Rødovre becomes the first Danish municipality to collaborate with Forma

Autodesk Forma’s cloud-based platform will help Rødovre Municipality to better visualize and optimize future urban development projects, positioning the municipality at the forefront of digital urban development in Denmark. Initially, Forma will be used for three urban development projects totalling around 200,000m². 

The agreement follows several months of testing, and the new digital tools will help the municipality’s planning department achieve better quality in future urban development projects, explains the municipality’s now former city architect, Jesper Pagh. He has since moved to a position in Horsens Municipality. 

“With 42,000 inhabitants in 12 km² – an area that makes us the third smallest municipality in the country – Rødovre is one of the most densely populated areas in Denmark. This places great demands on land use, which is why we are constantly working to apply the latest and best digital solutions to our planning work. The aim, for example, is to strengthen the quality of local plans and optimize cooperation with developers, so that together we can create as much value as possible for the municipality’s residents. This is what we are doing with Forma, and we are happy about it,” says Jesper Pagh, who is also the former director of the Architects’ Association. 

Focus on three urban projects 
Initially, the municipality will use Forma for three projects including Rødovre’s largest urban development called Bykernen which is located in the centre of the municipality. All three projects contain mostly housing, including new social housing. 

Forma is already used by municipalities in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and will assist Rødovre municipality’s architects and urban planners. Using Forma is suitable, for example, when finding the optimal location for new projects on an empty site or adding extra buildings on an existing built-up site, while making sure each project meets quality criteria set by the municipality. 

“Municipal urban development is a complex process that takes place in close cooperation with politicians, developers, external consultants and other partners. Forma makes it easy to visualise what is practically possible, enabling stakeholders to understand a project easier and make key decisions. Even though we are in the development phase, the tool provides measurable data on sun, wind and noise on the finished building, making it much easier to compare different project proposals and choose the best one,” says Jesper Pagh. 

Reducing noise is vital 
“New housing projects in Rødovre often have to be especially mindful of noise. The Motorring 3, a major ring road, runs from north to south in Rødovre, and in addition there is a lot of traffic from the municipality’s through roads. Now we can easily measure and visualize traffic noise in a concrete way and ensure that in our new urban development projects we can better shelter citizens and users from noise, prevent health problems and provide quality of life. These are key elements of good architecture,” says Jesper Pagh. 

In addition to the urban architect himself, Rødovre Municipality has 18 employees in the Urban Development Department, which also includes the Building and Business Department. Of these, a team of four planners will be using Forma.