Involving children in urban planning
Børnespor (Children’s Tracks) is a project aiming for a national initiative to involve children and young people in urban planning. The project provides children with the tools to map their experiences and use of their local areas, while offering planners and architects the means to incorporate these results into their work. The goal is to establish Børnespor as a national platform, available freely to municipal planners and private architects alike.

Pilot project 
arki_lab conducted a pilot project in the autumn of 2025. ~500 students from 28 different 4th-grade classes in the municipalities of Odsherred and Ringsted completed an eight-lesson educational program. The program included local site inspections, the redesign of areas through digital collages and digital participatory mapping of daily routes, identifying unsafe or unpleasant stretches as GIS data.

Evaluations show that students felt heard, participated actively, and gained a deeper understanding of both urban space and architecture.  

Moving Forward 
With support from the Dreyer Foundation, we are currently evaluating the pilot project alongside municipalities, teachers, and students to put the collected data to use in local planning and develop the next iteration of the tools. Simultaneously, we are conducting a broad assessment of planning-related, municipal, and political perspectives on this. Hopefully, this means that the project in the future will provide planners and decision-makers with the best possible foundation for developing cities on children’s terms.