Day 4 (March 31) - A Culture of Learning 

When people started designing the infrastructure in Orestad, a greenfield development on the southern edge of Copenhagen, they knew they wanted to create a neighborhood with stormwater as its backbone. Climate change was gaining acceptance, but no one knew exactly what to expect and when to expect it. There was no data to inform decisions about how to design a neighborhood with a stormwater system that could adapt to a changing climate, but they suspected that the future would bring more frequent, and more intense rain. 

They decided to embrace the uncertainty. They picked a number - 25% increase in intensity - as an informed guess and as a preliminary design standard. And, they committed to try it out and change it as they learned. They designed the first phase of the project using this standard and have adjusted it through each subsequent phase, learning and adapting as they go.

Our Orestad tour guide, Thomas, said that learning and adapting is deeply engrained in Danish culture. He went on to say that Danish people are naturally distrustful of authority and this means that they are always looking for a new way to do something - a way that is different from what they were told to do. 

We are in a time of rapid growth and learning as we move from a static to a dynamic understanding of the future. In the face of climate change, we all need to nurture a culture of learning. Trying out new approaches and learning from them is better than doing nothing. It can be healthy to question authority. 

 King Christian X

 

King Christian X was a bad ass. During Nazi occupation he refused to flee his country and showed solidarity by riding out into the streets of Copenhagen most days and fending off the Nazi’s anti-Jewish legislation.  He was exercising that Question Authority culture.

To honor this tradition, calls us to look critically at Danish water management approaches (no matter how wonderfully human scaled and future focused they are) and think about Seattle’s context. Obligingly, here are a two modifications worthy of consideration:

Hard Edges - Functionally designed to direct flows, protect property and satisfy the clean linearity of SCAN design aesthetic, the hard edges of green infrastructure in the Oestrud and Kokkedal projects leave little room for natural habitat.  Human scale is primary with beckoning places to sit and observe.  Neighbors complained about the edges and the poor ducks...the baby ducks couldn't climb out. It's certain the Danes could engineer some brilliant plank rightly spaced for duck feet and nesting. Hygge design ingenuity truly permeates here.

But, when we asked about riparian edge and habitat we were less than satisfied (and frankly so were our hosts) with the response. For now, it’s an optional layer in program costs. It only enters the equation when it’s politically “hot” and hotness cycles every 4, 8, 12 years. The projects we saw are green and they are sustainable but there is room for fuller interweaving of ecosystem services functions.

Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance - Apparently, the Danes haven’t solved for this either and it’s a problem. We heard a lot about what the City or Utility was supposed to be doing now that things had been built...replacing filters, cleaning forebays....but, had that happened? This question seemed to be followed by pause, hopefulness, nervous laughter and a sprinkle of doubt.

The projects we saw were new. So, it's fair to ask, how will they stand the test of time? In Kokkedal’s low income public housing neighborhood that wasn’t clear. Maintenance appeared to be waning, and no, they hadn’t quite worked through how they might employee local residents in that work.  They had thought about it though.  Sound familiar.

The Danes are strong practictioners and international exporters of “cloudburst climate adaptation”, “blue-green infrastructure”, and “living with water” approaches.   It’s a pioneering, sustainability business model that is working well for them and will work well for all of us on the planet.  Together, those in shared practice need to keep pushing each other to come “fuller circle” by including habitat and the development of local maintenance economy in our approaches.