My OperaA Classic, Hammarby Sjostad, and Lagom
Sunday, August 13, 2006 9:25:55 AM
Stockholm is more of a gem than I had imagined. The city reveals itself and unfolds as you look more closely at it. It is certainly a beautiful place upon first glance, but nothing is overstated and it doesn't immediately knock you out; you are rewarded the more closely you examine it. There is a 2-dimensionality to the facades of many of the buildings, such that when there is an expressed detail or some relief or expression your eye finds it and examines it.
All of this makes a lot of sense in relation to the Swedish principle of lagom. Lagom means just the right amount. It is a principle of moderation, but not in a way that means an average, or having to do with asceticism or withholding; my understanding is that it is that sweet spot where everything is just right. There are other subtleties to the term, and it can be thought of as a repression of expression as well, where anything extreme is frowned upon.
You can read more about Lagom at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom
Skogskyrkogården
We've been rewarded with incredible weather here, and I am so thankful that I was permitted to begin this scholarship in the beginning of August. We traveled to Asplund and Lewerentz's Woodland Cemetery on a hot, clear day. The Monument Hall sheltered us from the sun for quite a while before we decided we should move on and see the rest of the grounds and buildings, but mostly we were captivated by the details and materials of construction (simple, unexpected), the proportions of the spaces, the joining of masses (also simple and unexpected), and the wonderful idiosyncracies of all of those things.
This place is a masterpiece in many obvious and not so obvious ways, but one thing that seemed odd to us was the incessant noise of all of the maintenance, and the fact that the design of the grounds would include a need for so much day to day work; it hadn't occurred to me that all of the spaces in the groves and amongst the graves were actually manicured to some degree, (I guess I was expecting less lawn, or an actual return of portions of the cemetery to nature) and while it was visually bucolic there was a frenetic energy to the place. I'm sure that on weekends and holidays it is a peaceful place, and we will be going out there as the seasons change to see it in a different light. I have a lot more to learn about it. We didn't get inside Lewerentz's chapel because of a ceremeony, and in fact, most of the chapels were being used while we were there. We got to the Woodland Chapel just after a service, and I think the small crematorium on that site was in use. Fortunately I don't have a scanner, so I can't post the bad watercolor I did of the woodland chapel, whose proportions are really great and seem simple but are difficult to grasp entirely.
See some photos here: http://my.opera.com/Lagom_Arkitektur/albums/
Hammarby Sjostad
Hammarby Sjostad contains "The Best Environmental Solutions in Stockholm", the brochure proclaims. It is a huge re-development of formerly indusrial property into high-density housing within the city.
For those of you not aware, Stockholm is located on an archipelago (they can't actually agree on how many islands are in it, I've heard 2,000 and I've heard 24,000), but there is water everywhere, some fresh (sweetwater), some brackish, and the Baltic Sea edge. Hammarby is located just across a narrow lake from Sodermalm, which as I understand it was the first island that was developed as part of the city after Gamlastan (old town). The point is that it's very close to the center of the city and is considered central but is still separated from it and requires a 10-15 minute train ride from the city center.
When it is all built, it will have 10,000 units for around 25,000 residents. At this time, about 1/3rd of it is complete. Hammarby was created around the idea that a huge infrastructure of sustainable systems could be laid down upon which a more normal-looking housing development could be created. In this way (a very lagom approach), people would not think of it as weird or outside the mainstream, but the city would be incorporating more radical sustainable technologies into a more typical lifestyle. No reason to rock the boat and create something radical looking. There was a big push to make this a demonstration to the whole world, as Stockholm made a bid for hosting the Olympics.
On a subjective note; I really liked the aesthetics of Hammarby. Maybe because in the US 'safe' and 'sellable' housing means neo-traditional to some extent, whereas in Stockholm 'safe' and 'sellable' means neo-modernist. Anyway, I should form a more articluate discussion about this, but some younger architects that I met at a party were bummed out at the lost opportunity to do something unique and edgy here, and feel that the project is something of a disgrace aesthetically. I'm not sure what they would rather have- more of Calatrava's Turning Torsos? But I'll poll some more architects and try to have a better discussion about this later. I do understand their point to some extent, because so much of the housing here comes in the form of plain and undistinguishable rectangular masses that are whites or beiges or creams.
The city of Stockholm has a pretty involved set of regulations concerning sustainable building; check out their Environmental Program (link below), where they cover everything from building materials to environmental transportation to energy use. For example, they discourage using any copper piping in any plumbing systems or copper roofing on new buildings because of the amount of copper that ends up in the Baltic Sea due to its use. It's very comprehensive and indicates the seriousness with which they believe there are viable alternatives. If you get some time, read through it:
http://www.miljobarometern.stockholm.se/default.asp?mp=EP
I believe that Hammarby Sjostad went or aimed far beyond the city's sustainable goals.
I don't understand yet exactly how it works, but apparently most of the heating for all the buildings in Stockholm comes from a central heating plant powered by the combustible waste of all the city's residents. It seems like it would be a very complicated system- but hopefully I'll have time to research how it works. Hammarby is tied into this system, so that their combustibles contribute to the overall system.
There are systems for recovering energy from waste, as well as a number of experimental systems with treating the waste water at Hammarby. The system that performs the best will eventually be implemented for the whole project. Recovered biogas from the residents' waste is used as fuel for cars and busses. (All city busses run on biogas or ethanol). All surface water runoff is treated locally before discharging into the lake, and there are many water features on the property that make use of this runoff. There is a vacuum system at Hammarby for all of the residents' garbage; people place their trash and recyclables in large tubes that take their trash to a central place, and then the garbage truck plugs into the system and sucks all the garbage out. Residents do quite a bit of sorting of their trash and recyclables, but there is generally a place for everything and so the system is very user-friendly. For example, there is a place for putting dead batteries, or old lightbulbs, or miscellaneous broken small electronics like last year's ipod. Besides the biogas that can be taken out of the organic waste, remaining sludge is treated and can be used in agriculture as fertilizer, etc. One of our stops, where we received much of our information, was the GlashusEtt, which is an information center for the area and also serves as a point of information for the residents of Hammarby. While we were talking to Josephine, who was incredibly helpful, residents kept coming in and getting garbage bags for food waste; these garbage bags are biodegradeable, made from corn, and can integrate into the whole organic waste system.
There are both solar cells and solar panels at Hammarby; due to the climate the solar cells are pretty limited in their usefulness, with each square meter of solar cells providing 3 square meters of housing with its energy needs. The amount of surface area required is pretty vast. The solar panels, where installed, are providing somewhere around 50% of the hot water to any building that has them. Residents of Hammarby are encouraged to buy their energy from a renewable energy provider, but this is not required, and apparently there has been some difficulty getting people to buy from these sources even though the cost is not that much greater.
For more photos of Hammarby, see: http://my.opera.com/Lagom_Arkitektur/albums/
I will be posting more on this project as I learn more. It seems remarkable from a large-scale urban planning point of view, and quality of construction and quality of life seems high (it has become a very desirable place to live for upper-middle class to wealthy young families). It was dissapointing that lower income families are economically shut out of Hammarby, and according to Josephine, the costs of cleanup and all of the infrastructure was so high that the costs for the units had to be higher than is typical. All buildings were required to use environmentally friendly building materials.
I have a number of questions about the performance of the project, and certain decisions that were made. One oversight is any sun control or shading devices, and I was told that air conditioning had to be introduced into some of the units because of the heat gain in the summer. By and large, the long axes of these buildings runs Northeast-Southwest, but on only one building that we saw was any shading integrated. The folks at IVL have a different view of the success of Hammarby from that of the brochure; for one thing, it is not living up to the goals that it set for energy efficient performance, and whoever is in charge won't release any information to the public about what it's ultimate consumption is. Also, while it appears to be well-constructed, it sounds like they had to cut a lot of corners on construction towards the end of the project, and some of the materials are failing. Additionally, it sounds like the people in charge of beginning the project, and those that are finishing it, have different goals or bottom lines leading to a disconnect between the original plans and the outcome. As just one example, the main information center, the GlashusEtt, is basically a glass box which in a northern climate is the ultimate in non- sustainable ideas as far as IVL is concerned.
Obviously this raises a lot of the questions that typically raise their heads in the sustainable debate. As part of this question raising and answering, it sounds like I will be a part of a project that IVL is working on in conjunction with the EU and 4 cities that have tried to implement sustainable infrastructure and 'best' building practice: Tallin (Estonia), Malmo(Denmark), Dublin, and Hillerod (Denmark). This project is getting off the ground, but you should check out their website at:
http://www.secureproject.org/
Next stops will be Amsterdam for a couple of days to see the East Docklands Borneo-Sporenberg project, then on to Copenhagen and Malmo to see Bo-01 (Vastra-Hamnen).
All of this makes a lot of sense in relation to the Swedish principle of lagom. Lagom means just the right amount. It is a principle of moderation, but not in a way that means an average, or having to do with asceticism or withholding; my understanding is that it is that sweet spot where everything is just right. There are other subtleties to the term, and it can be thought of as a repression of expression as well, where anything extreme is frowned upon.
You can read more about Lagom at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom
Skogskyrkogården
We've been rewarded with incredible weather here, and I am so thankful that I was permitted to begin this scholarship in the beginning of August. We traveled to Asplund and Lewerentz's Woodland Cemetery on a hot, clear day. The Monument Hall sheltered us from the sun for quite a while before we decided we should move on and see the rest of the grounds and buildings, but mostly we were captivated by the details and materials of construction (simple, unexpected), the proportions of the spaces, the joining of masses (also simple and unexpected), and the wonderful idiosyncracies of all of those things.
This place is a masterpiece in many obvious and not so obvious ways, but one thing that seemed odd to us was the incessant noise of all of the maintenance, and the fact that the design of the grounds would include a need for so much day to day work; it hadn't occurred to me that all of the spaces in the groves and amongst the graves were actually manicured to some degree, (I guess I was expecting less lawn, or an actual return of portions of the cemetery to nature) and while it was visually bucolic there was a frenetic energy to the place. I'm sure that on weekends and holidays it is a peaceful place, and we will be going out there as the seasons change to see it in a different light. I have a lot more to learn about it. We didn't get inside Lewerentz's chapel because of a ceremeony, and in fact, most of the chapels were being used while we were there. We got to the Woodland Chapel just after a service, and I think the small crematorium on that site was in use. Fortunately I don't have a scanner, so I can't post the bad watercolor I did of the woodland chapel, whose proportions are really great and seem simple but are difficult to grasp entirely.
See some photos here: http://my.opera.com/Lagom_Arkitektur/albums/
Hammarby Sjostad
Hammarby Sjostad contains "The Best Environmental Solutions in Stockholm", the brochure proclaims. It is a huge re-development of formerly indusrial property into high-density housing within the city.
For those of you not aware, Stockholm is located on an archipelago (they can't actually agree on how many islands are in it, I've heard 2,000 and I've heard 24,000), but there is water everywhere, some fresh (sweetwater), some brackish, and the Baltic Sea edge. Hammarby is located just across a narrow lake from Sodermalm, which as I understand it was the first island that was developed as part of the city after Gamlastan (old town). The point is that it's very close to the center of the city and is considered central but is still separated from it and requires a 10-15 minute train ride from the city center.
When it is all built, it will have 10,000 units for around 25,000 residents. At this time, about 1/3rd of it is complete. Hammarby was created around the idea that a huge infrastructure of sustainable systems could be laid down upon which a more normal-looking housing development could be created. In this way (a very lagom approach), people would not think of it as weird or outside the mainstream, but the city would be incorporating more radical sustainable technologies into a more typical lifestyle. No reason to rock the boat and create something radical looking. There was a big push to make this a demonstration to the whole world, as Stockholm made a bid for hosting the Olympics.
On a subjective note; I really liked the aesthetics of Hammarby. Maybe because in the US 'safe' and 'sellable' housing means neo-traditional to some extent, whereas in Stockholm 'safe' and 'sellable' means neo-modernist. Anyway, I should form a more articluate discussion about this, but some younger architects that I met at a party were bummed out at the lost opportunity to do something unique and edgy here, and feel that the project is something of a disgrace aesthetically. I'm not sure what they would rather have- more of Calatrava's Turning Torsos? But I'll poll some more architects and try to have a better discussion about this later. I do understand their point to some extent, because so much of the housing here comes in the form of plain and undistinguishable rectangular masses that are whites or beiges or creams.
The city of Stockholm has a pretty involved set of regulations concerning sustainable building; check out their Environmental Program (link below), where they cover everything from building materials to environmental transportation to energy use. For example, they discourage using any copper piping in any plumbing systems or copper roofing on new buildings because of the amount of copper that ends up in the Baltic Sea due to its use. It's very comprehensive and indicates the seriousness with which they believe there are viable alternatives. If you get some time, read through it:
http://www.miljobarometern.stockholm.se/default.asp?mp=EP
I believe that Hammarby Sjostad went or aimed far beyond the city's sustainable goals.
I don't understand yet exactly how it works, but apparently most of the heating for all the buildings in Stockholm comes from a central heating plant powered by the combustible waste of all the city's residents. It seems like it would be a very complicated system- but hopefully I'll have time to research how it works. Hammarby is tied into this system, so that their combustibles contribute to the overall system.
There are systems for recovering energy from waste, as well as a number of experimental systems with treating the waste water at Hammarby. The system that performs the best will eventually be implemented for the whole project. Recovered biogas from the residents' waste is used as fuel for cars and busses. (All city busses run on biogas or ethanol). All surface water runoff is treated locally before discharging into the lake, and there are many water features on the property that make use of this runoff. There is a vacuum system at Hammarby for all of the residents' garbage; people place their trash and recyclables in large tubes that take their trash to a central place, and then the garbage truck plugs into the system and sucks all the garbage out. Residents do quite a bit of sorting of their trash and recyclables, but there is generally a place for everything and so the system is very user-friendly. For example, there is a place for putting dead batteries, or old lightbulbs, or miscellaneous broken small electronics like last year's ipod. Besides the biogas that can be taken out of the organic waste, remaining sludge is treated and can be used in agriculture as fertilizer, etc. One of our stops, where we received much of our information, was the GlashusEtt, which is an information center for the area and also serves as a point of information for the residents of Hammarby. While we were talking to Josephine, who was incredibly helpful, residents kept coming in and getting garbage bags for food waste; these garbage bags are biodegradeable, made from corn, and can integrate into the whole organic waste system.
There are both solar cells and solar panels at Hammarby; due to the climate the solar cells are pretty limited in their usefulness, with each square meter of solar cells providing 3 square meters of housing with its energy needs. The amount of surface area required is pretty vast. The solar panels, where installed, are providing somewhere around 50% of the hot water to any building that has them. Residents of Hammarby are encouraged to buy their energy from a renewable energy provider, but this is not required, and apparently there has been some difficulty getting people to buy from these sources even though the cost is not that much greater.
For more photos of Hammarby, see: http://my.opera.com/Lagom_Arkitektur/albums/
I will be posting more on this project as I learn more. It seems remarkable from a large-scale urban planning point of view, and quality of construction and quality of life seems high (it has become a very desirable place to live for upper-middle class to wealthy young families). It was dissapointing that lower income families are economically shut out of Hammarby, and according to Josephine, the costs of cleanup and all of the infrastructure was so high that the costs for the units had to be higher than is typical. All buildings were required to use environmentally friendly building materials.
I have a number of questions about the performance of the project, and certain decisions that were made. One oversight is any sun control or shading devices, and I was told that air conditioning had to be introduced into some of the units because of the heat gain in the summer. By and large, the long axes of these buildings runs Northeast-Southwest, but on only one building that we saw was any shading integrated. The folks at IVL have a different view of the success of Hammarby from that of the brochure; for one thing, it is not living up to the goals that it set for energy efficient performance, and whoever is in charge won't release any information to the public about what it's ultimate consumption is. Also, while it appears to be well-constructed, it sounds like they had to cut a lot of corners on construction towards the end of the project, and some of the materials are failing. Additionally, it sounds like the people in charge of beginning the project, and those that are finishing it, have different goals or bottom lines leading to a disconnect between the original plans and the outcome. As just one example, the main information center, the GlashusEtt, is basically a glass box which in a northern climate is the ultimate in non- sustainable ideas as far as IVL is concerned.
Obviously this raises a lot of the questions that typically raise their heads in the sustainable debate. As part of this question raising and answering, it sounds like I will be a part of a project that IVL is working on in conjunction with the EU and 4 cities that have tried to implement sustainable infrastructure and 'best' building practice: Tallin (Estonia), Malmo(Denmark), Dublin, and Hillerod (Denmark). This project is getting off the ground, but you should check out their website at:
http://www.secureproject.org/
Next stops will be Amsterdam for a couple of days to see the East Docklands Borneo-Sporenberg project, then on to Copenhagen and Malmo to see Bo-01 (Vastra-Hamnen).
jeffmott # Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:26:19 PM
Anyrate, keep in touch. Let me know when you're planning on heading to Trondhiem. I might tag along. I'll be solvant again about the middle of October.
Keep it light. Hey, to Paul.