MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE WATER

As climate changes are raising the sealevels architects have to look at all possible solutions. One might be making friends with the water and live on it. All over the world there are many communities live on the water. Pile-dwelling and floating houses exist on every continent, for instance in Vietnam the Mekong´s delta is full of houseboats and pile-dwellings and parts of the social life like markets occur on the river.

We wanted to take a closer look at Amsterdam, a city that has a special relation with water. For many years it was one of the worlds leading trade cities and most of the goods where transported on water. An intricate canal system brought the goods right to your front door. Later houses where also built on the canals. The idea of living on the water started during the sixties. Some hippies decided to build their houses on boats, woonbooten (residential boats), this way they could move their house whenever they wanted. The phenomenon became widespread and nowadays there are more than 3000 floating houses only in the Amsterdam area. However the residents are no longer only hippies, today a Woonboten is an alternative for the average middle class dutch family.


Images of Dutch "Woonboten"


During the last 50 years the woonbooten has developed in different ways, some of them are used as hotels and offices. The houseboats are comfortable and has electricity, running water, telephone, etc. There are three different kinds of woonbooten:

-The Ship House is built using an old cargo boat. This is the typical houseboat, it is made of steel and is the largest one because its inhabitants can use the space once used for the load of the ship.

-The Vessel House keeps only the hull, the cockpit and the boat deck are taken away from the boat, these house boats can only be moved occasionally.

-The Ark House is fabricated to be a residential unit. It is made of wood or bricks and built on a square hull made of steel or concrete.


LINKS
Want to buy your own Woonboot? Follow this link!

SSC TO PARTICIPATE IN CLIMATE DAY

SSC has been invited to participate in the climate day in Malmö. We will be part of an expert panel on sustainability debating climate issues with auditorium of 100 high school students.

With the international climate summit starting up in neighboring Copenhagen we will do our best to influence both politicians and public to take the necessary decisions! We will explain how the energy usage for heating can be dramatically lowered with the help of passive house technique.

The conference will take place at Dialogtorget, Lönngatan 30, Facklan, Malmö. See you there!

More info on "Klimatdagen"

SSC SUPPORTS 2 DEGREES!

Super Sustainable City has signed up for a petition to ensure that:

• a global climate agreement is drawn up
• all the countries in the world sign up to this agreement
• developing countries are guaranteed the opportunity to continue to develop
• the temperature will only increase by a maximum of two degrees.

Sign up for your organization too!

SSC ON ITALIAN RADIO

We are happy to announce that Joakim Kaminsky and Alessandro Micelli have been interviewed by an italian radio station about the Super Sustainable City and its possibilities. Here´s the link to the radio:

RadioCitta´Fujiko

STUDENTS EXPLORE RIVERS

Architecture students from Chalmers where sent out with video cameras to envision the future of the water areas in central Gothenburg. The results really triggers your fantasy! To see all the movies, just go to youtube and use the searchwords "mater, space, chalmers". Here's our favoritues:

"Conquest of river"
"Subterranean seasick blues"
"Flamingo"

Indeed making the most of the central water areas in Gothenburg is a key to achieving a sustainable city. The films where made by master students in a course led by professor Morten Lund.

WHEN FACTORIES SHUT DOWN

In Germany redeveloping abandoned industrial areas, so-called brownfields, has become an art form. Not only because these lots can be found in mass, but since municipalities, architects and organizations has taken on this challenge.

Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park, part of Emscher Park

Having gone through one big economical transition when the shipbuilding industry closed down Gothenburg might face even bigger challenges in the near future, being the automobile capital of Sweden. Therefore we think that a cyber-study-tour to Germany is in place.

There are a lot of these empty plots which can be found inside city structures untouched for decades as remediation is often connected to high costs and economical risks. Polluted soil has to be cleaned or exchanged, old factories and industrial structures need to be pulled down to prepare the land for new usages. But these areas are not just polluted waste land. Because of their importance in history they are mostly located to major traffic routes like motorways or bigger rivers and in proximity to urban areas. This means that redevelopment of brownfields is not only a challenging task but bears a lot of potential to rise the city's quality.

The question is how to accomplish the remediation in the best manner? Many strategies are possible while new technologies like bioremediation allow more sustainable tactics. Instead of exchanging whole layers of polluted soil the application of natural occurring microbes might be a resource friendly alternative. But even growing crops might be considered. Plants like soybean, corn, canola or switchgras are able to clean up the soil. Besides they could be used for the production of biodiesel or ethanol fuel giving investors a economical refund possibly increasing the attraction to redevelop brownfields.

Another question is whether the traces of history should be totally removed. It might be reasonable to leave some landmarks referring to the region's history. This has been done in Emscher Park situated in industrial stamped Ruhrvalley in Germany. Old buildings with a heritage value were reconstructed to serve functions like business, housing or culture. But even just parts of old structures were used in a creative manner for recreation and sport to strengthen the identification of the region's population with the newly designed places.

remaining walls of an former ore bunker adapted for rock climbing, Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park, part of Emscher Park

So the clean up of brownfields doesn't necessarily mean the elimination of everything found on the plots. There are good examples in Gothenburg too, like the old shipyard buildings along the riverside, now used for conferences, hotels and offices, or the old mill “Röda Sten” used as an exhibition place and cultural meeting point.

LINKS:
Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park
Brownfields and Land Revitalization

[image 1: http://www.latzundpartner.de/projects/detail/17]
[image 2: http://www.landliving.com/articles/0000000618.aspx]

SSC ON ABC NEWS!

We are proud to announce that Super Sustainable City is represented in the ABC News film Earth 2100!


Alexandra Danner on ABC News declares:
"In order to plan for the worst, we must anticipate it. In that spirit, guided by some of the world's experts, ABC News' "Earth 2100," hosted by Bob Woodruff, will journey through the next century and explore what might be our worst-case scenario."

LINKS
ABC News, Earth 2100

KKA FEATURED IN ECO BOOK

Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture and Emrahus have developed Sweden's first series of prefabricated houses with passive house technique. The goal is to make this technique available for everyone. We also want to show that low energy houses and good architecture can be joined. In Villa Värde (translates to Villa Value in English) the goal was to give the customers as much villa as possible for their money. Therefore the plan is compact and functional trying to make the most of its 120m². Still the living room is spacious with its double roof height. For even more value the double roof height can be transformed into two extra bedrooms.

DEBATE AT LEVE KLOTET

Joakim Kaminsky and Ylva Frid will take part in a debate at Leve klotet on Kulturfestivalen in Gothenburg. The debate will take place today 15/8 at Kanal torget, 17:00-17:30.

We will discuss sustainable city planing in Gothenburg with leading politicians and decision makers.

See you there!

LINK
leve klotet

OLSSON LYCKEFORS AT SCIENCE CAFÉ

Our friends Johan Olsson and Andreas Lyckefors discussed the future development of Älvstranden (the riversides of Gothenburg) at the science café at Älvrummet. We think they had some really good ideas, and the diagram below, well we couldn't have said it better ourselves:




It gives you a very clear picture of how the water connects the inner city of Stockholm while it divides central Gothenburg, just what we had in mind when making the SSC vision for a new city district in Göta Älv:



LINK
See the whole lecture here
The SSC vision of renewing the riverside in Gothenburg

SUSTAINABLE IMPROVEMENTS

How can an old building be made more sustainable? Ylva Frid and KKA made some proposals for the city museum in Gothenburg.



The building is located in the oldest part of Gothenburg. It was there before oil became the base of production and transportation and will be there long after. Its installations and technical systems has been replaced many times while its architectural pomp has been left intact. We vision a similar future.

Outside fishermen and farmers used to come by boat in the canals to sell their products on market places or directly from the boat.

Today, the area is dependent on fossil fuel in all it´s functions. Transportation, heating, the food consumed and activities taking place are all linked to high consumption of fossil fuels. There´s very few trees in the area, and the water is empty and silent with exception for tourist boats, but the high building density and the waterways gives opportunities for making the area more sustainable.

High-efficient solar-cells on the roof of the buildings (1) could cover the buildings own energy consumption.* Together with small quiet windmills (2)the building could produce an energy surplus without disturbing the historical environment. By using extremely thin vacuum insulation the walls and ceilings of the old buildings could be insulated cutting the energy used for heating while keeping the architectonic expression of the old facades (3).
Fruit trees (4) along the street makes the city greener, gives shadow in hot summer days and make a living spot for bees and birds. They could also produce enough fruit to cover the consumption in the nearest blocks.
A floating square with a mix of markets, house boats and floating gardens (5) could make use of the water and make this a much more vivid place than today. Transports on water have always played a key role in Gothenburg. If the future contains more of small-scale, locally produced food, the channels in central Gothenburg could once again play an important role for transporting (6) and selling (7) fish and vegetables.
Supersustainable highways (8) with a personal rapid transport system combined with cycle paths, solar cells and rainwater collectors could minimize the need for car transportations.

LINKS
SSC proposals for sustainable improvements
SSC post on PRT-systems

DYING MALLS

In the last decades big malls have often been considered as the panacea to revitalize whole parts of a city through attracting customers and even more tradesmen in the surrounding areas. But facing reality many big shopping malls have shown that in the long run lack of diversity in program can't be compensated just by a mix of different retail.

In the USA the problem of dying malls has got a wide spread phenomenon both in suburban and urban areas. Especially introverted complexes spreading over several blocks are predestined tasks for redevelopment.

What possibilities are there to stop these places from ending up as dead empty volumes? In Pasadena (California, USA) a declining mall was partly demolished to reestablish the old structure to the historic street grid and restating former sight lines while taking advantage of the existing subterranean parking. Connected with the integration of restaurants, entertainment, office and residential next to commercial usage as well as facing the storefronts to the streets and creating new public outdoor spaces this dying spot in the city could be revitalized in an attractive manner. The mixture of functions guarantees a vivid urban space even at night.

public outdoor space of a reestablished mall in Pasenda

Nevertheless retrofitting of megastructures are expensive and complicated. That's why we must learn from previous problems with mono-usage shopping centers to support a sustainable urban development. In Gothenburg today many new supermalls are being planned, eventhough the market is already saturated. Second thoughts anyone?

[image: http://www.cnu.org/sites/files/mallsintomainstreets.pdf]

PUBLISHED VISIONS

We are happy to announce that our ideas for a sustainable Gothenburg are arousing world wide interest. An article about the SSC visions has been published with the lastest issue of the Korean architecture magazine "CONCEPT".

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

KKA's blogg Super Sustainable Cities is now a member of the following communities: Ecoprofile and Sustainable Cities Collective.

URBAN FARMING AT STADSMUSÉET

Joakim Kaminsky and Ylva Frid will participate in the inauguration of a new exhibition on urban farming at the Gothenburg city museum. We will hold a short presentation where we talk about urban farming in the SSC vision and in real life around the world. The event will take place Wednesday 3/6 from 17:00-19:00, see you there!

LINKS
The exhibition will take place at the Gothenburg city museum

Personal Rapid Transit

Personal rapid transit systems (=PRT) could be the future for ecological cities reducing pollution while displacing all presently used transportation.


test track of ULTra in Cardiff

Operating on a widespread network of guideways and working on demand it combines the sustainability of public transportation with the comfort of individual available vehicles. PRT systems need up to four times less energy than automobiles and are less noisy than any other vehicles. Waiting times of a few seconds and non-stop travel to a chosen destination guarantees a movement through the city that is at least two times faster than todays forms of scheduled route services.

In Uppsala, Sweden a test track is proving that PRT systems are more than just a vision. This year a pilot project manufactured by ULTra will be opened at the Heathrow Airport in London for daily transportation of visitors across the airport's territory. Most convincing though is perhaps that a PRT system has been operating successfully on the Campus of West Virginia University in Morgantown, USA already since 1975!


Morgantown PRT, Beechurst Station

LINKS
Test track in Uppsala by Vectus
ULTra's pilot project Heathrow Airport
Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit

[bild 1: http://www.atsltd.co.uk/media/pictures/cardiff-test-facility]
[bild 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Morgantown_PRT_-_Beechurst_Station.jpg]

Lecture at Kinnarps

Fredrik and Joakim held a lecture on SSC at Kinnarps. Having a strong focus on sustainability questions Kinnarps invited us to talk at their yearly marketing event. The audience consisted of 150 clients to Kinnarps, mostly architects.

GOOD NEWS FOR GOTHENBURG'S ROOF LANDSCAPE

Political parties of Gothenburg are currently discussing the proposal to restate the actual roof ordinance. Both the opposition and majority parties could imagine to allow green roofs like in Germany covered with grass, sedum and other plants. Even cultivation could be possible.


top view of Linnéastan, Gothenburg

At the moment the situation in Gothenburg doesn't allow bigger roof terraces that are visible from streets and surrounding buildings. All in all the view of the city with its present tiled or copper roofs should be preserved so that lots of requests for creating a vivid space on top of many building need to be rejected by the municipality.

But if the thoughts for extended roof usage will turn into reality, Gotheburg takes a step closer to becoming a sustainable city not only vitalizing the roofs of the city but also providing space for urban farming and additional greenery for a better city climate.

To read more about possible improvements of rooftops proposed by KKA follow the link.

LINK
Improve

WINDMILLS IN THE CITY

Small wind turbines mounted on roofs or bridges enlarges the possibilities to use renewable energy sources directly in city centers. In addition to solar panels the installation of small wind turbines makes especially sense in cities like Gothenburg - with a lot of wind hours. Besides the maximum wind speed is found in winter, the time of the year when the solar energy output is lower due to cloudy weather and longer nights. So wind energy could be an effective complement to solar power.

But what's about the drawbacks of this technology? Does these small wind farms in the city have a negative effect on our well-being? Besides the obvious risk of disturbance through noise critics often mention vibrations caused by the turbines and their extra weight as the big disadvantage.

Referring to the technical progress that has been achieved in the last years and already realized projects the benefits of city wind turbines can be proved anyhow. With the right solutions and expertise the efficiency of small wind mills has been raised in a great manner.



First of all the right placing of the turbines in relation to the building has a big effect on the amount of generated energy. Either rose above the middle of the roof or attached to the edges of a building the turbines are using regions of accelerated airflow. Just the double wind speed would result in eight times more energy.



Furthermore smaller dimensions, spherical forms and especially the introduction vertical axis wind turbines highly reduces the impact of noise and vibration. Because the background noise level in a city is omnipresent and increases with stronger winds, the sounds of the turbines in use is seldom audible.
In a near future all these technical improvements will hopefully have a positive impact on the reputation of small wind turbines so that more and more people reconsider it as a sustainable energy source reducing our CO2 emission.

[bild 1: http://www.86wind.com]
[bild 2: http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk]

URBAN FARMING IN GOTHENBURG

The ground around the church in Högsbo is no longer a usual lawn. From far you see exposed black soil and the former grass turned into a muddy mess.
Responsible for that is Högsbos three new habitants. Under a big ashtree they´re having their lunch of apple and potatoes under loud amused noice.Måla, Sötnos and Vovven are the first agriculture pigs in Gothenburg since second world war, and their presence is now transforming the church´s land into twenty urban farming lots.
-They are the most rational way of getting this done, explains NiklasWennberg, project leader at Stadsjord, the organisation that initialized the project. The pigs works up the soil, defeats weed and gives a superiorground nutrition. In May we will move them and let people start cultivate the land.

Niklas Wennberg with one of the pigs.

More than 350 people had come to give the pigs a warm welcome when theyarrived in the beginning of March.-

People just love them! ”Pig” is now the most frequent search phrase on themunicipals webpage, and this has really changed the centre of gravity inthe city core. People walk by, stops, chats and watch the pigs, says Niklas.

The arrival of the pigs is the result of an interreligious collaboration in Gothenburg where leaders of all different world religions together isworking for integration and a sustainable future. To grow in the city was concidered the most important measure to handle integration as well as humans awareness in global warming. They asked Niklas Wennberg, with abackground in environmental science, to be come a project leader andtogether they formed Stadsjord.
This autumn the produce of growers work will be sold at Axel Dahlströms square.

-This is the only growers association in Gothenburg that clearly says that you are aloud to sell your surplus, explains Niklas. Normally it´s forbidden.This is really very important. If we want urban farming to become anactual part of the future, we can not follow old rules that aims to keepthe big food store free from local competition. Such a rule is only aresult of a human decision. That shows the opportunity to make other decisions!

Read more at Stadsjord

Gothenburg- A Super Sustainable City

SSC AT

Joakim and Fredrik will present the project at the Pecha Kucha in Gothenburg the 25 of March. You are welcome!

SSC AT INHABITAT

The influential green blog Inhabitat has written a report about Super Sustainable city, check it out and make your vioce heard.

URBAN FARMING IN DETROIT

Detroit is one example of how a city can provide its inhabitants with locally produced food. Every year, more than six tons of produce are harvested and sold on local markets. Rooftops, walls, unused landareas, planters in malls and on sidewalks are all subject for agriculture when Detroit is being transformed into a sustainable city. Together with backyard gardens and larger scale farms they provide thousands of pounds of fresh, nutritious produce for Detroit families. Simultaneously they improve communities by connecting neighbors, providing an alternative to trash strewn vacant lots, improving property values and reducing crime.



Detroit used to be the center of car production in the US. Since much of the production moved to Asia in the 1970´s, the city has been struggling with a decreasing population, high level of unemployment and abandoned buildings. Satellite images show an urban core giving way to an urban prairie. This led way for a new of using the city. Urban farmers have embraced the abandoned lots, gradually converting 15 acres of idle land into more than 40 community gardens and microfarms, some covering entire blocks.

A number of authorities, non-profit organizations, individuals and volunteers are collaborating to promote and encourage urban agriculture. In a resource program for gardening hundreds of home, school and community gardens get access to resources and information in order to empower Detroit residents to grow, harvest, prepare, and preserve food for their families in their backyards and neighborhoods. Together they create a more sustainable Detroit where locally grown vegetables and produces can be bought at your local market.

[bild: http://anthropik.com/]

LINKS
Detroit agriculture network
Earthworks urban farm
Urban farming

SSC IMAGES

Now hires-images of Super Sustainable City are available for downloading at Flikr

Canals and street proportions relate to present Gothenburg

Roof terraces can be used for leisure and agriculture

Renewable energy sources are harvested within the city and markets are omnipresent

The clean water is shared by people, birds and fishes

Panorama of the old and new Gothenburg







View of Esperanto platsen

Gothenburg faces a challenge comparable in size with the industrial revolution; to become a sustainable city.

SSC is a vision of a sustainable Gothenburg. It was initiated by Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture who started this blog as a forum for visions of a sustainable Gothenburg. For more information check out the SSC headlines (upper right corner).

SSC at Yimby GBG

Our friends at Yimby GBG have made a report from the Chalmers Super sustainable city lecture. Follow and participate in the ongoing discussion at Yimby GBG.

And don't forget to join Yimby GBG. Its a great organization where the public can make their voice heard in city planning questions!

DO YOU WANT TO IMPROVE?

HOW WOULD YOU IMPROVE SUPER SUSTAINABLE CITY?
A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE SHARED THEIR IDEAS.

HERE ARE SOME OF THEM:

- Solar panels as art
- Optimized system for home grown products
- Playgrounds for elderly people
- Clever home waste system
- Micro rain collectors
- Mushroom vertical farm
- Balcony greenhouse
- Wind power on existing bridges (two in one)
- Your idea?....

VISION

The current ecological footprint of Gothenburg is 2.5 Million globalhectare or the size of Västra Götaland. If all citizens in the world used as much resources we would need 3 globes to survive.



Now, imagine Gothenburg had an ecological footprint of its own size.


We would have to make drastic changes in many fields, such as transportation, energy, food and waste.

But did you know that as late as one century ago the city of Paris produced more food than it needed, the surplus was exported to London.

FACTS

In the vision Göteborg 2050 the Gothenburg environment administration sets out the goals the city must reach till 2050 for a sustainable development.

To reduce our ecological footprint we need to shorten distances and make transports more efficient. We need to travel less by car and more by foot, bike, bus and tram.


We need to lower our energy consumption and change its sources.


We need to eat less meat and more vegetables. We need to eat more localy produced food to reduce transports.


We need to cut our waste production in half. The waste we still produce needs to be sorted for recycling.

IMPROVE

Take a look at Gothenburg from above. Like most western cities it is pretty grey. Roofs, streets and squares are all covered with inorganic materials.


Just the rooftops constitutes one third of the city.



What if this area could be used better?

On the flat roofs and in parks crops could be grown. On southfacing roofs solar panels could be mounted. Small windmills could produce electricity. More apartments could be built on some roofs.

A network of sustainable highways could connect the city. They would work as personal rapid transit systems and shelter cycling highways. The sustainable highways could even collect energy and water.