Blue-green infrastructure in a grey city district
Client
Helsingborg is one of the fastest growing cities in Sweden. By 2035, the city is expected to have grown by approximately 40,000 new residents. The city must therefore be densified, and more districts must be made attractive into areas to work and live in. This is where the H+ Urban Renewal Project comes into play, which is the largest urban renewal project in Helsingborg in modern times. The name H+ comes from the fact that Helsingborg will add more residents, more companies and also more meeting spots. The H+ area is comprised of the new and existing districts of Oceanhamnen, the University District, the Husar District and Gåsebäck. These will be linked to the city center and the surrounding districts.
An important part of H+ is the old industrial district of Gåsebäck. Previously, there has not been much here other than industries and car repair shops, but by 2035 Gåsebäck will be transformed from an industrial area into a mixed district with housing, businesses and green areas. While much lies in the future, the city has made efforts to increase the well-being of Gåsebäck, including organizing festivals with a street art theme. During the festivals, dull and dark public spaces have been brightened up by graffiti artists' nature-inspired artwork, and Gåsebäck now has one of Sweden's longest graffiti walls.
However, much remains to be done to achieve the city's goal with Gåsebäck: the area should be both greened and beautified so that more people want to and and are able to be there at all hours of the day. How this will be achieved is still uncertain, not least since the city only owns a fraction of the land in the area. But the city has the citizens of Helsingborg to gain help from. An important part of the urban development project in Gåsebäck has since the beginning been to look after those who move and work in the area. By listening to their ideas and needs, the city is assisted in finding the way forward.
Task
Gåsebäck is strongly characterised by industry, which implies a lot of asphalt, concrete and other hard surfaces. This is not optimal for the area's water intake and management. When new construction is carried out in Gåsebäck, the ambition is that the existing water supply and sanitation infrastructure will be supplemented with blue-green solutions of various kinds. However, the question is how to do this in a good way, given the area's many hard surfaces and the fact that the city only owns a small part of the land in Gåsebäck. In this project, you will investigate how blue-green infrastructure can be incorporated in a smart way in an area with special conditions. Is it possible to work with different blue-green solutions that do not require much space, and that work in areas with a small proportion of permeable land surface? And can this blue-green infrastructure also be designed in a way that increases well-being and makes more people want to stay in Gåsebäck?
Suggestively, you will in this project select some focus areas in Gåsebäck and provide concrete proposals for how blue-green solutions could be implemented in these places. How much water could your proposed solutions help absorb? What additional benefits can the solutions provide, such as shade or cooling? What maintenance do the solutions require? Your starting point for the project should be a dialogue with the city about their development plans for relevant areas, as well as what the water supply infrastructure currently looks like.
Relevant SDGs
