Signe Kongebro on the Copenhagen Way
The architect on how trust rebuilt a city
Last updated: September 30, 2026 Copenhagen, Denmark
The European Urban Regeneration & Housing Summit is taking place this week in Copenhagen, and the Holcim Foundation is on the ground to gather insights. We are joined by delegations from 17 cities and hosted by C40 Cities, the City of Copenhagen and Urban Partners, for discussions on strategic planning, affordable housing and public space.
The Danish capital is a place that citymakers can learn a lot from. The municipality came close to bankruptcy in the early 1990s, and within a generation the city was rebuilt through partnerships in which the public sector and private firms shared responsibility for the result. Engineers Ramboll, urban innovation hub BLOXHUB and sustainable investment firm Urban Partners named that method ‘The Copenhagen Way'. The story of The Copenhagen Way came together in a report last year. Ramboll's contribution draws on three decades of work in regenerating the city. Achievements include cleaning a polluted harbor into a now-popular swimming spot and engineering Nordhavn, the new sustainably minded district on the old northern port, which will eventually house 40,000 residents.
Signe Kongebro is Ramboll's Global Director of Future Resilient Design, a trained architect and a member of the Holcim Foundation Board. She takes us through the case for Copenhagen as a global benchmark for CityMaking.
Tell us about the Copenhagen Way. How much has Ramboll helped shape Copenhagen as a city?
The interesting thing, coming from a traditional design studio life as an architect, is that when I came to Ramboll, I realized it has been a partner with Copenhagen for more than 30 years, helping transform it from a very bad city, super polluted, with an unemployment rate of 18 percent, into a city that is now recognized as one of the most livable on the planet. Ramboll has been doing a lot of these key transformative projects, like cleaning up the harbor.
What made the Copenhagen Way work?
We looked back at the key levers that transformed the city. You have the design components, but you need to put them together in the right order, and timing is everything. You also need pragmatism. You need to be open and not wait for all legislation to be in place before you decide. We needed a new way of working together. Otherwise, this co-responsibility mindset would not have happened.
Projects like that need so many stakeholders; how can you make this work?
To build cities with a strong, resilient mindset, you need everyone on the stage. It is not that somebody needs to take the lead. You need to create interdisciplinary empathy and a trusted room where creativity can flourish. For me, working in the early phases of urban development is very important. You find the pain points and work with them, because it is risk management: getting the right start for a big project. Ramboll is a part of the band, but we are definitely not the ones who determine everything. We need all people on board.
Can learnings from the Copenhagen Way be applied in other cities?
We took the learnings from Copenhagen and asked our neighboring capitals, Hamburg, Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo: this worked for Copenhagen; what could work for you? There were similar reflections. You have to bear in mind that regenerating a small neighborhood took 20 years in Copenhagen, because we were building a whole metro system at the same time. Transformation takes time, but other cities can learn from our city’s attitude toward ambition, vision, and execution. The word trust came up often in the conversations we have had with more than 120 urban stakeholders. We have to listen to people with other experience and knowledge, and incorporate it into the project, so you get more out of your investment than just a building or a bridge or a waterfront.
What does the Copenhagen Way look like on the ground?
What we somehow succeeded in was creating very small neighborhoods that actually work. It is not one big master plan. It is many small pieces of a puzzle that start working together: small, hyper-local projects that attract people to live there and to visit. Then comes the infrastructure, on micro-mobility, on water, on pocket parks. We call it going ‘high resolution’. You feel it immediately when a place works.
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