BACKLUND June 2015
Arne BACKLUND
Separett - Villa 9000 - On The Top
High Up On A RoofTop In Central Copenhagen
Worldwatch Institute Europe & URBIA June 9th. 2015 Awarded Copenhagen 600 m2 Organic
Rooftop Farm ”ØsterGro” in the category ”People's Choice” and second best Danish Urban
Practice in the category ”Green Innovation” in the first annual URBIA Award 2015.
BACKLUND was so happy to to take part to congratulate the great team and to contribute with
advice regarding Ecological Sanitation – organic food from table to organic farming and together
with Separett to sponsor the team chosen Sustaianable Sanitation Solution - a Diverting Dry
Toilet ”Separett Villa 9000”. (More photos on www.facebook.com/Backlunddk/photos_albums)
Copenhagen Municipality and the Danish Organic Farming Organization consider The Rooftop
Farm an important citizen initiative to develope the city. The medias have been very interested to
report from the project, it has been exposed in the exhibition ”Co-Create Your City” developed by
The Danish Architecture Centre and play an important role in ”City of Copenhagen Systems,
Innovation & Start-ups”.
A group of local visionary and innovative young people started in 2013 ØsterGRO to create, run
and develop the first Skandinavian Organic Rooftop - Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) -
Farm located in Central Copenhagen Denmark as an also financially sustainable project that
creates jobs. It is anchored in the local community and produces local food, while communicating
knowledge about ecology and organic farming to the public. The inspiration came from New York
- the large rooftop farm Brooklyn Grange .
By creating an urban farm close to the consumer, ØsterGRO wishes to inspire city dwellers to
think organically and have respect for nature and the ecosystems improving knowledge about
organic farming.
They succeded in finding the most fantastic Rooftop Area high up on 5th. floor in Central
Copenhagen and in April 2014, more than 100 tons of soil was lifted by a crane and loaded on top
of the 5 story building earlier used to expose and auction cars. For a whole weekend, 70-100
volunteers helped to shovel soil into neat rows, and then they could go ahead with planting and
sowing the 600 square meter Urban Rooftop Farmland..
By the end of its first growth season 2014, the farm had already delivered plenty of tomatoes,
kale, carrots, lettuce, beet, beans, chillies, herbs and flowers together with eggs and honey;
enough to support the 16 members of the rooftop farming community with a weekly box of
between 6 and 10 different vegetables. The members pay 3,000 Danish kroner (400 euros) each
year to receive locally-produced organic food in season. The very import and good working bees
in the 4 bee boxes managed to produce 96 kg honey during the first season.
Now the succesfull start of the second growth season 2015 has made it possible to have 40 CSA
members while many are still on the waiting list.
The project is a platform for communication and distribution of organic, locally produced goods –
not just the goods that are produced on the rooftop but also from the countryside; ØsterGRO
collaborates with a newly launched farm in Dragør.
On the rooftop farm, the city’s residents can become aware of organic production through tours,
lectures, workshops and classes that ØsterGRO organises. In this way members and volunteers
engage in organic crop cultivation. The newest initiative is a restaurant in the middle of the urban
rooftop farm that offers new gastronomic experiences.
It is always a pleasure to visit the farm and one of the days before as well as after noon classes
from a local public school were having a great time at the Rooftop.
I am looking forward to my first meal at the Organic Rooftop restaurant STEDSANS Local Simple
Clean but is has turned so popular that you really have to book long in advance.
If you visit Copenhagen I can warmly advice you to visit the farm and to have great time in the
evening under the stars at the restaurant and why not to visit the Separett Villa 9000 after the
great 6 dishes meal to give your personal contribution to close the loop from table to farm with
the best available golden organic fertilizer for organic farming. The plan is to transport the human
urine to and make use of it on the Copenhagen University Research Centre Organic farming Area
in the outskirt of Copenhagen.
An earlier version of Separett Villa installed around year 2000 at the organic farm with
restaurant run by one of the most influential danish food personalities Mette Plum is still up and
running.
The visitor user experiences untill now at ØsterGro with the Separett Villa 9000 as a public toilet
are very good and it also offers potential customers an unique opportunity to test it during an
exitening and magic visit high up on a rooftop in Copenhagen.