Ballon Parken, a ‘free town’ community in central Copenhagen spreads into the neighbouring park woodland, constructing and inhabiting their own hidden, growing architecture to care for and manage the forestscape. A covert community sawmill and forestry, the project aims to interrogate the relationship architecture can have with the forest. The project critiques unsustainable and invasive practices within logging and construction industries and offers a unique alternative that engages with trees and the forest in a more considerate way. Each programmatic element of the building honours the lifecycle of a tree. Timber is milled in the sawmill, used to construct the rest of the building, within the carpentry workshop and finally composted at the end of its lifetime.

Simultaneously, inflatable elements of the design hope to pay homage to the history of the Balloon Park, revitalising the historic airship practice. Notions of non-invasive architecture and a community narrative become intertwined within the design. The airship that hides the project from above also acts as an airborne tool in which the trees are selectively collected from the wider park and brought back to the workshop.