Detailed development plans

The developed environment will be neat and orderly and serve a useful purpose too. It will be understandable. In addition, the developed environment will offer great stimulation and provide pleasure for the senses. It will respect our need for tender care, empathy and love - it will be a sheltered spot in the sun. It will help and not hinder us from making contact with others. It will respect our need to feel safe and secure, and our need to be proud of where we live.

The Bo01 housing district constitutes the first stage in the transformation of Västra Hamnen into a new, complete city district for housing, services, work and education. It will have the character of the inner city (proposal to general plan, May 1998). The very essence and justification of this city is the interplay between its people and cultures. The design and development of this district will contribute significantly to this interplay. At the same time, it will be sufficiently robust and general to be able to meet the unknown demands of tomorrow.
Based on these conditions, we have drawn up the following proposals:

• a network structure for the neighbourhood
• a clear dividing line between private and public
• a small-scale grouping of properties, with a selection of different types of housing environments and rental conditions
• a building where it is possible to establish businesses
• cars are allowed access but pedestrians have priority
• an abundance of vegetation in all shapes and sizes, from individual gardens to the sheltered, lush parkway through the heart of the area.

The plans have also been governed by the magnificence of the site, as well as by its exposure to the sea, the open sky, the horizon, the sunset and the wind. Malmö?s direct encounter with the sea has been re-established through the creation of a built-up area with a sheltered centre, in the way that cities by the sea have always been built.

An attractive and verdant area, intersected by streets, alleys and urban parkways. Spatial order and intelligibility has been achieved in Västra Hamnen with its strict, wide-meshed grid of large avenues. Yet at the same time, in the centre of this grid, space has been allowed for a bustling, less orderly world with unexpected transitions, dramatic suspense between the grandiose and the intimate. . It's not what you would call disorder. It's a more liberal type of order. This grid structure also helps link the Bo01 area to future housing in the Västra Hamnen district. That is how plans have developed.

The grid has been distorted, partly by the wind, like a fishing net hung out to dry, and might well have become more rational thanks to this, more worthwhile to build, live and stroll around in. The layout of the district has not grown slowly and steadily, but is a modern-day development. It is an attempt to achieve the perfect balance amongst all the elements required by town architecture - sun, shelter, land development, security, peace and quiet, vehicle access, intelligibility, pleasurable to the senses, to mention but a few. Inspiration comes from antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, baroque, the 20th century and present-day.

Roles models come from typical North European cities such as Malmö - low, dense, intimate, well-planned cities.The architecture reflects the views of the construction companies and the architects on good, sustainable housing in this day and age.

To conclude: A stair rail can be made from a straight piece of wood. It can also be made from a gently curved, turned birch rail, which is better suited to the physical and sensuous ergonomic needs of our bodies and hands and is therefore regarded as more pleasing. Just like this birch rail, the plans for the Bo01 area intend to lay the basis for a district that people find suitable, practical and stimulating and which affords great pleasure.
By professor Klas Tham