Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

As harbours all over the world are being modernised and converted into non-industrial areas. Many older port areas have been subjected to tabula rasa transformations that erases the sites specific qualities and ignores their context in the urban fabric. Often the result is revealed to be an international, standardised design, with little regard to the site itself. It is a development that make these areas look almost identical no matter where they are found.

As these large and often expensive developments stagnate easily at times of economic decline, a new approach is needed that also incorporates the uncertainties that future transformation areas face.

To incorporate the existing sites relationship with the future and past site this thesis explores theories and example projects that relates to site and transformation, with temporary use as an important part as both catalyst and appropriator of short-term spaces.
The purpose is to find a strategy to evolve sites rather than creating new ones by incorporating the site relationships with structures, practices and users and translating them into the future design.
The result is a strategy that connects Nyhamnen to the other parts of Malmö and provides
catalyst sites for development. The catalyst sites embrace the areas changeability and are designed to be flexible by being temporary and moveable, and by providing a framework for future interventions.

These approaches are hampered by todays building regulations and traditional views on development as a linear process. Therefore Nyhamnen is proposed to become a testing area for an evolving approach and transformation of harbour areas, so that it later can inform changes in regulations and inspire flexibilty in the development process.