This competition entry is made by Julie Reinau and I for the DAL / Municipality of Aarhus competition for a new urban area outside Aarhus, Denmark 2002.

This is a story of how to stage and establish the integration of communities in Lisbjerg. It's the story of how to involve people in designing their own spacial environment and how to communicate the interactive process of both designing a new environment and adapting to an existing.

Lisbjerg is an attractive and unspoilt site situated with a unique and undisturbed view to Aarhus. The area has a rural character, but is still within an urban context, infrastructurally connected to both the local roads as well as the regional highways. Libjerg consists of local communities that share the soft green folded tissue of dirt and forest and a disguised archeological and cultural history.

The question therefor is, how does one approach the task to establish new city environments. One approach would be building a well composed plan, but that is not really at issue here. What matters is how people live, use and establish an identity in a an environment. It's not the task of building identities, but the challenge of how to support them both spacially and programmatically.

The project considers the differentiated demands and wishes people have in relation to the living in the city. It aims not at designing a hybrid city, but rather establishing three distinct cities that develop their own individualities. This way they grow and interact but maintain their character. The cities are communicated in a caricatured form to underline thr three characteristic lifestyles. Most unpopular this project is not about gaming. The programmning is performed to ensure a dynamic exchange and interaction between the cities and the functions have been carefully distributed.

Public city is the social neighborhood of open and politic discussions. It's the community where the users can put action to their thought and where progress and success depends on the collaborative performance. The communication form is an interactive debate filtered through the school, which function as the center core of the community.

Public city is densely build and multilayered. The programs are patched and overlayed on different scales and levels to create varied and unexpected spacial occurences. The structure consists of units that weave together in three storey volumes that both give scale to the surrounding landscape and create an urban environment of public squares, spaces and surfaces.

Public city's development is managed by the municipality in close collaboration with the locale user-groups who manage a number of decisions.

Smooth city is the fast community that act and react on the pulse. Its the global network society responsive to disturbances locally and worldwide. The city is laid out as a smooth infrastructure of both digital and analog paths that enable this rich and multi faceted society of economy, research, education and entertainment to communicate. The paths supply ports of different functions with the latest updates.

Smooth city is an intelligent and transformable structure that works as an interface between costumer and client. The city is designed as wowen surfaces that support eachother structurally and programmatically to create continuous spaces.

Smooth city is a joint venture between public institutions and developers, however the future development is mainly controlled by the market forces.

Soft city is the quiet settlement of individual living homes that devote privacy but acknowledge the community as a union. It's the city that ensures a safe and secure environment and establish a relaxed atmosphere that enable the settlers to disconnect from the bussy society and focus on the family. The homes are scattered in the hills but designed to fulfill the requirements of both indoor and outdoor private spaces.

Soft city is established as an ecological society where the use of sustainable materials, the reuse of water and a low energy consume are design criteria.

Soft city is managed by the Municipality of Environmental Issues in collaboration with the Association of House owners to ensure the correct maintanance of the landscape.