The Worlds Best Master Plan

In 2009, architecture firm Entasis won the award for the World's Best Master Plan, which has formed the basis for the development of the Carlsberg City District.

In 2009, Danish architecture firm Entasis won the largest international architecture award for the World's Best Master Plan for the development of the Carlsberg City District from an old brewery site into a Copenhagen district.

Every urban space, every stone, every tree, every feeling and every thought about the new urban space has been considered, and this is the starting point for the development of Copenhagen's new district: the Carlsberg City District.

WORLD'S BEST MASTER PLAN

Among other things, the committee of judges wrote the following about the selection of the Carlsberg City District as the World's Best Master Plan:

“A strong vision to create inclusiveness – experientially, culturally, socially, economically and architecturally – is at the core of creating a dense urban proposal that aims for a high international quality in urban development – with a focus on human experiences across three dimensions.

Five strategies for existing buildings, a spatial network based on the area's historical layers, the links to the surrounding city, the city's towers and the future urban form convincingly create a complex and eventful urban environment that the entire judging committee believes can pave the way for a vibrant and dynamic city.

Overall, the proposal expresses such a degree of richness of experience and sensitive adaptation, combined with a simplicity in its strategies for the area, that it constitutes a special artistic reinterpretation of classic trends in the development of buildings, urban space and cities.”

Read an excerpt of the master plan's visions for the Carlsberg City District below.

Walking quality –

The spatial course of the district must have a good fundamental quality: it must be safe, feel safe and be designed especially for pedestrians and cyclists. It is interesting to move through the city. There are activities, city life, spatial experiences, lighting, planting, art and water elements that invite and create walking quality at a particularly high level.

Clean, defined and urban spaces –

The urban spaces appear well-defined and sharply cut, both in character and in physical form. The Carlsberg City District will get many urban spaces and will be organised as staged networks in relation to diversity, sequence, arrival, transitions, etc.

Trade –

Retail trade is a cornerstone of city life – the vibrant city. Trade forms a strong framework for the district's dynamics in the city's main streets and in some of the district's squares.

Lively and safe district –

Carlsberg should not be a 'corporate domicile' district, dead after 5pm, or a dormitory town exclusively with housing. Carlsberg must be a multifunctional city with culture, trade, businesses, housing and institutions. A district with activities and life 24/7/365.

Planting strengthens spatial experiences –

The planting of the district must be included as a continuous element and provide a distinctive experience of a green city. Existing and new trees should emphasise the city's space and reflect the passing of the seasons. Plants and buildings must interplay to offer a diverse urban life and offer recreational, contemplative opportunities as a change from, and complement to, the activities of the dense city.

Watercourses –

Water is to be used as a common thread in the urban space of the district. The use of water is part of a special spatial course in the district and marks the most important squares.

Quality of life and social sustainability –

The urban spaces of the district must offer great inclusiveness: they must invite broadly, offer diversity and generate great joy and quality of life. The development of urban spaces must engage and create a sense of ownership for the district's new users.

Urban spaces must build on the soulful –

Carlsberg must add something soulful and genuine to Copenhagen. The urban spaces must be generated from the special places that exist. Carlsberg is a place with a number of distinctive places with genuine atmosphere and areas to be cultivated in the further process.