Innes Dunlop

This thesis questions the nature of defence in the twenty first century through the paradoxical landscape of Copenhagen’s Citadel, a public park that simultaneously accommodates the Danish military and intelligence operations. It seeks to unearth the site’s layered histories, bringing them into a dialogue through a series of spatial and conceptual contradictions: expansion/contraction, covert/overt and above/below.

Amid rising public anxiety in Denmark following a succession of hybrid attacks, the project reconsiders defence beyond tradition models of physical fortification. By siphoning military influence while discreetly preserving intelligence functions, the proposal reframes defence as an open civic condition defined by calibrated layers of visibility in coexistence.

This condition is explored through a balance of subterranean mass and light touch interventions, organised along a central navigational spine that reconnects the Citadel to the wider city. This spine orchestrates movement through a sequence of programmatic thresholds, ranging from a public discourse space to secure intelligence infrastructure. The architecture is anchored by a signal and dissemination tower, asserting a visible presence for otherwise dispersed systems of defensive intelligence within the everyday urban realm.