Day 5: Friday

Today we had a lecture on some theories of landscape planning, including one by Professor Jorgen Primdahl and another by Professor Cecil Konijnendijk. Professor Primdahl’s lecture was about Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City and the idea of the “three magnets,” which pulled people either to the “old town, country, or town-country.” Furthermore, he presented the two main functions in planning- conflict management and place making, and the different strategies that have been created for containing urban growth. Finally, he presented the concept of “deep structure” relevant to our case studies in Hillerod and how it affected different areas.

Professor Cecil Konijnendijk’s lecture was on “Perspectives for Developing Multi-Functional Peri-Urbam Landscapes: Role of Woodland and Green Space.” It covered important trends in landscape change, challenges to green space, and various case areas where people from the city try to get in touch with nature. Overall, she ended on the concept of a “multifunctional landscape,” a separation between place and space, government to governance, and an interdisciplinary new alliance. 



We also went on an excursion to the Grib Forest National Park, where we saw a lot of relatively new forest development. Most of the forest was arranged according to species and specific time measurements so that they were in squares that had a lot of similar looking trees, which is really productive for timber companies, but looked quite unnatural. Some of the plans for the forest were to create a more diverse area by (mainly) moving trees to different areas, create a restricted area for nature preservation, and add some more wetland areas. I think that the process of creating a national forest was quite interesting and that this trip was quite valuable.

We also set aside a fair amount of time for groupwork, during which we added the concept of the “three magnets” to our project. We were also able to meet up with Professors Thomas Sick and Simon Swaffield, who gave us some recommendations on how we could proceed with our project. I think that the most important critique we got was that we should define the problem as a ways of understanding, where “instead of making a better mousetrap, think of different ways to catch mice.” Therefore, our plan became to analyze “settlement structures” and building types under certain criteria to maximize our rural-urban elements. 

Day 4: Thursday

Today we had a lecture about suburbanization. This lecture was presented by Anne Gravsholt Busck and covered the stakeholder process, the push-pull factors of agriculture, and changed in rural investment. The main goal of the lecture was to present the concept of peri-urban agriculture and why it was necessary to have near cities, but too much time was spent on the introduction and we didn’t really get to talk about it very much.



Other than that, we went to the farm of a full-time farmer, who apparently is among the last of his kind (there are now very few full-time farmers in Denmark, especially so near Copenhagen). His place was great in terms of size and appearance, but apparently it was also under severe pressures. His farm currently contains a fair amount of empty farm fields, pigs, hay, and a lot of stored grain. However, he specified that there was only enough money generated to support maybe two or three people in terms of marketing the goods he had. The environmental agency of the area would stop any new projects he has in mind, including: fattening the pigs (supposedly because of chemicals, but most likely because of the smell) or even creating a windmill (because of their potential negative appearance on the landscape- which I thought was ironic for a place so close to Copenhagen). Restrictions upon farmers seem quite excessive and although appearance and high tax rates from people who want summer houses in the area are important, functionality and preserving the culture should be equally important. It’s just unfortunate that the policies don’t reflect this.



During this day, we also had a fair amount of group work. In this groupwork, we made a few posters on what we thought “urban” and “rural” were, and generated a better problem statement. I think overall the subject still seems too big for my group to tackle, but hopefully we will be able to manage. The main idea of the topic, as mentioned before, is “how to combine desired rural aspects into an urban setting,” and we have decided that we will do an analysis on this using existing models rather than trying to create a new model or plan, upon the location.



After that we had our first free night ^^ Silas had a “Ave Caesar” game and a “Buying and Selling Beans” game that were quite fun. 



(pigs at the farm)

Day 3: Wednesday

Today was unfortunately probably the longest day possible, with a start of a one-hour lecture, a half an hour lecture, another half an hour lecture, a twenty minute introduction to group work, a few hours of groupwork, and then a one and a half-hour lecture, and finish off with another one and a half hour lecture. I think that overall it would not have been so bad if I weren’t so tired and didn’t continue to suffer from allergies from the day before, but because this day was so packed with information, I was also able to learn quite a lot. 

Lecture #1: Professor Jorgen Primdahl “Regulation of Urban Sprawl”
Professor Jorgen introduced the idea that Denmark grew from an urbanized perspective. In terms of zoning, it has been separated into urban, summerhouse (country-city), and rural (residual). There is a hierarchy of “national directors” that includes the municipal plan and the local plan. Finally, the main plan of Denmark is the “finger plan,” which introduces the idea of a monocenter development along five fingers and has been a strong metaphor for development (so strong that cities have moved just to make the finger shape stand out more).

Lecture #2: Makoto Yakohari “A New Landscape Planning Concept to Adaptively Manage Changing Landscapes in Japanese Cities: Part 1”
Makoto’s first lecture demonstrated the differences between planning in Japan against planning in other countries. Mainly, there was traditionally a mix of farming within the city due to a scarcity of “fresh” goods. However, they soon began to want “European” styles of urban planning.

Lecture #3: Boris Stemmer “Regulation of Urban Sprawl in Germany”
Boris highlighted some strict government regulations in building in Germany. In Germany, there are building zones and open space areas where people cannot build. Furthermore, to get through the building process, there is an individual level, municipal level, and a regional government level that must be bypassed before any project can take place. Nevertheless, there is an overall concern with reducing land consumption that cannot be achieved with traditional means.

Lecture #4: Professor Jurgen Aring “Defining the Problems/Challenges”
There are many models that can be used for the process of landscape development. One of them is the Steinitz Model, which is a series of questions that ask about representation, process, evaluation, change, impact, and decision. Using this, Professor Jurgen has creates a simplified model that asks: (a) how does this landscape work? (b) how is it changing? (c) what are the driving forces of change? (d) why should we care?

Lecture #5: Makoto Yakohari “Ecological Planning Framework with the Layer Cake Model”
Another useful tool is the “cake-layering model” creates by Ian McHarg of the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. Can also use “hand mapping,” Steinitz Model, and GIS. 

Lecture #6: Professor Jurgen Aring “Transformation and Qualification of Suburbia”
Professor Jurgen describes what suburbia is and how it has changed over time from a traditional separated pattern to a hectagon pattern as well as give some reasons for this development.  He then describes some rising concepts such as Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City” as well as some other ideas such as the “Broadacre City.” Finally, he gives some questions that arise for planning because of suburbanization and provides some scenarios for the future.

Lecture #7: Makoto Yakohari “A New Landscape Planning Concept to Adaptively Manage Changing Landscapes in Japanese Cities: Part 2”
This lecture was about how Japan seeks to follow the European structure of development. He covers food scarcity and the demographic transition, as well as vacant land in Japan as a result of the western style of development, and argues that the previous method of development may be better for the country overall.

(haha. yay buffet style dinners. I got to eat lots of yummy corn)

Day 2: Tuesday

Tuesday was planned primarily as a short lecture and long field trip type of day. I think that the four locations that we visited were quite interesting; although I kind of wish that we didn’t stand in the tall grass for so long, since my allergies were acting up because of it. Basically, the four locations that we visited were “a large industrial/new Hospital and railway station area,” “an unchanged village with a hobby farmer,” “a landscape village,” and “a nature restoration area.” Unfortunately, I missed some of what was on the bus in terms of housing structures since it wasn’t announced, but overall, I think that the trip was extremely useful in letting us see a lot of the places we could consider working with on our project.



Location #1: we met up with Tue Tortzen, the Chairman of the technical & environmental committee of the Hillerod Municipality, and learned that the area:
-wanted to bring back animals, moose swim from Sweden and get hit by cars
-want a Chinese Herbal Factory
-golf area
-need more wetland/pond areas that will be created by stopping drainage
-beaver gone about 2500 years ago, now brought back from Germany
-in DK, if you want to move a forest, you have to promise to build 2x of it elsewhere
 -new forest of 5 hect.
-New hospital is highly desired. They won it over because of convincing argument about the railways (total of 5 new ones to be built in Denmark)
-Swedish power plant company uses small trees for power rather than gas
-building new forest with Danish wood, purposely for diversity. Possible question is how to design this forest (10-20 years). Possibly private? Collaboration with Copenhagen water supply, since water brought from N. Zeeland.
-rubbish hills, takes 300,000,000 Crowns to clean
-hawkweed. Poisonous plant covers this area and spreads along the water. Need to destroy and decide to do it environmentally by using 100+ sheep (will clear in 10 years). Others can cut by machine or hands, which creates jobs.
-then the municipality will have sheep to create more jobs. The municipality owns the land and sheep- can rent to farmers
-also collaborate with private owner (poison is cheaper)
-drinking water is big issue. The government did not understand for many years. Now some of it is poisoned from agriculture, and want to work on it now- trying to reuse rainwater for toilet, sink, shower, and create waterholes for ox
-create ridges for rainwater. Investment (will work in 20 years)
- sports clubs in nearby villages/city areas important to play football (get kids outside)
-working on more bike lanes on roads
-no shopping center (not allowed out of the city).
-also try to create new station and new neighborhood for new hospital
Overall, it sounded really nice. A bit skeptical about some of the things, but having a goal oriented towards being environmentally friendly is always good.

Location #2: Met up with Andreas Holl and learned:
-the location has a contrast between fishing and farming
-18^th century privatization of Danish landscape. system resulted in land owned by farm, so abandoned
-area here is mostly fisher houses. 3/7 of farms in village, others further out
-hobby farmers focus on nature conservation
-Black cows (good survival opportunities)
-the rest of the areas=grassland, which is interesting because this is all arable land.
-on Danish land, it is easier to build more small farms
-usually 3 farms 250 hect. Now 5 farms up to 1000 hect.
-this farm has a nature protection area. Took 7 years to secure. There is public access.
-forest in the corner is state owned because of white tailed eagle (international designated area)
-cost 200 to 300 Euros /hect. To farm  without subsidies (this is why people work in the city)

Location #3:
-“landscape Village” or “Nature City”
-moved houses in by large trucks (portable) and are influenced by Estonian style
-solar panels
-area for biking, walking, skiing
-considered 1/3^rd done. What is the next step?
-people living here (in actual houses) have a lot of influence on recreation. Not much on general direction.
-100 meters to highway to Copenhagen. Drive of 45 minutes on a good day
-green areas between houses is quite a bit of nature.
-a lot of area not built waiting for economy to recover

Location #4:
-shallow phosphorous lake less than 1 meter water (permanent reduction in surrounding areas). Many birds/eagles. Cows for landscape management
-new bicycle track. Coast up north to South Hillerod. 15km
-small village with new houses then behind housing area 35 years ago. Farm in conflict
-angry with one of the neighbors who wants something that will cause heavy traffic. Farmer for many years. Hay sells to horse and has berries (is semi-industrial?). need negotiation
-restored three lakes. So far accumulated more than calculated. Should continue unless climate situation changes.
-meadow lake easy because just close drains
-state bought land

Ole Hjorth Caspersen of Forest and Landscape at KU made a lecture of the Hillerod Municipality before we started on the trip, and we got some valuable background information of the regions we were going to be looking at, including- some of the cultural influences and policies that make them the way they are, and the current “new proposals” for these areas.

(lunchtime at a park)

(yay picnic lunch ^^)

Day 1: Monday

Day three and today is the first day of meeting up with the other IARU students and everything, well, meeting up with the rest of them anyway. It was quite confusing asking around for directions to get to the University, but in the end, it was a lot closer than I thought it would be, maybe 6 stops from central station? I met a student named Silas on the bus I was on, so the rest of the trip was alright.



At the University, we were given brief introductions to the course, as well as some course material. We had a few mini-lectures (more on that later) and had a lunch of bagel –sandwiches. Then we went on a mini “excursion” to the north to get to the school of forestry. Through this tour, we got to see a lot of the forestlands mentioned in the introduction of the course. We also got to see a fair amount of landscape planning, and got the opportunity to discuss some unique concepts in planning Denmark. For example, building a line of forests to prevent urban growth from taking over. We were also able to visit a large hill, which apparently was the highest point in Western (?) Denmark and passed by a large body of water, which was supposed to be significant, because there aren’t very many of them in Europe, and finally arrived to the college of forestry.

After getting settled in, we had dinner and did 5 minute presentations about ourselves and our local surroundings. It was quite nice getting to know the different people and their unique backgrounds. Not much else to talk about for the first day. The food is excellent and the rooms are quite nice. Apparently we must all watch out for ticks and poisonous snakes around here... although they are said to be quite rare.

(a lot of bikes in Copenhagen)

(me and some classmates) 

(boats)

Pre-day 2: Sunday

So apparently, my room was facing the amusement park, which had a fireworks show last night. Yaaaayy. Haha. not much else happaned through the night. I got thirsty at 3am and the person at the front desk said that it was safe to walk around in Denmark even at strange hours, so I went to 7-11 to buy water, since I wanted a big bottle and it was cheaper that way. I had a bit of trouble with controlling the temperature of the room, since there was no AC or heater, but I eventually got it right by opening my window just the right amount.

So for the second day, I got to meet up with the other students that were in Copenhagen. It was raining pretty hard, and we couldn't really contact each other since most of us did not have phones, but it worked out in the end. We met up at Central Station and had a fun trip with Aaron as our tour guide. We toured Stroyget (sp) Street (which ranges from cheap stuff to more expensive the way we walked), the Old Palace, the New Palace, went to a cool buffet place for lunch, then proceeded to an Art Museum, the Museum of Denmark, a random café, got hot dogs, and visited a bar. Each of these places were quite new and exciting, and overall it was a fun day.

(free fireworks show! ^^)

(European Environmental Building. It has different flowers arranged into the shape of Europe :o)

(Cool looking building)

(Another cool looking area. A lot of rain)

Pre-day 1: Saturday

After a whole day’s worth of flying, I am finally in Denmark. The flights through British Airways were pretty good, although I got delayed a bit. I ended up in a middle seat, since apparently I was supposed to check in about 4 hours earlier to request an aisle seat, but it was cool. One of the people who ended up sitting next to me was a lawyer from London, who apparently flew in to the United States for a one-day court trial. I thought that was pretty cool. The woman and I ended up talking a little about travelling, and she ended up telling me about an investment she had made in her hometown in Russia. Apparently, the “rubbish” (not her word, but I word I learned over the summer) in Russia was overflowing and in many locations the groundwater was becoming polluted. So various companies grouped together to use steam to turn certain types of wastes- plastics, glass, metals, etc. into a type of “fluff” that could then be put towards re-use. The steam would also wash off paints and etc. that were used to make the products and generate a bit of energy as well. I had not heard about this project before and thought that it would be pretty cool to hear about. After we got off the plane, I did a transfer at Terminal 5 and went onto a plane that would get me to Copenhagen. There was another minor flight delay of about 30 minutes due to rain (good thing it wasn’t as big of a edlay as the one I had when I was in Shanghai- a delay of over 5 hours inside the plane before taking off), and then there was a short flight of about one and a half hours before I arrived in the city that I would be staying at for two weeks.

After I got off the flight, I picked up my luggage, and then went toward the taxis. I made an effort to talk to the taxi driver, since my dad always does it when we travel together, and I learned that the fare would be approximately 260DKK, that he was from Turkey, that he didn’t speak much English, the location of a few shopping centers, and the location of the major train station. He dropped me off at Cabinn Scandinavia, but apparently they messed up my hotel room and I had to go to Cabinn City instead. So they taught me how to take the bus, the 2A, which cost me another 23DKK, to the train station that I saw earlier and walked to Cabinn City. The room here is pretty good, and I actually ended up in a room with three beds (since there was a bunk above my bed and a bed in storage under my bed). It was actually pretty cool. The room also had a mini-toilet/shower area, but there was a disappointingly lack of additional facilities, such as pools or fitness centers that I have seen in other hotels.



After I settled in, I decided to take a walk and ended up passing the pier, an amusement park, and a random museum. I then went to get a drink at 7-eleven and then got three cheese-burgers (cheapest thing on the menu) at Burger King for 10DKK each, since burger meals were about 60DKK and that felt too expensive for someone from the US. Overall, I think that the food in Denmark is a lot more expensive, so I’m pretty glad that the school has made some accommodations for us students. I then went to a Chinese restaurant and got a mini-meal for 30DKK and started walking back to the hotel, where I got a coke for 20DKK. Not much else to talk about. They don’t provide power adapters at the hotel and "everywhere" is closed tomorrow, since it's Sunday, so no internet for a while. I’m probably just going to continue doing some of my reading for class and then head off to bed. I am pretty excited for a group meeting with the other students in the program tomorrow. Hope it all goes well.

(note: 1USD is approximately equal to 5DKK at this time)

(picture of flight delay)

(picture of my room ^^ so compact. it was fun)

(picture of the place I was staying at)

(my dinner ^^)