This Floating Park in Copenhagen Is Made of Tiny, Man-made Islands

Copenhagen is rethinking the way we enjoy our time in our city park.

City parks all over the world are wonderful places to enjoy green spaces while still enjoying urban life. However, in Copenhagen, architects and designers are looking for ways to use the city’s unused space in a different way.

Copenhagen Islands, a project headed up by Danish studio Fokstrot and Australian architect Marshall Blecher, has launched the first of many floating parks in the city’s harbor.

The first of the islands, dubbed CPH-Ø1, looks a bit like a floating, 215 square-foot dock with a real, growing linden tree in the middle. CPH-Ø1 was launched in 2018 to great success, according to Dezeen, providing a unique space for the public to enjoy the outdoors. Two more islands are planned to launch by spring 2021.

“By placing it on the water, it creates immediate wonder for people, passing by. This is the first taste of a completely new type of public space coming to Copenhagen. Moveable, floating, public spaces free for people to explore and conquer,” it says on the Copenhagen Islands website.

Not only are the planned islands a way to take advantage of unused parts of Copenhagen’s harbor, they’re also highly adaptable based on the public’s needs. The islands can be scattered in designated areas during the summer for boaters, kayakers, and swimmers to use, and also tethered together to create a “supercontinent,” so they’re more easily accessed from land.

“The islands will be dispatched on suitable locations around the inner harbor, but also find their way to more forgotten and underused corners of the harbor, catalyzing life and activity,” it says on the Copenhagen Islands website. “Hopefully giving back a little bit of space for whimsey and wonder to the old industrial harbor sides.”

And in the same tradition of Denmark’s growing list of green and sustainable public spaces, such as the spiraled tree-top walkway in Gisselfeld Klosters Skove, CPH-Ø1, and the other planned islands, are all built with sustainable materials.

While only two islands are currently planned for the next year, there are plans for at least nine in total. And not all parks will look like CPH-Ø1, there are plans for each island to serve as a space for different activities, such as swimming, floating gardens, floating saunas, sail-in cafes, and even mussel farms. Plus, these islands can be launched in other harbor cities as well, since they are made to be flexible with the local environment, according to the project’s website.

For more information about the floating parks, visit the Copenhagen Islands website.