Sletten: Rethinking Urban Habitats through creative management and social engagement

Sletten is a visionary urban development plan integrating new housing with new urban forest that takes up characteristics often associated with urban garden-ing. The building plan comprises both private and public housing, public institu-tions for children and eldercare as well as offices and light industry. The housing areas consist of eight small clusters each of which circumvents a green area for leisure and play. The forest area is comprised of three primary experimental meth-ods for afforesting and numerous subordinated experiments creating numerous spatial and natural qualities inviting for wide biodiversity and not least a wide va-riety for appropriating and using the urban forest. Compared to contemporary Danish city development projects Sletten is very advanced concerning new types of forest habitats as well as social diversity regulated by ownership of housing, embedment of private and public institutions, integrating nature and city and urg-ing citizens to take part in both nature development and -preservation