In a joint venture with the British consultants ARUP and the French SYSTRA, COWI has signed contracts with the Ørestad Development Corporation to advise on all the construction and civil engineering works for Copenhagen's new City Circle Line. The task will include 15 km of bored tunnels and 17 stations.
Copenhagen's City Circle Line will form an extension of the present Metro and run through a tunnel underneath the downtown district, the central areas of Vesterbro, Østerbro and Nørrebro, and Frederiksberg. The City Circle Line means that approximately 85 per cent of all homes, work and study places in built-up urban neighbourhoods will be within 600 metres of a Metro or suburban railway station.
The client behind the project is the Ørestad Development Corporation. The assignment for COWI, ARUP and SYSTRA will stretch over 11 years until the City Circle Line is finished. Initially, the joint venture will draft the tender project that will form the basis for attaching a contractor.
For the project COWI will draw on, among other things, its experience of bored tunnels and Metro installations from Copenhagen's Metro and the construction of a four-kilometre long district heating tunnel under the capital.
"The City Circle Line is the largest civil engineering project in Denmark right now, so of course winning it means an incredible amount to us. At the same time, we'll be cementing our position as the only Danish consultant to design bored tunnels," says Michael Bindseil, head of department at COWI.
The interdisciplinary project will utilize employees from virtually all COWI's business units.
By Janne Toft Jensen, jaje@cowi.dkPublished: 11.10.2007