Chapter 8: Valby Langgade 8.1 Case Context and Existing Situation 8.1.1 Case Study Area and Character Sections Placement and direction of photos see Appendix 1, where also house numbers and street names are shown. The street case includes a 1.64 km section of Valby Langgade from Naksskovvej in west to Toftegårds Allé in east, see map blow. The case study area is split into three character sections. Map of case study area. (North is up.) Character section 1 is 590 metres long and goes from Nakskovvej to Monrads Allé and includes the junction at Nakskovvej. The section is dominated by 3 floors houses with space between each house on the southern side and 2.5-5 floors building blocks on the northern side. Many building are from 1920-1940, but there are also several new buildings. There are only few shops. Section 1 has one traffic lane in each direction. The structure of the street network is average-grained. Section 2 is 660 metres long and includes both end-junctions at Monrads Allé and Annexstræde. 5 floor buildings from 1920-1940 dominate the section in north and east, where about half has shops in ground floor. To the southeast is an old mix of industries from 1850-1900 partly used for public service partly going through urban renewal. There are one traffic lanes in each direction and the street network is average-grained. Section 3 is 390 metres long (Annexstræde to Toftegårds Allé) and includes the junction at Toftegårds Allé. This is dominated by buildings from 1850-1920 with different numbers of floors, Page 156
but all with shops in ground floor. There is one traffic lane in each direction and the street network is fine-grained. Character section 1 (VL#1). Character section 2 (VL#2). Character section 3 (VL#3). The case study area represent the statistical area for most of the performance indicators, whereas only conditions on Jagtvej has been registered regarding built form, traffic control etc. 8.1.2 Location Appendix 2 shows the location of Valby Langgade and the other five street cases in the arterial street/road network in the Municipality of Copenhagen. Valby Langgade starts at Pile Allé in east and ends about 2.5 km later west at Vigerslevvej. Valby Langgade form together with Toftegårds Allé the prime shopping area of Valby. Valby Langgade is mostly used as distributor street in the district. The parallel streets Roskildevej and Vigerslev Allé are better to serve through-going traffic. Langgade st is located at Nørretofte Allé in section 2 and Valby st is about 200 metres from section 3. Bus and rail network. Page 157
Bus line 6 (9) runs all the way on Valby Langgade with 266 trips on weekdays. The small number in brackets shows the number of trips in rush hours on weekdays in one direction. Six other bus lines use Ålholm Plads about 200 metres west of section 1. Eight other bus lines use Toftegårds Allé and Søndre Fasanvej. Valby is a district with many industrial companies that represent about 30 per cent of the jobs in the area. The area surrounded by Annexstræde, Valby Langgade and Toftegårds Allé is the oldest part of Valby, about 150 years old. Most of the other housing was in built in 1920-1940. There are relatively many 3 rooms flats and not so many flat 1-2 rooms flats. Valby is not far from average regarding almost all other things compared to Copenhagen in general. 8.1.3 Built form Buildings Character section 1 2 3 Side of street (BS = Both Sides) N S BS N S BS N S BS Average height of roofline (m) 12.0 12.0 12.0 17.0 13.0 15.6 12.0 12.0 12.0 Ratio of frontage to space between frontages 2 1 1 8 1 2 8 4 5 Number of inactive buildings 3 12 15 0 1 1 3 1 4 Percentage of building line that are inactive 1 61 72 67 12 60 37 21 24 22 Open doorways per 100 m building line opening onto the public realm 1.2 0.9 1.1 6.0 1.4 3.6 7.1 7.9 7.5 Closed doorways per 100 m building line (often to private staircases) 3.2 3.2 3.2 4.5 1.6 2.9 3.2 2.4 2.8 Percentage of building line that are heavily illuminated at ground floor 2 8 10 9 64 14 37 79 76 78 Historical buildings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Building line is section length minus side streets. Inactive include both space between frontages and inactive buildings. 2 Owners often illuminate buildings in the windows or on walls. Map shows doorways, inactive and illuminated buildings along character section 1. Character section 1: The building height varies between 1 to 6 floors or about 4 to 22 metres. The section is a mix of detached double houses from 1930s or 1950s and small and large building blocks Page 158
from the 1930s, 1950s and 1990s. The shadows on the aerial photos on page 161 give you an impression of heights of individual buildings. Cross sections including building floors and heights are also shown on page 161. The spacing of buildings is rather big due to gardens, driveways, etc. 155 metres of building line on the north side and 270 metres on the south side are without buildings. The rest is side streets and buildings, i.e. giving a ratio of frontage to space between frontages of no more than 1-2. Many relatively small buildings are inactive. The level of activity and transparency is low and about the same on both sides of the street. Maintenance of buildings is good except a couple of detached houses on the south side. Withdrawn new homes, nice but inactive (VL#4). The detached double houses (VL#5). Character section 2: The building height varies between 1 to 5 floors or about 4 to 18 metres. Most buildings are of 5 floors with shops in ground floor and flats in upper floors and from 1920-1940 on both sides of the street. Spacing of buildings is small on the north side but high on the south side giving a ratio of frontage to space between frontages of 1-8. Map shows doorways, inactive and illuminated buildings in character section 2. A church close to Annexstræde appears inactive. Activity and transparency levels are high on the north side but low on the south side. There are no historical buildings. The maintenance of buildings appears good (if you disregard the urban renewal/building site south of the street from Gåsebæksvej to Horsekildevej, which previously was a very old industrial area. The building with the tower you Page 159
see on VL#7 is an old cotton-spinning mill.) Architecture is mostly uniform with few details, however, the north and south side is very different. The north side (VL#6). The south side (VL#7). Character section 3: The building height varies between 1 to 5 floors or about 4 to 18 metres. The street is a mix of old 1-3 floors buildings and buildings blocks from 1900-1920. The spacing of buildings is small on both sides with a ratio of frontage to space between frontages of 4-8. Four buildings appear inactive. Activity and transparency level are high and almost the same on both sides. Maintenance of buildings is good except two of the inactive buildings. Map shows doorways etc. in section 3. Page 160
Inactive and poor maintenance (VL#8). Shops in low buildings (VL#9). Fig. Aerial photos and cross sections. Red lines mark places of cross sections. Space between buildings The street width between the edges of the footways, i.e. the formal public space, is relatively constant on all sections. However, public space is 6-7 metres wider on section 1 and 2 than on section 3. This wider space is used to a 3 metre wide median a 2 one-way cycle tracks in each side of the street, which can be seen by comparing cross sections on the figure above. The function of the median is predominantly to aid crossing pedestrians and separate the opposing traffic directions. Page 161
The median is marked with wide 30 cm white continuous lines and red asphalt, and several median islands reduce overtaking, etc. Character section 1 2 3 Average distance between opposing building lines (metres) 32 24 18 Average width of side space (metres) 14 13 10 Average width between side space including eventual median (metres) 11 11 8 Type of median and eventual average width (metres) Kerbed ghost 3.0 Kerbed ghost 3.0 None Trees and other greenery Sporadic Cancel Sporadic Surface material: Carriageways Median Parking areas Cycle tracks Footways Red asphalt Concrete flagstone Red asphalt Concrete flagstone None None Concrete flagstone Guard railing and bollards 1 None None None Number of people spaces 1 1 1 Number of longitudinal lines of street lighting 2 2 2 1 Ratio of street width to building height 2.7 1.6 1.5 1 No guard railing and bollards may include very sporadic use of these measures, please see the text. 2 The length between streetlights is typically 30 metres on all arterial streets in Copenhagen. Side spaces are used for footways and parking lanes on the three sections, and cycle tracks on section 1 and 2. Footways varies in width but have few obstructions / street furniture. dominates both side spaces and carriageways. Only the sporadic trees, red asphalt median and concrete flagstones on footways do not give the ordinary grey impression. The footways are traditional Danish with granite kerb, yellow/grey big concrete flagstones (63 x 80 cm) and longitudinal lines of cobblestones or asphalt between kerb, flagstones and buildings. There is some bollards close Nakskovvej that prevent parking, and some guard railing under the rail bridge that works as safety device due to large height difference between footway and carriageway. Otherwise there are no bollards and guard railing in the street. Bollards close to Nakskovvej (VL#10). Guard railing under the rail bridge (VL#11). There are three people spaces. A small green area works a dog toilet etc. in section 1. Herman Bangs Plads in section 2 and Valby Tingsted in section 3 are more or less as ordinary busy squares. Page 162