June 5 . Malmö

Crossing the Border to Sweden
We traveled to Sweden from Copenhagen in the morning. The train ride was about a half an hour to get to Malmö, part of it underwater on the Danish side! There was a good view of the wind turbines that were recently built offshore on the Swedish side. Here we are in the Malmö train station getting ready for our first tour! (Photo, Right)


Malmö’s Harbor “Renaissance?”
Ronny from the Malmö planning department gave us a tour of the harbor redevelopment that has been happening in the city. After the city’s shipping industry left the harbor for a more northerly, more accessible port city of Helsingborg, the city started planning what it was going to do with the industrial vacancies that had been left along the waterfront. Saab moved into one of the buildings for a short time, but after they failed, the city wanted to turn the majority of it into a residential area. Malmö has a few industries left in the harbor area – windmills are made here as well as railcars and those businesses have been asked to move. A large swath of land underwent remediation to clean up any potential hazards that had been left by the industries. Oddly, they built a random skate park in the middle of the concrete jungle (Photo, Right).



The city had an exhibition and many modern buildings were clustered along the waterfront with little rhyme or reason. (Photo, Right) Although I wasn't really clear on why this area developed in this way, I believe it was part of an architectural exhibition.




The Turning Torso, an architectural work designed by Calatrava, was also erected in this area. These expensive apartments have a great view of industrial expanses that have not yet been readied for redevelopment. (Photo, Right) Little planning went into how this part of the city would function and no transit was initially provided to any of these residences. As you can see, the Turning Torso now has it's own bus stop.





We walked through a more pleasant part of the harbor redevelopment which had more of a neighborhood feel. Homes were close together and were very unique, but the area had a pleasant quality to it. It felt like a scaled-down pedestrian friendly version of Ørestad, minus the Metro. The area still felt like a big of a ghost town, but if they can keep a heterogeneous mix of residents (not just wealthy people from Copenhagen) and a few more mixed-use buildings (not just for wealthy people from Copenhagen), this might actually work. Unfortunately I don't have a good photo of what this area looked like but we did see this sweet cat rolling around at the playground. (Photo, Right)


Quick Fact: While I was in Sweden I learned that mail is delivered by bicycle, year round! This holds true for Denmark as well, at least in Copenhagen! Sweet eh? (Photo, Right)



Austenborg Goes Eco
Louise Lundborg, the superintendent of Austenborg’s Botanical Roof Gardens showed us an ambitious sustainability project occurring in a neighborhood of Malmö called Austenborg. (Photo, Right) The neighborhood had declined since it was first built and had high levels of unemployment. In the 1990’s a person had a visionary idea for this area -- to turn it into an "eco city" for sustainable future. The neighborhood already had many residents, making communication with the ordinary citizens necessary for the transformation process. Unlike the area in the Harbor where eco-conscious citizens are being invited to live there and engage in sustainable practices, the sustainability features of this site had to be tailored to the people already living there.

We walked along paths adjacent to the roof to see the green roof research that they are doing in Austenborg. There were several different environments that had been created. The most simple was a hardy plant species that did not need much soil depth and stays close to the substrate. I really liked the way this looked – like an amoeba. (Photo, Right) This type would be the easiest to retrofit on an existing building because it is very drought tolerant (does not need any irrigation channels), has only a few inches of soil (so weight is less of a concern), and needs very little maintenance. The photo shows the roof gardens but also all of the solar collectors on the buildings that also serve a double purpose as shades for the windows. In the far background you can see solar hot water collectors.




We were also shown other types of planting that required greater soil depth, irrigation, and more maintenance. Here I am in the herb garden on the roof! (Photo, Right) I really can't wait to get back to my garden in Milwaukee. I'm a little behind because of this trip!




Stormwater management is done through an open moat system running through the residential areas. When the rain comes down, they fill up in sequence, and also flood a wetland area that is built into the landscaping. The moats fill up and then are allowed to slowly evaporate. Most of the neighborhood had to be re-landscaped to fufil this goal but residents are now happy because their basements don't back up with sewer-water when it rains.

The residents also engage in a recycling program. The largest part of getting this to work was education. Louise told us they started in the schools and educated all of the children on how this works -- then the children would take the information home and share it with the families. Each group of flats has a recycling "station" that they take all of their waste products to sort -- even compost, batteries and computer parts! Here I am in the recycling shed discussing how cool all of this with Ryan (Photo, Right).

Let me just say that after the windy harbor tour and the eco city tour we were exhausted. These pictures are a testament to that:







So true to good form, we went out to a pub!



Back in Copenhagen, Out on the Town
Rachel and I went out to Distortion Festival in Norrebro
Here we learned several important lessons:
1 --Danish guys don't dance.
2--Techno is not our thing.