What is a truly playful city? Presenting a radical answer to this question, Bjarke Ingels Group and Urgent.Agency have fostered an urban vision that puts children and play squarely at the centre of urban design.

While Billund is best known for being the hometown and headquarters of LEGO, the small town is now setting new standards for holistic, sustainable and creative urban planning. The Billund City Vision is a radical urban and cultural planning proposal that aims to create a town designed for and by children. This means looking at cities from a child’s perspective. Capital of Children is developed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for Kirkbi, Realdania and Billund Municipality.

A city designed for children
and creativity

The Billund City vision – expressed in a 400-page long graphic publication – proposes a radical concentration of life in the city centre and adds an increased variation in residencies and new ways to connect work with urban spaces. The ambition is to concentrate and reinforce urban life in good urban spaces and to create a green, safe, and pedestrian friendly city, where children have optimal opportunities to play, learn and be creative.

A focal point in the vision is to connect urban spaces and user groups: citizens, employees and visitors. The vision concentrates new housing in the centre of Billund, opening up commercial functions and workplaces and adding new, child-friendly and green infrastructure. We propose a “Billund Playline” – a new playful walk- and bicycle connection for citizens, visitors and employees in Billund.

Billund City Vision won the Danish Design Award – Visionary Concepts in 2016

Actions to bring strategy to life

A vital tool for realizing the Billund City Vision is a common set of principles for action. The Billund City Charter is all about creating a Billund, which expresses creativity, playfulness and learning. A Billund that is dense and diverse, integrates nature and fosters an innovative development culture.

The vision is based on thorough mapping of the existing cultural and spatial qualities and challenges of Billund. The making of the vision has involved extensive dialogue with citizens, employees and business actors and notably children in Billund. A key challenge is to ensure that the city vision will come to life over time. The city vision therefore includes a range of recommendations on how Billund can strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation in the further development of the city. The ideas on how innovative urban development culture may be enhanced include: creating a public/private/urban forum, creating new partnerships as well as new ways of connecting local actors in shared events, initiatives and projects.

Play is one of the key ingredients in developing creative, social and problem-solving children – and adults – who take part in a global and changing world.

– Billund Municipality

Capital of Children is a comprehensive, very complex and truly visionary project that puts children first. The vision might help the world to think differently, more from the bottom up, by listening to young people and learn from children’s perspective, which would be a new paradigm.

– Jury Statement (Danish Design Award)

What is a truly playful city? Presenting a radical answer to this question, Bjarke Ingels Group and Urgent.Agency have fostered an urban vision that puts children and play squarely at the centre of urban design.

While Billund is best known for being the hometown and headquarters of LEGO, the small town is now setting new standards for holistic, sustainable and creative urban planning. The Billund City Vision is a radical urban and cultural planning proposal that aims to create a town designed for and by children. This means looking at cities from a child’s perspective. Capital of Children is developed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for Kirkbi, Realdania and Billund Municipality.

A city designed for children
and creativity

The Billund City vision – expressed in a 400-page long graphic publication – proposes a radical concentration of life in the city centre and adds an increased variation in residencies and new ways to connect work with urban spaces. The ambition is to concentrate and reinforce urban life in good urban spaces and to create a green, safe, and pedestrian friendly city, where children have optimal opportunities to play, learn and be creative.

A focal point in the vision is to connect urban spaces and user groups: citizens, employees and visitors. The vision concentrates new housing in the centre of Billund, opening up commercial functions and workplaces and adding new, child-friendly and green infrastructure. We propose a “Billund Playline” – a new playful walk- and bicycle connection for citizens, visitors and employees in Billund.

Billund City Vision won the Danish Design Award – Visionary Concepts in 2016

Actions to bring strategy to life

A vital tool for realizing the Billund City Vision is a common set of principles for action. The Billund City Charter is all about creating a Billund, which expresses creativity, playfulness and learning. A Billund that is dense and diverse, integrates nature and fosters an innovative development culture.

The vision is based on thorough mapping of the existing cultural and spatial qualities and challenges of Billund. The making of the vision has involved extensive dialogue with citizens, employees and business actors and notably children in Billund. A key challenge is to ensure that the city vision will come to life over time. The city vision therefore includes a range of recommendations on how Billund can strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation in the further development of the city. The ideas on how innovative urban development culture may be enhanced include: creating a public/private/urban forum, creating new partnerships as well as new ways of connecting local actors in shared events, initiatives and projects.

Play is one of the key ingredients in developing creative, social and problem-solving children – and adults – who take part in a global and changing world.

– Billund Municipality

Capital of Children is a comprehensive, very complex and truly visionary project that puts children first. The vision might help the world to think differently, more from the bottom up, by listening to young people and learn from children’s perspective, which would be a new paradigm.

– Jury Statement (Danish Design Award)