Made by SUDes
S u s t ain able Urban Des ign
AxSud
A x:s on Jo h n s on I n s t it ute fo r Su s t ain able Urban De sign
Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation
Sustainable Urban Design Selections
SUDes
Made by
SUDes
Sustainable UrbaDesign Selections
Made by SUDes
S u s t ain able Urban Des ign
AxSud
A x:s on Jo h n s on I n s t it ute fo r Su s t ain able Urban De sign
Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation
Sustainable Urban Design Selections
SUDes
Made by
SUDes
Sustainable UrbaDesign Selections
The Future is the places we create
Contents
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About SUDes
Water
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Climate
Urban Landscape
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Accesibility
Making Places
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Human Scale
SUDes Networks
1.
About SUDes
INTRODUCTION TO SUDES The pages of this volume highlight a selection of relevant thesis projects that bring forward the teamwork and essential collaboration between students from all over the world. “Made by SUDes 2015” - part of Sustainable Urban Design Master Program at Lund University, sets as a guide tour for students, alumni and practicing professionals, showing the creative diversity of ideas and design projects.
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Since its first International Conference, in 2007 the program has always reminded its participants that things which touch us most dearly are an essential part of the fabric of sustainability…. that we must think intimately as well as globally about well-being. The goal is to learn to make places that channel the forces of the environment responsibly, weaving them through the fabric of urban development and change. To reach this goal will continue to require thinking creatively and deeply, not only “out of the box” but, within an evolving shared network of aspirations
and consequences carefully considered. The scope of this effort, as it has evolved through SUDes and the design community during these years, is revealed by the vibrancy of the thoughts and images glimpsed within these pages. But its real presence is in the works we do each day and what they bring into being and will provide for the future.
“The goal is to learn to make places that channel the forces of the environment responsibly.�
What SUDes brings forward, as an educational program, is the shared values. During the two years all students are
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working together as a team, sharing experiences and personal ideologies. They embark on a road that dissects every idea in urban design and challenges each project. But what is most important is the collaboration between different cultures and systems; asking the right questions about what makes cities alive. As we celebrate these years of stimulus and accomplishment, the challenge that remains for us all - and that each of you will make your own - is to contin10
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ue the search for ways that our studies and works, linked together, will reach beyond the levels of fascination and fashion, exploitation, privilege and self fulfillment, to building ways to make the places of our world serve all its inhabitants more fully - with more candor and with an understanding of what we must do to keep our world on a sustainable path of evolution. Donlyn Lyndon
“SUDes seeks patterns that can sustain growth and evolution, bringing health to the ways in which we dwell together.�
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Edinburgh WorkShop
Berkeley University
Amsterdam WorkShop
147 STUDENTS 9 YEARS 45 CITIES 435 INVITED LECTURERS 38 COUNTRIES 27 WORKSHOPS
Oslo WorkShop
Lund University Wuwei WorkShop
Beijing WorkShop
Shanghai WorkShop
Hong Kong WorkShop
10 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES 107 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 4 CONTINENTS
SUDES THESIS WORKS In the first three semesters of the SUDes 2-year, studio based program students explore the fundamentals and tools of urban design through the critical lens of sustainability in its many dimensions – social, environmental, experiential and economic. They are introduced to the theories, precedents and best practices of sustainability, exploring their impact and consequences on urban form and the quality of peoples’ everyday lives. In their final semester students undertake a design thesis of their own choosing. They are expected
to investigate a specific subject or dimension of sustainability and its potential to transform or remake a specific place. With the many international students, it is quite common for students to want to return to their home city to demonstrate the design potential of what they have learned. This is the case with almost all of the theses selected. In the thesis process students are asked to identify a specific topic, problem or issue of concern (the ‘what’); to explain why it is critical and important for the city and its sustainability (the ‘why’); to interrogate it
through questions, hypotheses, analysis of precedents and design explorations; and to demonstrate how the issues, questions or problem can be addressed through a specific design proposal (the ‘how’). The process has yielded remarkable results with significant impact. This publication is a selection of some of the most provocative. In almost all cases, the students have taken a problem or challenge, a negative, and turned it into a positive by re imagining its role in creating a more sustainable and livable city. It is extremely difficult to fit any of the selected theses into a single category because all of the have taken an integrative
“In the first three semesters of the SUDes 2-year, studio based program students explore the fundamentals and tools of urban design through the critical lens of sustainability in its many dimensions...”
design approach to issues of sustainability; to the climate, water, landscape, accessibility, waste, social equity, etc.; and all of them demonstrate how these issues can be designed to contribute to human scale and the making of places. Nonetheless, an effort has been made to group them by major emphasis. The re imagining takes many forms: • How is snow transformed from a removal problem to a resource for summer cooling and neighborhood revitalization? • How is the lack of sewage treatment turned into a resource for creating
“All of these projects have become a gift to their cities and to the discourse on sustainable urban design. Enjoy!”
and irrigating a public park that also cleans a river or how does it create a microclimate oasis in a new African city? • How does storm water transform the microclimate and human quality of streets and neighborhoods? • How does sea level rise become a way to remake a city’s edge that restores a former ecology and brings the city back to the water? • How is the urban landscape re imagined to regenerate and occupy a degraded and inhuman space created by a dictator, or revitalize the underutilized space of suburbia, or the underutilized space of a
French modernist company town or modernist housing projects? • How does providing accessibility provide the framework and connectivity of neighborhoods? • How can these concerns create greater specificity and meaning in peoples every day lives where solving issues of sustainability generates qualities of desire? All of these projects have become a gift to their cities and to the discourse on sustainable urban design. Enjoy! Harrison Fraker
2. Climate
THE ROLE OF LOCAL CLIMATE The role of local climate in the design of cities has an ancient history that has gone largely ignored in the production of the contemporary city. Yet, with the impacts of climate change, its importance becomes ever more important. Devastating floods from severe storms and extreme heat waves and droughts are the new normal. While the impact of severe storms has received much attention in the design of new infrastructure, the increased frequency of extreme heat waves,
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exacerbated by the urban heat island (UHI) effect presents an even greater threat to the health, safety and well being of public space in cities. Recent studies of Atlanta, Georgia show that a combination of the UHI effect and an extreme heat wave can drive urban temperatures above 120 F, threatening human health. Follow-on research indicates that a doubling of the tree cover can lower these extremes by 12-15 F, back into a safer range. Well-known research by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) shows that that high reflectivity roofs (white roofs)
can lower urban temperatures by 6-12 F and is one of the most cost effective strategies to mitigate climate change. While these strategies are simple and well known, by implication, they call attention to the design of every surface in the city: the streets, sidewalks, squares, parks, facades, roofs, courtyards and parking areas, etc., both public and private. Typically cities are studied and analyzed in plan (the figure/ground), when environmental performance of public space to reduce the UHI becomes a design driver, the urban section becomes even more important in imagin-
‘The role of local climate in the design of cities has an ancient history that has gone largely ignored in the production of the contemporary city.�
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ing and exploring design options. And, these design options have the potential to transform the form, experience and environmental performance of the city. Obviously, the development of design strategies depends on complex local microclimate dynamics that are regionally and site specific for every city in the world. In many cases the design strategies may not focus on mitigating the UHI effect, but concentrate on protecting against winter winds and providing solar access; and in some cases the challenge may be to address both summer and winter conditions. 22
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There are many emerging strategies for re thinking the environmental performance of public space in cities, but their potential is under developed and under explored in urban design. Many of the SUDes theses explore this undeveloped potential and illustrate how specific designs can enhance the quality and experience of the public realm, creating a much healthier and livable city. Harrison Fraker
“Typically cities are studied and analyzed in plan (the figure/ground), when environmental performance of public space to reduce the UHI becomes a design driver, the urban section becomes even more important in imagining and exploring design options.�
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RECLAIMING VATNSMÝRI An Exploration of Islandinc Urbanism 2013 Danny Bridson & Eivind Lukas Moen Fasting
Vatnsmýri has long been a controversial site in Reykjavik’s development plans. A big reason for this is its close proximity to the city centre. The site is also surrounded by a rich mix of generators that range from public institutions like universities and hospitals to recreational opportunities like sports facilities and geothermal swimming points. Breaking down the site into its fundamental elements it becomes apparent that this site provides an excellent opportunity to combine three interesting and dynamic aspects of Reykjavik in one place. In the existing condition the three elements are simply located next to each other, but share no meaningful relationship beyond this. A new solution on site offers the possibility to connect and overlap these ``three legs`` forming a symbiotic relationship for the benefit of the city as a whole. Airport Reduction
Landscape Connection
Pulling the City Through
The Three Legs Overlapped
The Result
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WHITE IS THE NEW GREEN A New Color of Sustainability for a Winter City | 2013 Manon Otto
Investigating the urban nordicity, the metropolitan winterness as thesis subject, has never been a question. My fascination for winter is precisely what brought me to Sweden, the most populated Nordic country, to study urban design. This thesis project takes on the challenges of winter in densely built areas. It explores a climate sensitive approach to urban design, specific to winter cities with contrasted seasons such as Montreal, Canada. While making an attempt to mitigate the experience of the cold and the darkness of winter in the daily life, it suggests innovative ways of harvesting the cooling potential of snow to refresh dwellings during increasingly warm summers. Based on the idea of incrementally privatizing the city’s snow management plan, the proposal investigates how snow, once considered as a resource, as a new economy. 28
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PAVING THE WAY FOR CHANGE Environment as a Shaper for Society 2012 Omer Karoum
At an earlier point in human history, the environment largely determined the shape of society. Today the opposite is true: human activity is reshaping the environment at an ever-increasing rate. The parts of the environment unaffected by human activity are getting smaller all the time. However, because people need food, water and air to survive, society can never be larger than the environment. Taking Khartoum as a case study, I explore ways for an aspiring city to achieve its development visions and maintain and enhance its natural resources and qualities, by questioning the role of planning strategies and urban patterns as tools to achieve both goals parallely. Khartoum like other cities in the developing world, is under the same conflict of priorities; stereotypical image of modernity and wealth versus environment and sustainability.
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3.
Water
WATER AS A DESIGN TOOL Water is an essential resource for our global society. It is the essence of life as it nourishes ecological systems, it helps produce our food supply, and forms 60% of the human body. While water first seems as a vast resource covering 70% of the Earth’s surface, clean water has increasingly become a limited resource as a growing number of stories regarding water pollution, severe droughts, and ground water overuse have become common on the nightly news. While these troubling developments are worrying, I find inspiration
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that throughout the life span of our globe, the water cycle and its natural process of the regeneration, has created a renewable base that supports all life. And on the other hand, water and the threat of too much water has also played a role in urban design as it has limited, changed, and pushed countries like the Netherlands to make interventions we never would have dreamt possible. Today, I feel we are at a point where our views on how to deal with our relationship with water in our countries, cities and neighborhoods is changing. Instead of
“While water first seems as a vast resource covering 70% of the Earth’s surface, clean water has increasingly become a limited resource...”
putting up walls, making the dimensions larger of stormwater pipes, and building larger waste water facilities we see a strong move toward initiatives of local treatment, innovative landscape strategies, and self regulating protection systems. Reasons for this are many, but some very clearly link to the fact that the large cities we live in today can’t handle even larger systems, not spatially and not economically and therefore, rethinking solutions has become more and more important in urban planning today. This is why in sustainable urban dynamics studio, we’ve been pushing our students
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to work with the incorporation of water sensitive environments, interesting water-spaces, and water adaptive structures. Over the years the studio’s various sites in China have given unique water challenges. Challenges that range from working in one of the worlds driest places in the city of Wuwei in 2013 to finding innovative tools for stormwater management in Hong Kong’s emerging Kwon Tong CBD in 2014. Through each year’s unique site, our students have been challenged to explore each site’s specific conditions and develop ideas on how to collect valuable rainfall, 40
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“In the wide range of projects over the years, our students have presented on solutions that include large infrastructural works, re-imagined street sections, and the design of elements and tools supporting a creative journey of ideas.”
how to store and utilize the city’s stormwater and how to develop water smart urban designs. Working with Peking University and water scientist Linus Zhang, we’ve held collaborative workshops that aim to imagine innovative ways to integrate water management into the urban realm. In the wide range of projects over the years, our students have presented on solutions that include large infrastructural works, re-imagined street sections, and the design of elements and tools supporting a creative journey of ideas.
This journey will continue when we travel to the city of Zhangjiakou this fall and explore the potential impact the 2022 Winter Olympics on the city as it prepares to host the Winter Games with Beijing. We believe interesting discussions around rain, snow, and the climate will again form an exciting base for the course and the student’s projects. Martin Arfalk & Nicholas Bigelow
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Connecting with the Landscape
Using the Existing City Grid
Use the Water Landscape
DESIGNING WATER COMMUNITIES Adaptive Urban Design for Sustainable Communities | 2014 Constantin Milea
Today ninety of the one hundred biggest cities are located next to some form of water. In Europe, the Danube river wetlands occupies an important role, connecting ninety six cities and many more cultures along its way to the Black Sea. But looking at the use of water infrastructure today rises the question how can we transform the river from being a wastewater dump hole into a tool for designing sustainable cities. This thesis project brings foreword a design strategy to straighten the relations between water ecosystems and the urban framework in Calarasi, Romania redesigning the river front city center into an active and productive community in search for identity. Taking inspiration from the existing city structure in terms of culture, economy, microclimate and creativity, the aim of this project is to use the water’s cycle adaptability to rethink how the public space is used and how it can become a place designed for people. 42
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URBAN WATER Breaking Land and Water Dichotomeis | 2011 Jose Manuel Riquelme Marin
The project Urban Water aims to create a new understanding of the water shoreline, not as an edge between sea and land, but as a feature, which can approach and extend towards the city in order to interlace both and generate an urban symbiosis. The water also will become a space to be used and conquered eventually and permanent. The strategy for designing will be a special focus on climate resilience and the adaptability of the shoreline to future changes and events. As a final outcome, the combination of these three layers must create a new waterfront which will provide an expansion of the public access, integration of adjacent inland communities, support economic development activity, restore degraded areas, promote new biodiversity and enhance public transport along the blue network.
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4.
Urban Landscape
SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES More than half of the world’s population lives in towns and cities in 2015, and by 2030 this number will swell to about 5 billion (www.unfpa.org/urbanization). Square meters and functions often define the buildings needed for people, moving to new urban areas. But to design an urban landscape, we do not have the same defined set of rules. How do we plan for, design and define all these new, needed urban landscapes? What are the key factors, defining urban
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“We need to treat the urban landscapes as a common resource...”
landscape? First of all we need to change the mindset of designing the left over spaces and rather define the spaces in between the buildings as the most important common grounds. The public urbanity needs to be holistic in its approach to create democratic, social and sustainable landscapes. We need to treat the urban landscapes as a common resource, which also means that it may not need to be over programmed or over designed. Places need people to come alive, and people are a key factor to make vibrant, urban landscapes. We do design
for people. In an urban landscape, we have to solve the complexity of the outdoor areas with the green, blue and grey factors. The denser we live, the smarter we need to design the compact, shared public areas. When space is a crucial factor and land is expensive, we need to rethink the traditional outdoor areas with large, lush, green parks, public plazas and generous light and water conditions. Time as a planning tool is underestimated. All green spaces interact with the sur-
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rounding environment – creating unique micro climate, specific to each city. Urban green areas are also important for their residents. By introducing recreational opportunities and beautiful landscapes, the health benefits can be both physical and mental. The living green should be a network of intricate spaces – passing through urban areas, connecting our everyday activities with the natural landscape. Green corridors can help to reintroduce lost biodiversity, a tool that is missing in most hardscape urban areas.
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The growing urbanity is demanding an environmental mindset when designing the urban landscapes. Urban farming, energy and water harvesting, new thoughts on recycling and reuse, need to be part of any design. How much space do you need to make an inviting, attractive and sustainable design where people actually want to meet? It needs to be good for people, as well as plants and animals to make a real difference. The SUDes program emphasizes on a broader understanding of what an urban landscape can be. It is inspiring to see
that the students are seriously engaged in all these questions. The outcome is: thoughts, discussions, analyzes and designs with innovative, site-specific solutions for the sustainable urban designs of the future.
“The growing urbanity is demanding an environmental mindset when designing the urban landscapes.�
Jenny B. Osuldsen
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ANCHORING THE HARBOR
Densifying, protecting and connecting the old city harbor in Reykjavik | 2013 Edda Ă?varsdĂłttir
The aim of this thesis project has been changing over course of time. The problem was that regarding sustainability the problems the city faces are not the usual energy and water issues we so often encounter. The biggest problem is sprawl. Identifying spaces within the fabric where I could densify. When doing so another problem caught my attention and that problem is connected to the global issue of climate change. That is sea level rise. This turned out to be one of the biggest problems to solve since it is real and it´s urgent. Then when I was studying my site in historical and recent times the third problem was clear that is lack connectivity and this also applies to the city as a whole. How can we turn a tragic situation into something positive and fun for the city dwellers? How can we use structures aimed for protection become the bridge and connector instead of separator? How can we connect city parts? And how can we densify and bring new life to the harbor without removing the fishing industry? 56
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URBAN WATER A New Layer in the City Landscape 2013 Jelena Kotevska
Urban Water is an attempt to investigate the possibility for ecological treatment of Skopje sewage waste water which currently pollutes the river Vardar. The proposal is giving a spatial and technical solution for transforming the available city landscape, activating it in order to preform water purification through the use of ecological and biological system called ‘The Living Machine’. The purified water from the living machines becomes a new element in the city urban fabric. It gives the possibility for creation of new activated landscapes which allow reuse of the purified water. The system tries to adapt and to interact with the surrounding context, creating more vibrant neighborhoods and city life. Waste water becomes Urban Water which sustains urban life and no longer pollutes the river.
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NEW LIFE IN A SPRAWL LANDSCAPE | 2013 Guoda BardauskaitÄ—
The aim of the thesis project is finding an alternative solution for Kaunas suburb development in Lithuania. The city core is faced with a decreasing population, as many people choose to move into the suburbs. The lack of development strategy and control over construction processes in city outskirts result in economically ineffective sprawl which drains the city. The project suggests that suburbanization is not necessarily a negative tendency, but a part of a natural process of the city transformation. It is interpreted as an opportunity to re-think urbanism, propose new strategies and to alternate ways of living in city outskirts. The project is based in Lithuania, but the issues it is dealing with are also topical for other Eastern European countries with similar urban, cultural and economical context. 64
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5.
Accessibility
ACCESS THE CITY The importance of thinking about accessibility in the urban design has to be emphasized, in order to explain in what way it matters to work with this topic. Also why it always should be on the agenda when creating sustainable cities. Accessible neighborhoods are a plus to our cities, connecting places instead of excluding them. A well-defined urban scale can have a major impact on how ideas are exchanged, on our lifestyle and how we move. En-
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trances, living facades, shortcuts, laneways, pocket squares, are just a few examples of urban design interventions that can enhance curiosity and variety. They are bringing a new feeling of openness and accessibility to 21st century cities. At the larger scale, the political and social strategies involving accessibility can make a great impact on how movement, inside or between cities is made. Connecting the public transport infrastructure with the regional network is creating a new culture of everyday possibilities. Offering greater palette of social and economical opportu-
“A well-defined urban scale can have a major impact on how ideas are exchanged, on our lifestyle and how we move.�
nities rather than zoned and monotonous, or just being stuck in cul-de sacs. Working with accessibility, one has to address, not only the necessity that the networks of streets, roads, paths in the city are well connected, but also seeing them part of an integrated working system. One also has to make sure that the connections themselves are attractive enough and robust so that they will be used and cared about since they play an important part in the public realm. Streets can hold a wide variety of functions and most important, they will always
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change over time. What makes them unique is the influence from surrounding buildings and the ability of being part of a greater image. They can be part of a green corridor, an outdoor living room or made to take care of the runoff water.
Thorough investigations, tells us where to heal a weak link, improve existing qualities in a street or area in a city to get the most spinoff effects. Most important of all - cities should be designed to reflect the diversity of people.
A well designed street life promotes different modes of transport. Either if we talk about private or public transport, walkability, biking or recreational, the ability of streets to encourage active outdoor lifestyle all year around has a significant impact on how we choose where we live.
Louise Lรถvenstierne
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“A well designed street life promotes different modes of transport.�
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MALMÖ’S VATTENFRONT
Nyhamnen, from industrial harbor to livable city | 2013 Joacim Dahlberg
This thesis analyses Malmö’s waterfront as an important aspect to highlight in the rapidly growing urbanization. The core of this work is to create a discussion about how we can manage and transform the land that is located within the city limits, with focus on the areas close to the water. The work presents an overall picture in order to make good decisions about how and in what manner Malmö can meet the water in the future. The analytical study results in the creation of a planning proposal for the area Nyhamnen in Malmö - an industrial area both linked to the urban city and the sea. The presented vision is a result of treating both the site-specific challenges, but also by weaving it together with the potential of Malmö’s waterfront. 74
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RESTORE AND EXPAND 2012 Liu Hailin
Beijing is renowned in the world for its profound history and civilization. The city has left to the human beings a lot of heritage,physical and spiritual. In the inner city, in the former industrial areas and hutong areas, urban decay is becoming obvious. What we have seen most is the old urban fabric had been demolished and replaced by new super blocks. Even though the superblock is highly efficient for planning and land transactions, but its form creates enormous disruption to existing natural and cultural systems,cuts off the spiritual connection to the history,on the other hand,the similar and tedious looking superblocks make the local areas uncharacteristic and cause local identity crisis. We can say,at that time,even though the city was far from modernized,Beijing has a clear city image, making it identical and unique.
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6.
Making Places
MAKING PERFORMATIVE PLACES A place can be described as the mental image of the space. So how is a space transformed into a place, is it through our experience of the physical space by our sense in combination with our past experience that shapes the memory of the space? As architects or urban designers it is our responsibility to design the best urban space, not only meeting the minimum requirements of accessibility, green area factor and so on, not only fulfilling the hard
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facts but we must also try to make every place unique and special to evoke the curiosity and excitement of people so they will make the place into a space that they will use and appreciate. The physical space will always just form the backdrop and stage for the human activity, even a space designed with the best intensions will not become a place until people start using it and caring about the space. So how do we set about to design that kind of a space? How do we create something from nothing? Context, context, context we must always consider the context. The
“A place can be described as the mental image of the space.�
environmental, cultural, economic contexts are all equal important to consider. To make a place specific to its context and not make a generic design is even more important now in an era of internationalization where everything have a tendency to look the same. We must also remember to look at all the good examples of places around the world and learn from them. Never copy, but instead try to understand why the specific place works in its unique context and try to find the core values of that place the genius loci of the place. A space may have some physical restric-
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tions and limitations but there is no limit on how many people that can make a space into a special place in their mind that they will cherish forever. In the end we as architects and urban designers can only set the stage and try to make the best possible preconditions for people to be inspired and moved to make a space into a place they will remember and care about. Andreas Olsson
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“How do we create something from nothing? ... we must always consider the context.�
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THE LANEWAY LINE
Connecting Toronto’s Laneway Network 2014 Cassandra Alves
With a surplus of space available in laneways, the potential to diversify and densify the city is a huge opportunity. Considering the rate of Toronto’s growth, the objective of The Laneway Line is to reconsider this extensive back-end network and imagine it can address the need for public space, city movement and affordable housing. On a city-wide scale, the proposal pitches to connect specific north/south running laneways. Together, this connected network creates an accessible and seamless pedestrian/cycle friendly path system from Eglington Avenue to Toronto’s waterfront. As a result, this path system allows opportunities for laneways to develop into dense, dynamic and diversified spaces.
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[C]LOSING THE GAP Reconnecting Time Space and Identity | 2012 Delia Moldoveanu
In this context, my project investigates a possible healing intervention for the central area of Bucharest surrounding the House of People, that was left scarred after the totalitarian interventions of the ‘80s. I will address the effects of the large scale planning directions of the former communist doctrine and its extreme consequences in both morphological and social terms, while trying to touch upon the local and global issues that Bucharest confronts nowadays. The site was part of the old city fabric until the forced interventions imposed by the planning manifest of the period demolished the neighborhood of approximately 20.000 people in order to erect instead a Civic Centre as the architectural expression of the totalitarian ideology. The former symbolic implications of the space, mainly related to fear, are still haunting people’s imagination, leaving the site as a wide gap in the Bucharest city center.
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MOURENX IN SITU
Towards the Countryside City | 2014 Suzanna Rubino
In 1957 the first French new town is built in the South West of France to house the 15000 workers of a new gas industry. Built according modernist principles together with innovative ideas from the British new towns the city still exists today. In this rural region Mourenx is suffering from a stereotypical image : the one of an urban and architectural object made of towers and slabs disconnected from its surrounding landscape. With the successful reconversion of the industrial complex the future of the area is ensured. However, due to the bad living environment an the unadapted housing offer, residents are moving out preferring new individual housing developments : Mourenx is failing to attract young couples and families. The project presents an alternative to sprawl that will transform and fix the inner structure of the town. By densifying this town the surrounding landscape is preserved and enhanced to become one of the major assets of Mourenx. 96
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7.
Human Scale
SHAPING THE URBAN GROUND Looking at how cities are designed in 21st century, the Urban Ground needs to be the answer to a whole new set of questions. How places can be sustainable, technical updated and livable? Climate change has given us a new set of challenges and conditions to fix, but also has made us in some way more aware of our life standards. If durring the last century cities were devastated by global conflicts, today extreme weather is the core issue of global politics. The situation we can see in 102
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too many cities is accelerating urban migration, urban decay and outdated infrastructure. As a result, most of the neighborhoods are lacking both ecological and humanist perspectives. The most important challenge today is how to transform our existing cities to be more sustainable and livable. The Quality of the Public Realm and the Urban Ground are indeed the physical �elements� that add up, making cities livable and enoyable.Urban design shapes the quality and the character of the public realm. It plays a fundamental role in how streets and places act
together as a social platform for everyday life. Human Scale, as it has been showned many times since the first time humans become social creatures, is still an essential design perspective in the making of livable cities.
“Urban design shapes the quality and the character of the public realm.�
A Sensitive design of the Urban Ground is based on human dimensions, touch-friendly materials, comfortable furnishing and a space that makes a place. Visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile perceptions of urban places are fundamental dimensions of experiencing our cities. It creates memories that are longlasting. An awning creates Sustainable Urban Design Selections
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shade and the vegetation brings fragrance to the place and invites people to sit, chat, observe and relax. Small scale develops nearness. Creating a ballance between the dimensions of natural spaces and the urban form gives the city a new quality – the urban livingroom. The inside (private) and the outside (public) become part of the social life. The Interior-like dimensions of the space and the details creates nearness. Details like the fragrance of plants maintained by the residents, the sound of children from the inner yard, activities in street, the de-
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sign of furniture, the shade and the small scale of the narrow street makes it to be a social livable place.The dimensions that fit the human body are shaping the street, making a comfortable place to experience. Bringing the intimate into the public realm is an important challenge for the future of our cities. A sensitive design and choice of materials - pavement, railings and street furniture invites for human contact. Shaping the Urban Ground creates carefully made, humane and inclusive urban environments. Peter SiĂśstrĂśm
“Bringing the intimate into the public realm is an important challenge for the future of our cities.�
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Existing Situation
Main urban and neighborhood connections
Activate the Park
Densification
Tramline and new urban nodes
Neighborhood Transformation
LIVING CLOSER Urban Transformation of a Post Industrial City | 2014 Cyril Pavlu
The urban form of the city Prague has been greatly affected by forty years of socialist urban planning, during which new large scale housing estates were built in the suburbs. Until today, these estates provide housing for almost a half of the city’s inhaitants. Due to the bad living environment, many residents have abandoned the estates in the last twenty years, chasing the suburban dream of a single-family home. The ongoing sprawl of the city and depopulation of the large estates are emerging threats to the future, as the estates’ degradation can lead to social unrest and the increased sprawl to resources exploitation. The project presents a vision for a transformation of one of the largest housing estates in Prague into an attractive living environment. By taking the advantage of its location close to the nature as well as accessibility of the public transit the proposal offers a sustainable alternative for the city’s future. 106
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SHANGHAI URBAN HYBRID A Study on the Urban Tissue in Shanghai | 2013 Chuhan Zhang
How to preserve the city identity and the vibrant urban life by proposing a new urban fabric for Shanghai? In the context of rapid economic development, Chinese cities have become showcases in which ever thing is designed to be unique and different.The pursuit of distinctive object leads to an unsustainable way of urban development, which is erasing the old urban fabrics, the city identity the vibrant urban life they support. In Shanghai, the result is losing the relational qualities which used to be distinguished from other cities, and producing a dull and boring cityscape both within the city itself and between other Chinese cities. The thesis project discusses the problems of this contemporary urban development in Shanghai, and aims to propose a new urban tissue for the city, with a capacity for change and multiplicity, to preserve the local identity and the character of everyday life.
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DENSECITY
Towards a Dense and Livable Stockholm 2014 Andreas Mayor
This master thesis addresses urban density and population growth in the Swedish capital city of Stockholm. The region is estimated to reach 3 million inhabitants by 2050. Stockholm has an urgent shortage of housing; this in combination with movability problems and a monofunctional city creates issues for a sustainable development.The key research question has been how densification can be applied on the local site of Lรถvholmen, an old industrial area just south of the city center. The design site is transformed into a dense mixed use neighborhood where a linear public space in different sequences is designed around valuable existing industrial buildings. A mix of outdoor activities is placed in the public space to add life and people to this part of the city. A new pedestrian bridge helps dealing with the overall movability problem of the city, linking the local neighborhood with the inner city. 114
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8. SUDes Networks
SUDes NETWORKS One can say that since social networking has become an important tool for professionals all over the world, the connectivity between urban designers, architects, landscape architects and other fields of work is made easier and faster. Nowadays interdisciplinary teams from all over the world are collaborating together to shape cities. This trend has become popular not only because it’s convenient, but finding creative professionals is actually easier online. Making livable cities is becoming a global trend where new ideas
and technologies are shared for everybody to use. Universities are the startup platform for creative minds. Sustainable Urban Design Master Programme at School of Architecture, Lund University is promoting creativity through shared knowledge, bringing together students, graduates and working professionals. Since the first semester, students are teaming up in international groups, working with sustainable issues, finally developing one thesis project in their home country. It is imperative that every idea or concept to have a realistic base of understanding – a framework in which
sustainability can become relevant and site specific. To create a common base for the new graduates this process is made in close contact with a well-established network of professionals. So far SUDes collaborates with offices and universities from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, United States and China, bringing invited guests to share their work and knowledge. Creative ideas are the foundation for designing sustainable cities. Following this track SUDes is promoting student works through publications, social networks and with international offices, ensuring that ev-
“Making livable cities is becoming a global trend where new ideas and technologies are shared for everybody to use.�
erybody is up to date. Another platform is SUDes Annual International Conference; an event made to respond to some of the latest questions designing performative places. Each year professionals, academics, entrepreneurs and politicians are coming to Lund sharing their latest works and discussing the future of cities.
sponsive, promote diversity and ensure livability. Our knowledge of what makes a city a place is just the starting point of every young creative mind. SUDes network works as a platform with this very scope in mind, bringing students, new graduates, alumni and working professionals together to learn from each other.
The processes that shape the future of urban design are make by people that have different backgrounds or cultures but are aware of the conditions in which cities evolve. Urban design has to respond to the identity of each city, be climate re-
Constantin Milea
“SUDes network works as a platform... bringing students, new graduates, alumni and working professionals together to learn from each other.�
One of several new public spaces and parks proposed around the new central station in LinkÜping, Sweden - Sydväst Arkitektur och Landskap
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Andreas Mayor
Urban Designer Sydväst Arkitektur och Landskap Malmö, Sweden
Looking back at my time at SUDes I feel that I gained a deeper insight of the complexity of urban design and sustainability while becoming confident enough to come up with design ideas dealing with these issues. As a practice I see urban design as the link between people and places, movement and built form, landscape and the urban fabric. I find that the key to success in most projects is to shift between different scales while detecting the site specificness of the space your working with. The SUDes focus on understanding the issues and challenges of a design site through analyses and then allowing the students to come up with their own storyline makes a graduated SUDes student ready to step right into a professional career where the questions can be hard, the competition stiff and the deadlines tight.
The first phase of turning an existing marina into a dynamic meeting place in the new harbour development in Lidköping, Sweden - Sydväst Arkitektur och Landskap Sustainable Urban Design Selections
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Winning proposal for the redevelopment of an old waste disposal site into a recreational landscape in Kristianstad, Sweden - Sydväst Arkitektur och Landskap
Competition entry Hovinbyen togeher with MandaWorks, Olso Norway - Dyvik & Fasting Arkitekter
Lukas Eivind Fasting Partner – Dyvik & Fasting Arkitekter Oslo, Norway
My time as a Sustainable Urban Design student was a very refreshing scale-jump from my traditional Bachelors degree in Architecture from Kingston University. To learn how to critically look at a city fabric with all of its layers and complexity is very intriguing and helpful in my work as a professional today. The skill to critically understand issues of large-scale regional natural conditions, and all the way to small microclimate issues, I believe is a big part of what can make a project strong and unique. Urban design is about people and places, movement and nature, things that is becoming increasingly more important during our time of global urbanization. My time at SUDes has given me the confidence needed as part of a young ambitious office.
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Competition entry ĂšlfarsĂĄrdalur, Iceland - Dyvik & Fasting Arkitekter
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Rooftop gardens Kirkeveien, Oslo Norway - Dyvik & Fasting Arkitekter
Atrium view of Lรถjtnanten/Hubben WHITE Architects
Exterior view of Lรถjtnanten/Hubben WHITE Architects
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Young Ill Kim
Architect WHITE Architects Stockholm, Sweden
I like to import an idea from another field. As an architect, it is very important to have open minded outward. Regarding this, my master program was a great chance to mix ideas from myself and others. Students were mixed from different backgrounds and knowledge. Being together with un-homogeneous group is a powerful circumstance itself and affects to me a lot. Currently I am developing my architectural carrier at white arkitekter. The experience from Sudes gives great effect to me. Buildings in urban situation is very complex and need to be thought very carefully about relationship with urban context, climate, people’s behaviour and even culture. I had been trained well under my master program about thinking about those elements. Know-how to getting idea from landscape architects and engineers is another lesson from sudes.
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Vision for Stavanger, Norway. Beril Demirer for COBE Architects
Beril Demirer
Urban Designer at Dolab Istambul, Turkey
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I am an emerging 3D architectural and urban visualizer, who is passionate to dream about imaginary landscapes. Originally graduated from the City and Regional Planning in Middle East Technical University, Turkey, I have never thought of being an artist who produces imaginary illustrations of unbuilt places before I enrolled to Sustainable Urban Design masters’ program. Since 2011. I am working as a freelance Photoshop artist and Urban Designer. I love dreaming about the atmosphere of unbuilt spaces and through my visualizations, simulating the life there. When I do compositions about a place, I find myself inside there eventually.
Courtyard in Vejle, Denmark. Beril Demirer for COBE Architects
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Green Corridor in Stavanger, Norway. Beril Demirer for COBE Architects
Urbana Länkar 82 Hectare Masterplan Stockholm, Sweden - MandaWorks
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Danny Bridson
Urban Designer MandaWorks Stockholm, Sweden
I see urban design practice as a complicated overlapping of many different disciplines. Architects, planners, landscape architects, developers, politicians, engineers (and many more) contribute in shaping the city and the projects that you work on. The broad platform that constitutes urban design is both exciting and challenging for this reason. I was fortunate enough to study at SUDES from 2011 to 2013. Before coming to Lund I had a strong desire to work in the urban design field, but I lacked an understanding of the necessary components of practice. SUDES offered me a combination of guidance and investigative freedom that allowed me to cultivate my own approach while ensuring exposure to informative and inspirational concepts and projects. One of the most difficult parts of practice is deciding where and how to begin tackling a problem. The SUDES courses throw you into complex and vastly different contexts every semester, simulating the diversity of problems you face out in the field.
Tracing Trencin 22 hectare Masterplan Trencin, Slovakia - MandaWorks Sustainable Urban Design Selections
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‘Royal Neighbour’ 15 Hectare Masterplan Royal Seaport, Stockholm, Sweden - MandaWorks
SUDes Team
Peter Siöström Founder and Director of SUDes Architect SAR/MSA Chairman of Ax:son Johnson Institute for Sustainable Urban Design, Lund University
Jenny Osuldsen Senior Landscape Architect MNLA, MLArch, Professor in Landscape Architecture, Ås Agricultural University, Ax:son Johnson guest Professor, Lund Partner at Snøhetta
Harrison Fraker Professor of Architecture and Urban Design College of Environmental Design University of California Berkeley Ax:son Johnson guest Professor, Lund 2014 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion Recipient
Louise Lövenstierne Architect MSA, Course Leader Board member of SUDes Urban Lab
Donlyn Lyndon FAIA Eva Li Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Urban Design, UC Berkeley Ax:son Johnson Guest Professor, Lund 1997 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion Recipient
Catharina Sternudd Assosiate Senior Lecturer PhD research “Children’s perspective of urban space”
Andreas Olsson SUDes Programme Assistant, Course Leader Board member of SUDes Urban Lab
Per Björkeroth Architect MSA, Course Leader Founder and Partner of Zoom Architects
Henrik Johannesson Architect MSA, Course Leader Founder and Partner of HJ Architects
Martin Arfalk Architect MSA, Course Leader Founder and Partner of MandaWorks
Pär Gustafsson Landscape Architect MSA/LAR Professor of Landscape Architecture
Constantin Milea Architect MSA, Urban Designer Teaching Assistant, SUDes Alumni Network SUDes Urban Lab
Made by SUDes 2015 Sustainable Urban Design Selections Publishing Director:
Peter Siöström
Book Editor:
Constantin Milea
Chapters About SUDes: Climate: Water: Urban Landscape: Assessibility: Making Places: Human Scale: SUDes Networks: Photographs:
Thesis projects:
Alumni Network:
Donlyn Lyndon, Harrison Fraker Harrison Fraker Markin Arfalk & Nicholas Bigelow Jenny Osuldsen Louise Lövenstierne Andreas Olsson Peter Siöström Constantin Milea Louise Lövenstierne Edda Ivarsdottir Constantin Milea Sybille de Cussy Suzanna Rubino Peter Siöström Danny Bridson Eivind Lukas Moen Fasting Manon Otto Omer Karoum Constantin Milea Jose Manuel Riquelme Marin Edda Ívarsdóttir Jelena Kotevska Guoda Bardauskaitė Joakim Dahlberg Liu Hailin Cassandra Alves Delia Moldoveanu Suzanna Rubino Cyril Pavlu Chuhan Zhang Andreas Mayor Andreas Mayor Eivind Lukas Moen Fasting Yong Ill Kim Beril Demirer Danny Bridson