International Showcase: Sweden

Landscape invited readers to submit their most inspiring ideas for addressing climate emergency. To start this new series, we present:

SWEDEN: Creating a Sustainable Arctic City for Kiruna

Sweden Creating a Sustainable Arctic City for Kiruna White Arkitekter with Ghilardi + Hellsten Arkitekter

Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost city, is home to the largest iron ore mine in the world; an equivalent of six Eiffel towers worth of high-grade ore is extracted every 24 hours. Run by the state-owned company LKAB, two thirds of Kiruna’s population are dependent upon the mine for employment. But, in one of the largest urban transformations of our time, the Arctic city must move. Land deformation from iron ore extraction on the city’s western border is gradually swallowing the land the town is built on.

In February 2013 White Arkitekter working with Ghilardi + Hellsten Arkitekter won an international competition for a 20-year masterplan of Kiruna’s phased relocation by 2033. In their pitch White challenged the brief and has taken a much longer view, initiating a 100-year masterplan with the aim of creating a sustainable model city, a city with a diverse economy that is less dependent on the world market for iron ore.

Kiruna

© White Arkitekter

As part of this new masterplan, the entire city will move two miles eastwards. This is a huge challenge. It is also a unique opportunity to transform the city for the better – the relocation presents an unparalleled opportunity for Kiruna to transform itself into a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable city. It required careful strategic planning and close consultation with the entire community. Through listening and creating an ongoing dialogue with the city’s 20,000 citizens, their emotions, ideas and ambitions have informed and shaped the strategic plan, as well as helping the citizens plan for their own futures.

The New Urban Plan

The new development is designed to a carbon neutral agenda. A new central strip running west to east through the existing city centre will be incrementally extended on one side, while buildings at the other end will be gradually dismantled.

The first phase includes a new civic square, as well as a travel centre, city hall, library and swimming pool. Extending out from the central civic square, neighbourhoods will form prongs or ‘urban fingers’ into the surrounding Arctic landscape so that residents are never more than three blocks away from nature.

This denser, more intelligent plan is equipped with meeting places and cultural amenities to promote public life, broadening the male dominated demographic of Kiruna’s past, allowing a more diverse community to settle and thrive.

The masterplan utilises existing resources, harnessing the enormous amounts of waste heat generated by the mining activity, combined with wind turbines to generate energy and a new recycling infrastructure to reduce freight and waste. An extra-large communal shop, ‘build it yourself’ facility and construction recycling depot have been built, so that remnants of the old city can be reused, recycled and retrofitted into the new.

Kiruna

© White Arkitekter

Around the world, it is now inevitable that rising sea levels will lead to the relocation of millions of people by the end of the century. In the future, moving large numbers of people may become commonplace. Kiruna serves as a real-world example of how to tackle the very real prospect of relocating towns and cities.

The key to its success is community consultation, open communication and the seriousness with which the urban planners have attempted to continue the town’s legacy, while also providing high-quality new facilities for its current and future generations.