A bench from your hometown in the neighborhood park

Choosing park benches and bins usually begins with color and maintenance. At Superkilen in Copenhagen, Denmark, residents were asked something different: which objects seen in other countries would they like to bring into the neighborhood? Items from elsewhere became local park facilities through their choices.

Superkilen is a public space created by SUPERFLEX, BIG, and Topotek1, documented as a 2012 project. It is divided into a Red Square, Black Square, and Green Park. Color helps distinguish places for activities such as exercise, gathering, and walking, rather than serving only as a photographic backdrop.

The team invited residents to recommend benches, bins, playground equipment, signs, and other objects from abroad. They could be remembered from a hometown or encountered while traveling. A list of urban amenities came to reflect the journeys of people living nearby. Choosing local facilities became a way of recalling other places.

Objects were purchased and transported or reproduced at full scale. Official records identify specific origins, including a Moroccan fountain, bar seating from São Paulo, Brazil, and basketball hoops from Mogadishu, Somalia. Particular objects were brought in, rather than generic foreign-looking decoration added.

The team also traveled with five groups of residents to Palestine, Spain, Thailand, Texas, and Jamaica to obtain selected objects. This participation cannot be said to have resolved every neighborhood conflict. It did create a process in which residents could propose tangible objects based on their own experiences.

Visitors can sit or play without knowing where a facility came from. Reading its history adds another reason for its presence. Encountering an unfamiliar shape can also mean encountering a neighbor's memory. The park's inventory carries traces of places its residents know.