Fastighetsbaren X BAU architects ☼ Industry talks about Stockholm city development
• 14/11/24 •
Valuable insights from City Architect Torleif Falk and from the developer side, Linn-Marie Nordh, Director at Pembroke. Also, an important reminder from BAU founder Hans Birkholz about where we actually come from when looking at the historic developments of inner city neighbourhoods in Stockholm.
Another iteration of Fastighetsbaren around two significant inner city developments in central Stockholm, Snäckan and Kv. Hästen, hosted by BAU architects. Great moderation by Cecilia Hägglund Skog, bringing history together with process, as well as thoughts on the future.
From our perspective, these talks focus a lot on the physical transformation, as well as the process from idea to collaboration (both creative and judicial) with city planners, only lightly touching topics like social activation and 'place and property brands'. In todays architectural landscape, it is interesting that only a few developers highlight and utilise the place development process as a backbone to how the architecture comes alive and gets activated.
Developers like Atrium Ljungberg combine social planning with long term, pre-development activation (Nobelberget and Slakthusområdet) to front-load newborn areas, as well as rejuvenated quarters, to establish them before any architecture is touched. Flexibility is not only about the collaboration between city planning and architects, it should also be about how to approach change or 'product development' in and around city centres. Just like a handful co-existing and industry leading sneaker brands can have their own target groups and markets, place branding works as a key element in the development process, establishing an identity early on that users, residents, visitors and businesses can identify with, and make them want to invest time and effort into. Make them deviate off the beaten path, and even start cafes, gyms, galleries and other excellent cultural platforms to establish the local 'fan base'.