SIMON FROM CITIES AND SUSTIANABILITY
SIMON FROM CITIES AND SUSTIANABILITY
ENGINEER IN CITIES AND SUSTAINABILITY AT COWI CONSULT
28-year-old Simon Agersnap specializes in Cities and Sustainability and works as an Urban Planner at COWI Consultancy. He helps municipalities and companies within retail with choosing the right solutions when new stores are to be established. The goal is to assure a supply that fits the demand and avoids empty rooms.
When big retail chains plan new stores, it happens based on considerations on where the best opportunities to establish a profitable business are. It can be a complicated process, that simultaneously is subjected to the planning law and other political regards. This is where Simon Agersnap comes in. As an urban planner in the consulting company COWI he prepares analyses and recommendations, so the stores are placed correctly, have the right size and are in balance with the other stores in the area.
COWI's clients also include municipalities that need a retail analysis completed with a mapping of all the stores of the municipality. The purpose is to be able to plan how the retail can get the most appropriate framework going forward.
-We deliver some suggestions about how the municipalities can prioritize retail in the future, so it can be placed where the best customer foundation is and avoid having empty storerooms - within the limits of the planning law, of course, Simon Agersnap says.
FROM CAR-FREE CITIES TO STORES
Simon Agersnap has a bachelor’s in Geography and a master’s in Cities and Sustainability from Aalborg University. On his master’s he tailored his education to be about transport and mobility - especially with a focus on car-free cities. The specialisation secured him an internship with COWI's department in Oslo, but because of COVID-19 he never got to physically work in the Norwegian capital. However, it gave him a beneficial contact with the international consulting company and only a few months after he graduated, he was hired in the company’s department of strategic urban planning in Aarhus. Planning of stores is part of what he specialised in during his studies, but he has plans of shifting back towards the mobility track.
-Some of the good parts of working at a big place like COWI is, that I have colleagues that work with all kinds of different topics - also transport and mobility. They sit in the department right next to me, so I am gradually working towards that direction, he says.
- What I use most from my education is the things I learned from our project work. This is where I have a lot of my professional knowledge from. At the same time, it prepared me for sitting in a project group where you have a lot of different professional back- grounds.
EDUCATED FOR REALITY
Aalborg University is known for using project- and problem- based learning. This means that students are taught real-life problems - often in collaboration with companies and authorities. Simon Agersnap benefits greatly from that approach today.
-What I use most from my education is the things I learned from our project work. This is where I have a lot of my professional knowledge from.
At the same time, it prepared me for sitting in a project group where you have a lot of different professional back- grounds. Often it means you don’t
look at things the same way, but that is only an advantage, as COWI is a company of people with many different professions. To be able to work collectively and talk together is incredibly important and I have been guided to learn this throughout my entire studies.