Cobe is on the side of the “progressives” in the profession, working at one of the most urban-eco-technologically progressive centres worldwide, Copenhagen in Denmark. Their merging of cross-disciplinary work into a “meaningful whole”, creating interfaces at different scales of contact, pushing the boundaries of engagement – from the threshold of their office, into the neighbouring community, interregional and interspecial encounters, reaching and inspiring practitioners worldwide. We are speaking with Mads Birgens, Head of Urbanism, who explains the approach of what works as a seamless integration of their projects into the larger future-proof scheme that the team at Cobe strives towards.

You recently introduced your online magazine, Cobe Notes, in the form of a printed newspaper that people can pick up in the café in your studio in Copenhagen. A public café allows your office to open to the community, welcoming visitors by saying “coffee, food, wine, beer, architecture” – Cobe. You are immersed in the Copenhagen experience and are shaping Copenhagen, practically under your feet. Through such engagement, you can share your ideas and be influenced too. How does this transmission work?

Today, it seems like the digital transmission alone gets lost without the physical and analogue, but together they can provide a powerful ensemble. The purpose of our café was an open invitation to connect with our local community and visitors who have an interest in our work. But, it also performs as an informal space for co-workers, collaborators and clients for coffee, short conversations and smaller events. If you look into the spatial planning of the knowledge society, it very well represents the informal zone that facilitates spontaneous ideas and innovation. Also important, it’s a commitment to our design philosophy of being hyper aware of our contextuality. All in all, it’s an attempt to transmit our creative culture!

Landscapes now have greater tasks than ever before – supporting human and social needs, supporting biodiversity and the needs of others, performing ecological functions, on top of what they need to be productive and energetic. Don’t we expect too much?

In many ways, I believe we have disregarded and disrespected the regenerative qualities of landscapes for generations. Some would say – all the way through modernity – the green lawn fascism ruled. I think landscape architecture finally gets the attention it deserves, having been neglected economically in projects for decades. It can handle many of the human-made problems we have generated within urbanism with quite low-tech solutions.

Landscape design has been an integral part of our work in the office since we started with projects like ‘Israels Plads’ and ‘Nørreport Station’, but today, with the capacity of +40 landscape architects (and amazing colleagues) with various specialities and competences, our projects have enhanced in quality and performance. It’s sometimes quite overwhelming talking to experts on living structures!

In Denmark, there is a new “Agreement on a Green Denmark” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which introduces massive landscaping, construction of forests, extraction of lowland soils, taxation of CO2 emissions from livestock, among other measures. This is a huge step. This is one of the “landscape performance enhancements”. Then, there is the green energy transition (Denmark already is on 80 % renewable energy) and other sectors pulling in this direction. Denmark seems like a lab for the future. Do you have some thoughts on this, how is Cobe involved?

Through our works, we are involved in many scales of landscape and planning projects across the country, working towards reducing emissions and creating quality of life. The more performative ones are our works with enhancing green mobility from stations and mobility hubs to high-quality bike networks in Copenhagen. Our project for Clever is another good example of cross-scale thinking, where the design of charging stations for electric cars also performs as a generator for biodiversity, a growing network across national scale and beyond. The knowledge created within our projects is being spread across the world through collaborations and through lectures at universities, and teaching at The Royal Academy and Harvard GSD. The cross-disciplinary and scalable solutions we radically believe in, are all part of our involvement on many levels, from local communities to regional politics.

For example, the Nordhavn district is a future-lab example. Please explain what is your approach. How do you incorporate the Blue Metropolis idea and your other “key engagement conditions”?

Nordhavn has become a successful laboratory of urban transformation across many scales, creating a high-quality urban life and a livable neighborhood in Copenhagen. In a regional perspective, we see Nordhavn and many other projects as important examples of planning that could be showcased together as an interconnected ‘Blue Metropolis’ Vision for Cph-Malmö as a bi-regional eco metropolis. This is already happening, but could serve as a role model on more levels of climate adaptation, socioeconomics and flexibility across borders.

Our experience with Nordhavn is a key reference to our understanding of how to plan and build for the future. The diversity of works shows: From a 50 year strategic plan and urban structure, to conceiving 7 local plans of +800.000 m2 new build and transformation, designing landscapes for streets, urban spaces, parks and waterfronts, adapting old siloes to new purpose. Today, looking back to see what performs and what doesn’t. How does the Urban LCA actually perform? How did placemaking and contemporary retail thinking work as an urban catalyst for a new urban district? Generally, we feel very privileged to be on this journey, and being part of the continuous discussions with our collaborators, clients, the municipality and the landowner City&Port. It all feels very meaningful today.

Lastly, your office works predominantly in the architecture field. How do you incorporate landscape architecture, planning and other interdisciplinary knowledge into your projects? Landscape architecture is an architecture after all and perhaps obsolete to understand it as a separate field.

We work, and have worked, at least as many hours on urban planning and landscape design as we have on building design. Our references on urban plans are +100, and landscape projects the same, but it doesn’t showcase as much in the media. Looping back to the beginning of this interview, it’s all part of the same philosophy for us. The understanding of the whole, the city, and the context builds great architecture and landscapes. The three fields are embedded in all discussions here and conceived as a whole within each project we do. I think landscape architecture is finally achieving its rightful position and getting more and more attention since it’s dominant in all future thinking, and it’s actually literally the green element! Anyways, it’s all architecture on different scales. The right design fits within the right analysis – it is contextuality again.

At its best, urban planning, landscape and architecture together are our recipe for creating a healthy urban lifestyle. When we work closely together, I see us as a perfectly balanced cuisine, mixing the right ingredients. Cooking a good and sustainable dish for the future. Some recipes are more complex than others, but they all serve the same purpose. Building resilient and meaningful cities.