similar parks, which include health benefits, recreational space for relaxation, play, picnics, music, sports, learning, and personal relationship and community building. Other functions of urban greenspaces include their ability to create habitats for wildlife, promote biodiversity, reduce excess runoff, combat negative effects of pollution (as trees act as filters for pollution and reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, thus decreasing temperature rises), and improve local economies with increases in tourism, revenue from entrance fees, and increases in real estate value in neighborhoods near parks.

In the city of Copenhagen, several historic parks clearly function to improve the well being of danish citizens as well as visitors. Today we visited four of these parks that had been converted from old fortifications with motes, to public urban greenspaces with lakes, as well as one relatively new urban space. These are known as Ørstedparken, Botanisk Haven, Østre Anlæg, Kastellet, and Amaliehaven.

In these parks, quality of life is improved every day as the people of copenhagen enjoy the benefits of  free public greenspaces. In all of these parks, children and adults can be seen enjoying the health benefits of fresh air and a place to exercise, by either walking, playing or jogging (especially in Kastellet where there are often many joggers).

The parks also offer benefits for mental health as well; the beauty of the landscape seems to be useful in improving mood, and the parks provide a place to escape from the everyday chaos and stresses of an urban lifestyle. In most of these parks, especially in the botanical gardens and Ørstedparken, it is quite easy for one to forget that a busy city surrounds the park, as most exterior buildings are blocked from view by the strategically placed hills and walled off by dense foliage of trees and shrubs. The botanical gardens especially serve as a resource for learning about plants and ecological systems, allowing interested adults and children alike to peruse environmental interests and expand their knowledge base. 

The parks seem to especially give children a space to engage in recreational activities, with large fields to run and play sports on, and playgrounds for younger children to enjoy. For older children and adolescents, one park, Østre Anlæg, had a basketball court, which was surprisingly popular for a Monday morning. 

These parks also seemed to serve an important social function, as venues for people to develop and enhance a variety of types of relationships. Many friends could be seen strolling through the parks, deep in conversation. Others were with their families or larger groups, playing together and picnicking.

Another function of the Copenhagen parks that I noticed today was their ability to provide habitats for wildlife. I saw and heard a variety of types of birds that I had not yet seen in my other travels around the city, and saw fish in all of the ponds within individual parks. In the botanical gardens I even saw a snake, though he was gone before I could get a picture of him unfortunately. Overall, the parks seem to play a variety of functions, especially for the people and animals of Copenhagen.

Early people's of Denmark and the landscape

The visit to Lejre shed a lot of light onto how the early people's of Denmark interacted with the landscape. Through their innovative methods of experimental archaeology, the dedicated individuals who run the historical site allowed us some insight into the everyday lives of people during the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and during the time of the Vikings, and allowed us to see some ways in which the people of these time periods both reacted and adapted to changes in their natural surroundings, as well as how these people affected and changed these natural surroundings. 

The historical site features re-creations of several types of shelters used by people in Denmark at different times. One interesting one of these is the reindeer hunter's tent. During the time period after the last Ice Age, the temperatures of the climate increased dramatically. This forced the reindeer, which preferred colder climates, much further north. This then forced early European hunters, who relied on the animals for food, to follow the migration of the reindeer, and resulted in human presence in much northern territories such as Denmark and other Scandinavian countries. This exemplifies on of the earliest ways that humans reacted to changes in the landscape. 

One of the major ways that humans shaped the landscape in Denmark was the dramatic removal of trees during the Bronze Age around 2600 BC, which can be dated by pollen preserved in peat bogs. After agriculture was introduced to the area around 3,000 BC, humans began to remove trees in order to form an agronomy based society, which included small villages and large expanses of land for livestock and for crops. The affects of this can be seen at Lejre, where there are some trees but much of the land consists of open fields with scattered areas of forest. Much of the land at Lejre was also being used for the roaming sheep, which would have provided clothing materials and food for the early people of Denmark. 

The site also provided an interactive example of what a village during the Iron Age might have looked like. There were several long houses made to house families and Livestock made with small doors, wooden bunks and fire pits in the center for cooking and heating the house. These were located slightly away from the iron smith's home, for protection from potential fires. The iron worker's home was located nearby the small swampy lake, which seemed to me to be very intentional because much of the early iron ore was found in the bogs. This choice of putting a village near a small body of water shows how the early people of Denmark most likely were positioning themselves in the landscape in a place where they could access its resources. 

The people during this time also impacted the landscape by creating burial mounds to house their dead, and these changes in the landscape can still be seen today throughout Denmark, including in the area where Lejre is located. The guide who took us on a tour of the area explained the chemical process that allows for incredible preservation of the dead and their belongings within these mounds, suggesting that the clearly purposeful ritual of pouring water on the dirt before the final layer may have been done consciously and intentionally by the people to preserve their dead.

Unlike modern day societies in other parts of Denmark and in the rest of the world, the societies of these early people's of Denmark seem to have a much more integrated relationship with the land, as can be seen in one style of dwelling created at Lejre that is literally built within a hillside. This shelter, that looks somewhat like a mythological hobbit hole, shows the degree to which the people of this time were connected to and reliant upon the landscape for survival. 

This trip was extremely informative, interesting and fun, and I highly recommend that anyone interested in this field of study go to see their methods of experimental archaeology to better understand the development of relationships between humans and the land in Denmark. 

I also recommend to all my peers who spent the day at Lejre on Friday to go to the national museum in Denmark. I took a trip there this weekend and saw the Aurochs skeleton that the guide told us about, as well as the highly ornamental piece of pottery we saw a re-creation of while there.