scale?

But, some people can accommodate to this lifestyle as the Helle Harbor which was explaining in an interview that she had particular demands for her, her husband and their son.

“We had some demands when we started to look for a new apartment. The apartment should have balconies, enough space for a dishwasher, a washing machine and dryer and if it was an apartment higher than the ground floor it should have a lift” (Harbor, 2011) That is mean, more or less, that they choose to live there for the quality of the apartment not really for the place itself, but she agreed that sometimes the place can be a bit desert out.

“But it can sometimes seem a little bit deserted out here, because there isn’t that many shops and cafés except inside Field’s” (Harbor, 2011) And like Karoline V. M. Hansen notified, “she said “out-there” about Ørestad because she does not see it as a part of Copenhagen yet, even though it’s not even ten minutes away from the city centre.” (Hansen, 2011)

9. Problems encountered, risky investments, what difficulties with projects of this scale?

Every project even if it has been planned for 10 years will face unexpected issues. Ørestad faced many. The project has been initiated at the dawn of several transformations and is a part of an even more large scale development project along the refurbishment of the North Harbour, the Inner Harbour and the South Harbour. Thus many people are arguing that the harbour development “became a competitive factor very influential on the outcome of the Ørestad project.” (Olsson & Loerakker, 2013) The financial bias at the beginning was a huge risky speculative plan. It created many problems during the development. The ODC was projecting the refund of this new public transport line over several years through the sale of plots, to global companies, along. An investment in long term to share risks and profits, a financial innovation but unsafe. The dependence between financing and real estate investment of companies becoming consequent to its good completion, one cannot be done without the other.

As Lea Olson and Jan Loerakker have noticed in their study of the project (Olsson & Loerakker, 2013), this strategical alliance can be associated to the one Richard Sennett refers as the “closed system” which is ruling the balance of income and expenses. “The closed system ruled by equilibrium derives from a pre-Keynesian idea of how markets work. It supposes something like a bottom line in which income and expenses balance […] familiar to urban planners in the ways infrastructure resources for transport get allocated.” (Sennett, 2006) In 1998, after seven years of planning and debates, the metro line started its construction. The winner of the master plan competition decided to place the metro line on the east side of Ørestad to let intact one of the priceless biggest areas of nature and this solution convinced to both Nature conservator and the ODC and allowed to the project to start with a better basis. And then, 2 years later the first public and private building constructions in Ørestad finished. Unfortunately, not everything went as planned and the "global" failure of the project fragmented the return on investment and plunged the debts of the municipality to the lowest. Faced with this lack of money, a solution had to be found. Thus, two years after the start of the construction of the metro line the state took the initiative to build the huge Field's shopping centre to attract a wider clientele and allow the repayment of debts in a more significant way due the failure of the metro whose ticket sales and use did not reach the expected amounts. The huge building of 178,000 square meters taking place in the middle of the Ørestad Center district it was to become a reference in Scandinavia by becoming the largest shopping centre. “Fields is the largest shopping and leisure centre in Scandinavia. Besides a wide choice of shops, the centre also boasts many different restaurants and leisure activities, e.g. a children’s fun centre, a 12 holes indoor golf course, hairdressers and a fitness centre. In the future there will also be offices, a hotel and a cinema” (Christensen, 2007) Inhibiting at the same time the creation of small local businesses and therefore the development of a denser and closer urbanity to its inhabitants. Taking advantage of the situation, the creation of a huge square started in front of the mall.

Figure 19: “The bar graph shows the average number of people who stay on two newly built squares in Copenhagen and Oslo respectively, on summer days between 12 noon and 4p.m.” (Gehl, 2010) Numbers worthing a thousand words, the extremely interesting research on the Kay Fiskers Square by Jan (Gehl, 2010) explained that some pedestrian areas are only serving as a ferry from one side to the other when the others are looking to the opportunity of a walk with staying. “It is almost always simpler and more effective to increase quality and thus the desire to spend time than to increase the number of visitors to the space. Working with time and quality rather than numbers and quantity also generally improves city quality for the benefit of everyone every day of the year” (Gehl, 2010)

As the graph is showing, the using of the two places is completely different. Despite daily use by about 7000 pedestrians, it remains empty all day due to the average presence of 5.5 people. Indeed, in under a minute it is possible to join the shopping centre. On the contrary the activity on Bryggestorvet Aker Brygge “is 10 times greater because the public is invited both to walk and to stay here.” (Gehl, 2010). Thus, with a usage by 5000 people, an average number of 212 people are present on the square. When they decided to create this mall every possibility of creating an urban quality place to live disappeared. More people in place does not mean that is a good place. Without any games of old/new, small/big, width/tight the city lost its possibility to become a place of well-being, life and effervescence and the presence of this huge mall doing facing to the Ørestad central district is not helping to feel in an active-life district. As Nantes attached itself to do, creating districts with their own identity, Ørestad was aiming the same vision. “The fully developed Ørestad will not, therefore, look like a continuous urban ribbon, but ideally like a series of separate, harmoniously formed, smaller urban neighbourhoods, strung along the city-line (metro) like pearls on a string” (Ørestadsselskabet, 1994) But the financial return has been overestimated and it is the landscape environment that has suffered the consequences. Indeed, the urban fabric very fragmented has been the object of a lot of critiques.

Particularly one of them, which was attached to highlight the poor quality of the public spaces that, we recall, are linking in a global manner every building together. This nonattractiveness of public space is probably due to the lack of investments that Ørestad faced to.

“There are different functions in the area, but there is no integrative design. Functions do not relate to each other, outdoor public spaces are empty and unattractive and have little use. There is a considerable lack of spaces that give the area an urban character, like pedestrian zones and ground floor activities. Most people who come to the area only visit the large indoor shopping mall.” (Majoor, 2009) With projects of this scope, it is always difficult to achieve the desired goal. During the development of Ørestad several precautions were taken to avoid to the maximum the problems that they had to face during the construction and the launching of the project but even, some of them are unpredictable. Many experts that have studied the case have all concluded that on the one hand Ørestad had faced an economy in crisis and had not developed in good conditions but on the other hand the renovation of the harbours of Copenhagen had become a safer investment place and interesting, from a total point of view, and had greatly influenced the success of the project. Then, from the urban social norms point of view. The project suffered from this lack of investment and the ODC was not able to argue its position along the government that was worried about the direction the project was taking and had must find a solution which had been the mall. Its proportion and architecture had faced many criticizing due to the huge closed facades that are not inviting people to wander around. An interesting point is to try to compare is the presence of this mall to the one in the island of Nantes, because there is also one, but it didn't have a negative effect on what was planned.

Figure 20: A public space in Ørestad (Peter, 2015)

The commercial centre of Beaulieu is situated on in the housing part of the Beaulieu district and have been built before the starting of the master plan creation. Formerly turned on its own, the Beaulieu shopping centre is now open on the Boulevard du General de Gaulle. Its expansion and complete restructuring transformed this shopping centre into a true downtown amenity. All the surrounding space has been redesigned so that it integrates with the future urban plan of the island since it was formerly away from any construction it would become an inherent part of it. A monumental entrance was created at the corner of boulevard, in direct connection with Beaulieu station Busway. A great deal of work on the environment and bicycle lanes has been organized to reconnect the shopping centre to the Loire by creating new traffic lanes. The importance of integrating this former shopping centre into the future of the project has been carefully and painstakingly applied, where the Field's shopping centre demonstrates the haste and speed of action required for the survival of the project which gave it its architectural weaknesses. Regarding the development of the urban project of Nantes, it has not met with great difficulties since it was established in connection with the few inhabitants already present on the island and the downstream of Nantes. In financial terms, the rehabilitation works in Nantes took place completely differently as it was shared by many actors and didn’t face real investment issues. "Launched by Nantes Métropole and the City of Nantes, the transformation of the island of Nantes is an open project, not fixed, shared, and able to accommodate very diverse initiatives. This change is the result of political will and ambition, exchanges with public partners, professional operators of urban development and inhabitants. It is elaborated at each step by the consultation, the negotiation and the debate between all these actors." (Nantes Métropole, 2017)

Figure 22: “Copenhagen metro train on the elevated tracks in Ørestad”. A public Figure 21: The “Quai des Antilles” at Nantes in the West point district dedicated to entertainment. (Jacques, 2006) space in Ørestad. Source: (Peter, 2015)