Superkilen 2012: a Copenhagen park made of the world's objects — 99 from 59 countries

Nørrebro was one of Copenhagen's most ethnically diverse yet socially challenged districts; the city and the Realdania foundation wanted a 30,000 m² public space that could give its residents a shared identity.

Instead of standard park furniture, build the park as a giant exhibition: let residents nominate everyday objects from their home countries, then install the real things.

SUPERFLEX ran 'extreme participation': residents nominated everyday objects from their countries of origin, and the team travelled with five groups to Palestine, Spain, Thailand, Texas and Jamaica to acquire them. Swings from Iraq, a boxing ring from Thailand, a Moroccan fountain, neon signs from Russia and China and a Spanish bull were arranged in three colour-coded zones — Red Square, Black Square, Green Park — across 750 metres.

Superkilen became Copenhagen's most photographed urban space and a reference for participatory public design. It won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2016 plus Red Dot Best of the Best, AIA Institute Honor, ArchDaily Building of the Year and other 2013 awards, and has inspired later public-space projects.

When Copenhagen and the Realdania foundation set out to build a new public space in Nørrebro, one of the city's most diverse and socially challenged districts, the artist group SUPERFLEX proposed something unusual: let the residents choose what goes in it. Instead of standard city furniture, the park would be a giant exhibition of everyday objects from the residents' countries of origin.

The process was called 'extreme participation'. Residents nominated objects — swings from Iraq, benches from Brazil, a fountain from Morocco, a boxing ring from Thailand, a bull from Spain, neon signs from Russia and China — and SUPERFLEX travelled with five resident groups to Palestine, Spain, Thailand, Texas and Jamaica to acquire them. The result, arranged across three colour-coded zones in red, black and green, is a 30,000 m² collection of 99 objects from 59 countries.

Superkilen opened in June 2012 and immediately became a landmark — widely described as Copenhagen's most photographed urban space. It won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016, a Red Dot Best of the Best and an AIA Institute Honor in 2013, and has been studied and cited as a model for participatory, identity-building public space design.

It made the community the author of the design instead of the audience for it.

Real, acquired objects carried more meaning than abstract artworks or standard benches.

The colour-coded zones gave one giant, mixed park a simple, legible structure.

It celebrated the district's diversity rather than trying to smooth it over.

Ask the people who will use a place to supply its content: when a community names the objects, the space already belongs to them.

Superkilen stayed in daily use and became a tourist draw and a fixture in design discourse, but it also stayed debated — critics questioned its curated aesthetics and its long-term social effects, and the district around it continued to change. The park's objects and zones have been maintained and adjusted by the municipality over the years, and it remains a reference point for how public space can be co-created with residents.