Test Case 2: Kungsängen

Overview | Site | Scale | Settlement | Network | Productive block | Typologies

The Productive City - Overview

Overview Expanding the catalogue of Inputs
So far we've seen how our system performs on a small site, grafted into an existing urban fabric.  We've also explored in more depth, the emergent spatial characteristics of a 1 km2 prototypical tissue generated without a context.

Now we'd like to turn our attention to a largely undeveloped rural site within the greater Stockholm urban region to test how the system adapts to new contexts and populations, how it will perform on larger sites, and what sorts of new inputs will be needed for implementation in new territories.

Stockholm is actively pursuing progressive policy efforts to both mitigate and prepare for the effects of climate change, including a goal to be fossil fuel free by 2050 and the adaptation of building codes for a warmer wetter climate.  Within the next 50-100 years, Stockholm is expecting a 4-6 deg C. increase in average temperature (comparable to Barcelona today), 0.5m sea level rise and, most interesting to us, a 1-2 months extended growing season.  

Additionally, within the next 20-30 years the city is expecting 150,000 new residents.  By then, some projections are that the earth's mid-latitudes will be nearly uninhabitable, precipitating unprecedented migrations.  Scandinavian countries are preparing for an influx of environmentally displaced peoples.
However, nowhere in Stockholm's climate strategy, that we have found, do they address agriculture or food policy, one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.  

Therefore we propose to a build a new city for 150,000 people, on an agricultural peninsula near Kungsängen, 30 min from Stockholm by commuter rail.  This new community will serve as a prototype, mixing urban commuters from Stockholm, with climate refugees arriving with agrarian skills, creating a working model for a new Productive City.