It’s a building project with towering ambitions—to use all 17 of the UN’s Global Goals as a sustainability blueprint for a 35,000-square-metre eco-village being built on the southern outskirts of Copenhagen.
Amid dire warnings about the need to rapidly rein in carbon dioxide emissions, Danish architects Lendager Group, and project partners Årstiderne Arkitekter, want their 400-home development in Ørestad South to set a new standard for sustainable construction.
“We see the Sustainable Development Goals as a global tool with a holistic approach to the world’s sustainability challenges. A tool and a language that can be understood across sectors and countries,” Lendager says in its project description for the UN17 Village development.
UN17 Village will house 830 people, including around 175 children and 100 older residents. Five housing blocks will be built using recycled concrete, wood and glass. Some of the construction materials will be sourced from Lendager UP, the branch of Lendager that provides upcycled building materials, and the company will also use various subcontractors.
Construction is due to begin at the end of 2019, or early 2020, depending on the weather, and the work is scheduled to be completed in 2023.
It seems fitting that this innovative project is going ahead in Copenhagen. The Danish capital was the 2014 European Green Capital and aims to become carbon neutral by 2025.
For Lendager chief executive officer and company founder Anders Lendager, the development will act as a compass to guide others, including governments, businesses and individuals, towards sustainability in construction.
“The real change in the building sector still awaits but the tipping point is close,” he said. “We need to use the Sustainable Development Goals, the circular economy, upcycling, etc. as tools to create regenerative buildings and cities that give back and restore what we have destroyed over the past decades.”
There can be no denying the urgent need to reimagine our cities: UN Environment’s latest Emissions Gap Report showed that global carbon dioxide emissions rose again during 2017, after a three-year hiatus, to reach historic levels. Only 57 countries are on track to bridge their emissions gap—the space between where their emissions levels are likely to be and where they need to be.
Cities and urban settlements must be at the heart of renewed efforts to cut emissions. By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, and urban areas already account for 70 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
“In response to multiple challenges facing our cities, integrated urban systems offer a way to cater for infrastructure that is key for quality of life, while enabling cumulative gains for resource efficiency and addressing climate change,” said Martina Otto, head of the Cities Unit at UN Environment.
“At UN Environment, we support policies and technical solutions that spur greater integration across sectors that usually are planned, designed and operated in silos. In terms of scale, the neighbourhood is particularly suited to being an innovation lab and delivering proof of concept. But we don’t stop there; we work towards bringing these good examples to scale, engaging across the different levels of governance and through public-private partnerships,” she said.
As well as addressing poverty, hunger, inequality and environmental degradation, the Sustainable Development Goals include specific targets to make cities and settlements “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Lendager and its partners took this challenge to heart and their designs came out on top in a competition to select architects for the UN17 Village project.
The development will include rainwater collection facilities capable of recycling 1.5 million litres of water each year. The water will be treated and recirculated and used in the wash house and in the bath house. Water heating will be based on geothermic energy, while solar panels will also be used. Each building will also have a rooftop garden.
“The buildings are designed to limit energy consumption and to produce and recycle energy,” Lendager said. “Focusing on universal access to energy, increased efficiency and the use of renewables is crucial to create resilience to environmental issues like climate change.”
One cluster of buildings is designed to produce more energy than it needs and will distribute power and heating to other buildings, testing the efficacy of a smart closed system.
The building complexes, as well as individual apartments, are designed to be resilient to climate change with vegetation and green areas to help counteract the loss of vegetation and biodiversity caused by urban growth.
There will be around 3,000 square-metres of communal spaces for residents and the people of Ørestad. There will also be a conference centre, an organic restaurant, greenhouses and food-sharing and food-growing facilities.
The innovative project is an example of the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that UN Environment hopes will abound at March’s fourth UN Environment Assembly. The motto for the meeting is: think beyond prevailing patterns and live within sustainable limits.
“The innovations we are introducing provide solutions for a new, more inclusive and less harmful way of doing things,” Lendager says. “Sixty per cent of the housing needed by 2030 globally has not yet been built. The UN17 Village shows how we can support growing populations without compromising on sustainability.”
As part of its bid to tackle poverty, the project will provide 100 unskilled jobs for marginalized workers and challenge contractors to include them in their teams. The Village also aims to produce enough food for 30,000 meals every year by growing crops on the roofs and in the greenhouses.
“The crops will be served in the local restaurant, which will also help distribute the leftovers for free. We also want to integrate a food waste handling system by offering a designated area where people can share and pick up redundant food for free. The production of vegetables reduces transport costs and emissions, but it also plays an important role in community-building and education,” Lendager says.
He believes cities must ultimately become regenerators of energy, water, biodiversity, materials and humanity but admits mindsets still need to change.
“We are seeing examples of sustainability emerging in commercial housing, social housing, office buildings and so on—projects showing that sustainable buildings are a better investment. But we still have work to do.”
