How do you create a landscape that feels like it's always been there?
We turned to the Danish Golden Age painters for inspiration, imagining a landscape that feels timeless. In our design proposal for Nordhavn’s new nature park, we present a vision of wildness, resilience, and coexistence with nature.
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Associate Design Director - Landscape
Maine Godderidge
Associate Design Director
We are proud to share our vision for the new Nordhavn Nature Park, given the name ‘Københavns Klint’, a proposal that celebrates a new kind of nature experience – where biodiversity sets the framework, and urban life follows its lead. With the earth and water as our resources, we can shape a piece of Danish landscape. Inspired by Denmark’s rugged coastal cliffs and the romantic landscapes of the Golden Age painters, we envisioned a park that is both visually strong and sensorial: alluring, untamed, and alive. A place that must be felt, touched, and played in.
Set on an entirely man-made peninsula in Copenhagen’s rapidly developing Nordhavn district, our proposal for the new park is a living terrain of highlands and lowlands: the highlands designed for human activity and gathering; the lowlands left to nature – untamed, sensorial, and unpredictable. The dialogue between these two layers cannot be scripted; it will unfold naturally, season by season. Our design was awarded second place in the international design competition for By&Havn.
Sculpting the city’s wild edge
Working with the peninsula’s abundant soil shapes a dynamic topography that transforms an otherwise flat cityscape into cliffs, slopes, and valleys. The result is a dramatic new vantage point for Copenhagen – a landscape of outlooks, hidden paths, and immersive encounters with nature unseen in the city until now.
"Our design offers Copenhageners a wild dream: a rugged coastal cliff park drawn from Denmark’s most scenic landscapes. Here we share space with birds, cattle, frogs, becoming part of the living landscape."
Maine Godderidge
Associate Design Director
“The untamed qualities of nature lay the foundation for communities built on curiosity, care, and coexistence. Humans are drawn instinctively to cliffs, hills, and panoramic views not just for perspective but for connection. Our design offers Copenhageners a wild dream: a rugged coastal cliff park drawn from Denmark’s most scenic landscapes. Here we share space with birds, cattle, frogs, becoming part of the living landscape,” says Maine Godderidge, Associate Design Director.
By shaping the land and reusing soil, nature itself can become infrastructure. Boosting local biodiversity, and improving microclimates, ecosystems are given room to establish themselves over time. A coastal lagoon and protected bird island are proposed, which create vital habitats for aquatic and bird species, while a blend of natural succession, native planting, and soil enrichment helps ecosystems flourish.
“Too often, biodiversity is treated as an afterthought, a layer of the landscape added once human needs are met. What if we flip the hierarchy and give nature the first word? By allowing wild ecosystems to shape the landscape, we set the tone for a more respectful relationship. The question is no longer how nature can adapt to us but how we can learn to live by its rules,” says Alberto Biondi, Associate Design Director.
Paths, play, and unexpected encounters
Rather than layering in heavy infrastructure, we introduce subtle, low-impact interventions, amplifying the park’s character without taming it. Paths and water access points made from upcycled materials invite new encounters with the waterfront and the shifting conditions of tide, light, and season. These gestures open the site for discovery while keeping its wildness intact. At the park’s edge, a temporary structure of repurposed shipping containers offers a flexible gathering place, adaptable, raw, and alive until permanent architecture takes root.
Thank you to our client and collaborators; Ramboll, Mareld, MAST, Arklab and Vestergaard Kultur on this competition proposal.
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