Meet the JAJAs: Nielsine

We would like to welcome Nielsine, our new and skilled Urbanist & Strategic Designer. Nielsine brings a great deal of experience from working with complex urbanism projects in Denmark and internationally and will play a key role in setting the direction of our efforts to work strategically with the green and just transition in which both strategies for resource efficient mobility, material flows and transformation of existing urban areas play a big part. She is currently leading one of our big strategic projects where she is working collaboratively to create and communicate knowledge of ways the building industry can reduce its carbon emissions. We’re looking forward to sharing more on this soon!

To get to know her better, we’ve asked her a series of questions

How are you and how has it been to start at JAJA?

It has been a huge pleasure joining JAJA.

My immediate experience of the place was that it felt very intimate and friendly, and it’s noticeable that interpersonal qualities and well-being are valued. It’s been such a pleasure to experience. Generally, it’s a very value-driven practice, and I’m pretty certain we’ll do great things together.

What interests you the most about your job?

I enjoy the complexity of the conversations I get to have daily, and how much personal growth they come with. I have always been interested in the ways we live in communities, how we organize ourselves and how our environments shape us – but, increasingly, how we have impacted the environment has become a major factor to me. Architects and urbanists have a big responsibility in this, but also many of the skills needed to show the path forward, to visualize it and convincingly show society the necessary changes to how we inhabit the planet. That, of course, is not a small task, and it is intrinsically multi-disciplinary, which is a way of working I wouldn’t be without.

Which projects are you working on now?

I am working on a big cross-disciplinary project which attempts to deal with the implications of the building industry on our carbon emissions, and planetary boundaries more generally. It’s a very collaborative effort where we’re looking at the whole value chain of material sourcing, and what kind of pathways – systemic and practical – there might be towards building with biogenic materials. We’ll reveal much more about this collaboration soon.

When you’re not at JAJA – what do you like to do?

I like to keep a balanced life – and by balance, I mean smoke-filled bodegas one day and open water swimming and essential oils in the sauna the next day. Generally, I’m hugely into bathing cultures, coastal towns and fishmonger meals, so anywhere on the sea is where I’ll head when I have time.

Do you have a go-to meal and movie on a rainy Sunday?

Soups of any kind. Depending on the ambition of the day I might go with instant ramen. I would call it a guilty pleasure, but I don’t actually feel guilty about it. For hangovers, my go-to is miso soup, an egg and anything pickled – big recommendation! Then I’d happily rewatch TV shows for comfort – Seinfeld and Friends are pretty consistently on my ‘Continue watching…’ list on Netflix.