A park for youth in Bolbro

FROM WORN SUBURB TO GLIMMERGHETTO

In 2020, Odense Municipality decided to invest some money in a feasibility study for a youth park in Bolbro. 

 

In Bolbro, an area renewal was underway and this is where the project was anchored. 

 

OP & NED provided spectacular ideas for the project, which all were developed already the following year. 

 

See some of the items here:

Developed for
Odense Municipality
The city Bolbro

In cooperation with:
Youth from Bolbro
Signe Olsen
Land+ Arkitekter

Location
Dyrskuepladsen, Bolbro, Odense
Denmark

There is room to hang out in the park on the amphitheater-like wall
Selfie mirrors create spectacular entanglements and a human-size nail board makes it possible to send a greeting to those who come next

CO-CREATION WITH YOUNG PEOPLE

We got the necessary knowledge about the young people’s wishes and demands from the young people themselves at a co-creation workshop, where we were told about their needs and their aversions in relation to a new area, just for them. 

 

Together with the young people, we designed a crazy cool design catalog with concepts that can make young people have more fun and be more together. 

 

A kind of playground for big kids. 

 

Odense Municipality and Land+ selected the design concepts they wanted to use in the project.

The large human nail board is in use all the time. There are food trucks set up several times a week in the square up to the park, the young people requested to buy cheap food.
The lighting is interactive and can be designed by the young people who use the place.
There are hammocks and challenges all over the park. We learned from the young people who participated that they wanted places to have some kind of play, but it should not look like children's playgrounds.

GLIMMERGHETTO

The municipality subsequently wrote: If you come from Jutland towards Odense, you will historically encounter one of Denmark’s poorest postcodes. 

A tired suburb with post-war monotonous houses, abandoned places and sad prejudices. 

 

The name is Bolbro, which goes by the nickname Bronx named after the slum in the United States. 

 

But now there are not many slums above the postcode 5200 left.

Instead, you now encounter a brightly colored festive fireworks display of a district. As a welcome, large letters swell like a Hollywood sign as you drive through the suburbs. 

 

Bolbro’s citizens have given the old working class a makeover for 30 million, of which 20 million is financed by Odense Municipality, while 10 million is allocated by the Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing.

 

Gold, disco and a flourising future

Bolbro has also become a city that offers opportunities for dancing. At least if you go down to Bolbro’s new meeting place for young people. Here you will see Denmark’s only park with a flashing disco ball, mirrors and gold glittering street lights. 

 

The park has been named #GlimmerGhettoen

GLIMMERGHETTOEN BOLBRO
The artist Dennis Christensen stands behind the mirrors in the young people's park based on OP & NED's presentation.
In the Glimmerghettoen, you play ball on the gold basketball net.

Press wrote...

Our suggestions for good urban public spaces for young people

  1. Create space for community – both the large, many community but also the small you-and-me community

  2. Involve local young people right from the start

  3. Make the place interactive, let the young people themselves program the light and sound in the way they want when they use the area

  4. Safe food and preferably very cheap food

  5. Light is paramount, especially for the girls. No one likes to stay in a dark park. Create a summer party atmosphere all year round.

  6. Experiment with new things:

    1. Create a beautiful scene for anything

    2. Make seating and a fire pit in the middle of town

    3. A human nailboard or a cool selfie spot can make it possible to pass the spot on to the next ones.

ARE YOU READY TO BUILD THE PUBLIC SPACE OF THE FUTURE WITH US?

DO YOU EXPERIENCE CHALLENGES OR THE NEED FOR MORE PLAY AMONG LOCAL CHILDREN? WE ARE HAPPY TO HELP WITH GOOD ADVICE AND SOLUTIONS.