Hauser Plads

Hauser Plads is a public square in Copenhagen's medieval city centre, a stone's throw from the busy shopping street Købmagergade. One patch of ground here does three jobs at once: a playground, a park and offices for the municipality itself. The play area rolls in rounded, undulating shapes, with two large metal domes, swings, a sandpit and climbing poles. Real and artificial grass, granite and child-safe rubber cover the surfaces. Families and day care groups from the neighbourhood use it, and the shapes give the square a science fiction look.

Søren Kierkegaard knew this square well: in the 1830s and 1840s, the Danish philosopher met his fiancée Regine here every Friday. Buildings from those years still stand, and they have shaped how newer architecture in Copenhagen treats its historic setting. Facing the dense historic centre, the city chose to build downwards rather than upwards. Between 2010 and 2012, Karres en Brands and Polyform turned an underground car park into a base for the city's cleaning services. The transformation won the Copenhagen Municipality Architectural Award in 2012.

Daylight reaches the offices through a wide opening in the ground, where a sunken patio garden sits below street level. Curved glass walls surround it, the planting shifts with the seasons, and flagstone paving leaves room for a coffee break. The playground and park above connect straight to that garden, so recreation and workplace share one open edge. Through the day, municipal staff take their breaks there and locals pause on the same ground. Children dig in the sandpit a few metres above the municipal cleaning crews.