Urbcast - a podcast about cities (podcast o miastach)
Jun 24, 2026 · 41 min · 12 segments
**Placemaking: What is a good street really worth? 🤔** I'm really excited to share this conversation with **Kristian Riis – CEO of Volcano A/S and Co-Chair of the ULI European Placemaking Council.**…
Kristian RiisGuest
Marcin Wojciech ŻebrowskiHostWe also met at the Placemaking Conference, the conference at which, uh, you also launched the, the report.
And I think this comes together very well with, with your previous experience, with your care for, uh, for, for human and all of that, especially in the cities.
You did mention the pandemic of loneliness, and this is where cities can actually help because this is where we all gather and, and where we share moments, especially around culture.
When you go to north of Copenhagen, you should definitely visit Louisiana.
When you go to Berlin, you probably should see the, the club scene.
So the culture is, is definitely embedded in our, in our city tissue.
How do you work with culture besides what you, what you mentioned already at Volcano? And especially, how do you create the, the value in the city, and how do you make sure that this value, the, the, the culture stays, so when the lights go down, when the concert is finished, that there is still this?
... to start somewhere, a little bit to elaborate on my motivation, uh, in working in cities is that, again, back to playing on a festival, you look at all these happy people, you come home, and you know there's a lot of lonely people, and there's issues in cities.
And you're like, every day cannot be a party, you know? We have days where we party, hopefully, and have a good time, and there's days where we just have to survive, basically-
But I was like- One thing is when we do the big events, that then people gather, they maybe buy a ticket, they come together, go out for dining, they meet their friends.
But what about the days like you talked about, the more maybe lonely days, the gray days where it's raining? How do we actually bring people together? I think that's, that's also a big question that I'm really, really interested in.
And I know we cannot just copy and again, make every day a festival, but there can be elements from, from the culture world that we can implement in people's lives.
For example, um, one of the projects you probably know about, but the Nordhavn in, um, in, in, in Copenhagen.
There was a person, uh, I think her name was Maria, that was hired to kind of take people by the hand and show them, okay, you can actually reach out to your neighbor.
We also met at the Placemaking Conference, the conference at which, uh, you also launched the, the report.
And I think this comes together very well with, with your previous experience, with your care for, uh, for, for human and all of that, especially in the cities.
You did mention the pandemic of loneliness, and this is where cities can actually help because this is where we all gather and, and where we share moments, especially around culture.
When you go to north of Copenhagen, you should definitely visit Louisiana.
When you go to Berlin, you probably should see the, the club scene.
So the culture is, is definitely embedded in our, in our city tissue.
How do you work with culture besides what you, what you mentioned already at Volcano? And especially, how do you create the, the value in the city, and how do you make sure that this value, the, the, the culture stays, so when the lights go down, when the concert is finished, that there is still this?
... to start somewhere, a little bit to elaborate on my motivation, uh, in working in cities is that, again, back to playing on a festival, you look at all these happy people, you come home, and you know there's a lot of lonely people, and there's issues in cities.
And you're like, every day cannot be a party, you know? We have days where we party, hopefully, and have a good time, and there's days where we just have to survive, basically-
But I was like- One thing is when we do the big events, that then people gather, they maybe buy a ticket, they come together, go out for dining, they meet their friends.
But what about the days like you talked about, the more maybe lonely days, the gray days where it's raining? How do we actually bring people together? I think that's, that's also a big question that I'm really, really interested in.
And I know we cannot just copy and again, make every day a festival, but there can be elements from, from the culture world that we can implement in people's lives.
For example, um, one of the projects you probably know about, but the Nordhavn in, um, in, in, in Copenhagen.
There was a person, uh, I think her name was Maria, that was hired to kind of take people by the hand and show them, okay, you can actually reach out to your neighbor.
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