Using nature to turn billion Euro flooding into life quality bonus

Catastrophic cloudbursts are already reshaping Copenhagen. Instead of hiding the problem underground in massive pipes, what if rainwater could be used to improve everyday life in the city?  In this episode, host Michael Booth meets Mette Skjold, CEO and senior partner at landscape architecture studio SLA, to explore the transformation of Bispeparken, a former stretch of anonymous lawn turned into a nature-based climate adaptation project. Designed to manage extreme rainfall, the park uses bioswales, terrain and planting to slow and store water, while creating new spaces for play, rest and community life.  The conversation shows how landscape architecture can turn billion-euro flooding risks into a quality-of-life bonus, and why starting with nature may be the key to building more resilient, liveable cities.  Guest: Mette Skjold, CEO & Senior Partner, SLA  Host: Michael Booth  Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios.

When BLOX opened in 2018, it divided opinion. Designed by OMA as the home of the Danish Architecture Center, the building was unlike anything Copenhagen had seen before, bold, complex and unapologetically different.  In this episode, host Michael Booth is joined by DAC CEO Kent Martinussen for a guided tour of BLOX, as the centre prepares an anniversary exhibition marking 40 years of DAC. Together they unpack the story behind the building: the unusual architect selection process, Rem Koolhaas' vision of architecture as urban infrastructure, and the idea of BLOX as a city within a city.  Moving from harbour-level plazas to dramatic interior spaces and rooftop terraces, the conversation explores how BLOX has evolved from controversy to everyday use, a flexible, lived-in building where culture, work and city life intersect.  Guest: Kent Martinussen, CEO, Danish Architecture Center Host: Michael Booth  Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios.

Timber instead of tiles, curiosity instead of corridors, and a 15-metre-high atrium designed to make people feel safer, healthier and more connected. Copenhagen's Centre for Health proposes a new typology for public healthcare architecture.  In this episode, Michael Booth meets architect Dorte Mandrup, widely regarded as one of Denmark's greatest living architects, to explore how a complex and often contradictory brief — openness and privacy, care and community — was translated into a warm, tactile and quietly radical public building.  Together they discuss the centre's boomerang-shaped footprint, full timber construction and soaring atrium, and how architecture can gently nudge behaviour, foster wellbeing and create spaces that feel inclusive without feeling exposed.  Guest:  Dorte Mandrup, Arkitekt, Dorte Mandrup A/S  Host: Michael Booth  Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios.

Eighteen years, a 14-metre-deep crater, a rebuilt brick façade, and a glass dome set to redefine Copenhagen's skyline Denmark's new Natural History Museum is almost ready.  In this episode, Michael Booth meets architect Claus Pryds, who was barely out of architecture school when he unexpectedly won the competition for the country's next great museum. What followed was a marathon of design, engineering and sheer perseverance that stretched across nearly two decades.  Michael and Claus dive into the wild story behind the museum: the setbacks, the breakthroughs, the impossible holes in the ground — and the thrill of watching a once-in-a-lifetime project finally rise to the surface. Opening in 2027, the museum will feature new worlds dedicated to Danish nature and Greenland and rumoured to have everything from dinosaurs to a Blue Whale skeleton.  Guest: Claus Pryds Host:  Michael Booth  Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios. 

Can architecture help us create a future where both humans and nature can thrive? And is it possible to truly strengthen biodiversity in big cities – or are we just creating small, isolated pockets of green?  In this episode, Michael Booth meets ecologist, biodiversity developer and founder of Oiko, Kristine Kjørup Rasmussen. Together they explore Copenhagen's Nordhavn district – from concrete cityscapes to wild wastelands – to see how biodiversity can be measured, protected, and even enhanced in the midst of urban development.  Guest: Kristine Kjørup Rasmussen, ecologist and founder of Oiko  Host: Michael Booth  Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios. 

What defines a megaproject? And why do they so often go over both budget and schedule?   Denmark has earned a reputation for successfully completing large-scale construction projects – whether they are bridges, tunnels, land reclamation or offshore wind farms. The latest Danish megaproject is the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link, a record-breaking 18-kilometer tunnel currently being placed on the seabed from the island of Lolland to Northern Germany.  In this episode, Michael Booth joins Professor Christian Langhoff Thuesen of Denmark's Technical University on a visit to the construction site of the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link. Together they explore the impressive scale of the project and discuss the future of megaprojects in light of growing sustainability demands.   Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios. 

Right now, 150 new community spaces are being built across Denmark – primarily using recycled materials – as part of an extraordinary project called Vores Sted (Our Place). Funded by the Danish philanthropic association Realdania, the project aims to reinvent the community gathering place for the 21st century.  The community spaces, designed as four distinct types of pavilions, are the result of a collaboration between Danish architectural firms ReVærk, Cobe, Archival Studies, pihlmann architects, Rumgehør og Studio XYZ. In this episode our host Michael Booth, takes a trip to the southern Jutland town of Tønder with ReVærk's founding partner, Simeon Østerlund Bamford, to visit one of the new pavilions - and to discover the surprising source of the materials used to build it.  Guest: Simeon Østerlund Bamford, Partner ReVærk Host: Michael Booth Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios. 

Has presence become a luxury in the digital age? And do we lose contact with the world around us when so much of our lives unfold in front of a screen?  In this episode of Let's Talk Architecture host Michael Booth meets Nikoline Dyrup, architect and founding partner of Danish architecture and design studio, Spacon. Together they visit the studio's newly opened exhibition at DAC, Meet Me Here, for a conversation about how design and architecture can shape the ways we connect.  Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios. 

Bjarke Ingels Group – BIG – is one of Denmark's most internationally acclaimed architecture studios, with high-profile projects across the globe. Not long ago, the firm moved into its own seven-story raw concrete-and-glass headquarters, prominently located on the harbour in Copenhagen's Nordhavn district.  But what happens when a firm like BIG gets the chance to design its own headquarters? What role did sustainability play in the process, and what can the new BIG HQ tell us about the company behind the name? Join us as founder of BIG, Bjarke Ingels, invites host Michael Booth on an exclusive tour of BIG HQ and shares the thinking behind the building's design – and what it's like to be both architect and client.  Let's Talk Architecture is a Danish Architecture Center podcast. Sound edits by Munck Studios.

If you want to see the impact that bold, brave, progressive urban planning can have on a city, go visit Odense, Denmark's third largest city. Odense has gone from being a city divided into halves by a four-lane main road, to one built on a human scale which is ready for the challenges of the 21st century. But how have they banished cars, how did the locals react, and what role has culture played in the transformation of Hans Christian Andersen's birthplace?  These are some of the questions host Michael Booth asks in this episode, as he visits the city with Marianne Tonim Nielsen, an architect who has worked in the municipality there for 29 years and has closely followed the development of Odense. Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios.