NORDHAVNEN'S LIVING LAB Jun. 2013 | Page 5

Welcome to this document ! As the quote to your left indicates , this strategy is about ‘ daring ’. Over the 200 years since his birth in Copenhagen , Søren Kierkegaard continued inspiring , far beyond his own age and regions , to always continue the careful search ( and struggle ) for finding a good way forward . Indeed , these paths are not given , but rather require us to constantly sense and re-perceive , unfold our ideas , sharpen our arguments , and dare to try out something different than ‘ the usual ’. In this sense , we hope that Søren Kierkegaard would have liked this document , as it is exactly about this carefully finding the way forward , in order to gather transformative power for tackling the problems our society faces with today ’ s mobility systems .

Welcome to this document ! As the quote to your left indicates , this strategy is about ‘ daring ’. Over the 200 years since his birth in Copenhagen , Søren Kierkegaard continued inspiring , far beyond his own age and regions , to always continue the careful search ( and struggle ) for finding a good way forward . Indeed , these paths are not given , but rather require us to constantly sense and re-perceive , unfold our ideas , sharpen our arguments , and dare to try out something different than ‘ the usual ’. In this sense , we hope that Søren Kierkegaard would have liked this document , as it is exactly about this carefully finding the way forward , in order to gather transformative power for tackling the problems our society faces with today ’ s mobility systems .

When Københavns Kommune introduced Nordhavnen in the successful application for European ’ s Environmental Capital 2014 as a “ green laboratory - the blueprint for green growth ”, an exquisite idea was born ; an idea , which might elevate the future Nordhavnen to be a unique quarter . We picture Nordhavnen of 2050 to be a place , where creativity is in the air . Where the ‘ urban vibrancy ’, that city planners around the world try to inject into their concepts , has made it into reality . A diverse , colourful quarter , where people from different ages , backgrounds , and with different occupations and interests live together , sharing elements of their rich cultures in their neighbourhood . This might be due to the magnetic force the innovative Nordhavnen had on creative people and companies from all around the world . And then there are the many visitors , Danish and from foreign countries . Among them , urban professionals , wandering through the streets , discussing and seeking for inspiration to take back home to their own cities . The more north the guide takes them , the more their eyes are glowing . Due to the phased implementation of Nordhavnen , innovative urban mobility concepts were taken a step further in every phase , with continued high ambitions . On the way some risks were taken , some painful lessons had to be learnt . But it was worth it ! Nordhavnen has performed the tough job of paddling upstream , breaking with constraining lock-ins ; and became the central seedbed to shift Copenhagen ’ s mobility regime towards being one of the most sustainable and most inspiring ones in the world .
So the time is right , the idea is good , what is missing is a clear strategy of how to work with Nordhavnen as a living laboratory for mobility solutions . This is where this document comes into play . It offers a two-folded strategy : one working on the level of getting to a transformative operation strategy of the living lab , the other one on how to work with one innovative mobility solution in a strategic way . The next three pages give an insight about how we picture the living lab in Nordhavnen to look like and how this document can help to work towards it .

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