The 12th Project Partner Meeting of Connected River was held in late August in Vordingborg & Masnedø, Denmark, featuring engaging discussions, innovative tools, and insights into the future of shared waterways and waterfronts.
The City of Vordingborg is taking on exciting challenges in planning and developing its two pilot areas within Connected River. Their ambition: to strengthen the attractiveness of the southern waterfronts and spark new interest, development, activity, and recreational use along the coast. By rethinking and revitalizing these areas, Vordingborg aims to create vibrant, livable spaces that connect people with the waterfront in new ways.
After a welcome from Mayor Mikael Smed and Anja Valhøj, Head of Planning in Vordingborg, the group jumped straight into exploring the latest experiments of the pilot area.
A creative social hub by the waterfront
#1: Social Sauna” at Sydhavnen
The project is an experimental initiative exploring how the area can be activated as a social meeting place by utilizing water as a key driver of urban life. Social Sauna has proven to be a success, demonstrating the potential for a social meeting place in Vordingborg South Harbour and exemplifies how a temporary initiative can contribute to urban development, strengthen community ties, and activate public spaces in new ways.
The project has had a significant positive impact on the area while also identifying key learnings and development opportunities.
Transforming revitalized port areas into vibrant, liveable quarters
#2: Digital Placemaking” on Masnedø Island
Masnedø Island, situated opposite Sydhavnen, has great potentials in becoming an interesting recreational area for both the citizens and tourists. The area can be transformed into a new and attractive residential and recreational district in Vordingborg, which includes a new marina, new housing and water sport activities and nice beaches. But the area is not well connected to the city, neither physically, mentally nor consciousness-wise.
As part of the digital placemaking agenda, Niclas Møller, Innovation Coach for the pilot area, presented Wescan.dk, a solution that helps cities and partners create precise 3D digital twins, share spaces online for transparent dialogue, and support urban planning with measurable visual data. The 3D scan and digital twin serve as a foundation for storytelling, making complex spatial information accessible and engaging. By visualizing past, present, and future scenarios, stakeholders can better relate to the space and its possibilities.
In the afternoon, Antwerp Management School kicked off with a presentation about experimentation, followed by the five remaining pilot areas presenting the outcomes of their experimenting phase. Each team highlighted concrete results, progress, and challenges, showcasing innovative approaches and practical insights that will inform future steps and support up-scaling efforts.
Placemaking for Port Cities & the “Nordic Case”
The second day started with a workshop on “Placemaking for Port Cities” organized and moderated by AIVP, represented by Noémi Mené. This workshop was also an opportunity to get an update from the project’s “Nordic Partners”, highlighting the unique challenges faced by Nordic replication partners in cities and harbors where urban expansion and port development must coexist. This case provided an excellent opportunity to apply Connected Rivers methods and share best practices.
First launched by the project partner ecoloop during the last partner meeting in 2024 in Stockholm, the Nordic Case engaged partners such as the City of Stockholm, Stockholm Harbour, and Gothenburg, fostering collaboration around the Flow Forward Approach.
The latest meeting in Vordingborg, further strengthened these activities, with the Municipality of Ystad and By og Havn presenting their challenges and learning from project partners’ experiments. Both meetings offered valuable networking opportunities and concrete insights into how the Connected River methods can be applied in real-world contexts.
Noémi Mene | AIVP
Maria Johansson | ecoloop
Field Visit
The programme continued with a site visit to the Port of Vordingborg and the pilot area Masnedø Marinecenter - hosted by Helene Urth, CEO Business Vordingborg, who provided valuable perspectives on the region’s business development and maritime initiatives.
Port of Vordingborg is the commercial port in Vordingborg Municipality and is located on the north side of Masnedø. There is currently increased activity on Port of Vordingborg, due to two factors. Firstly, the two major government construction projects in the Storstrøm Bridge and the Fehmarn tunnel, where Port of Vordingborg is the port of embarkation for supplies of raw materials and building materials for both projects. And activity at the port in connection with the port expansion.
Business Vordingborg A/S is Vordingborg Municipality’s local business development company - established in 2014 as a joint venture between the municipality and Vordingborg Erhvervsforening. Its mission is to foster economic development by:
- Attracting new businesses
- Helping existing companies grow
- Supporting entrepreneurs and startups
- Aligning collaboration among companies, educational institutions, organizations, public authorities, and citizens
- Offering free and professional guidance and advice to businesses in Vordingborg Municipality
In the afternoon, Innovation Coach Mathias Lysgaard Møller from BARK Consulting led a “Placemaking” workshop, using design thinking to engage local stakeholders and incorporate their visions for the Vordingborg waterfront.
Interactive Workshop
Facilitated by InnoValor and Antwerp Management School, an interactive workshop invited the project partners to translate lessons from the pilot areas into concrete next steps. The session was built around three key building blocks:
Experiment Cards developed earlier by InnoValor, capture concrete experiments along with their methods and insights. The core question being explored was:
“Looking at these cards, which solution could you already start applying within your own organisation in the short term?”
- Each pilot area selected one or more cards that matched their current challenges or opportunities.
- They then worked out how these experiments could be applied in their local context, and what first small steps could be taken.
Result: practical actions and fresh inspiration across all pilot areas, for example Nijmegen decided to simplify their next step by not building a new platform themselves but instead connecting existing ones. Hamburg committed to linking up with a 3D scanning expert to strengthen their approach.
Playbook Feedback
Next, the group reviewed the Flow Forward Playbook to ensure it is both complete and practical. Feedback focused on:
- Are the right elements included in each chapter?
- What is missing or unnecessary?
- How can it be made more actionable and user-friendly?
Result: concrete suggestions to sharpen the playbook and ensure it becomes a practical tool for all partners.
Roadmap to Integration
Finally, participants worked with the Flow Forward Integration Canvas to design a step-by-step roadmap for embedding Flow Forward in their organisations. They explored:
- Relevant Flow Forward elements
- Application areas
- Key stakeholders
- Approaches to integration
- Required materials
- Timeline
- Follow-up actions
Result: started with an outline for a tailored pathway to bring Flow Forward into daily practice. The details differed per organisation, however all pilot areas chose which Flow Forward elements aligned with their goals and challenges. Besides they decided where in their organization these elements could be applied and who to invite in the workshop.
So, the workshop showed how the experiment cards, structured feedback, and integration roadmaps can turn shared insights into small, concrete steps. By working together in this way, we ensure that we get the most out of the Connected River Project, not just in each pilot area, but across the partnership as a whole.
Now that the six participating regions have tried and tested initial ideas and approaches, our focus in the coming months will be on further developing the most promising results and making them usable for up-scaling, this part will be coordinated by our project partner Logistics Initiative Hamburg.