Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In the urban planning debate of today, two strategies for city development stand out as each other's opposites, urban sprawl and smart growth. This thesis concerns a development project of the latter kind and aims to give an alternative proposal to new buildings and a park in a Swedish city block.

The term sprawl is used for new developments on virgin soil on the outskirts of cities leading to a city spreading, while smart growth stand for increased city density through development on re-used land within the city boundaries. The latter are often seen as more sustainable in many levels and are also shown to have positive effects on a number of city functions. At the same time smart growth has negative consequences on other aspects of the city such as public open spaces. Since open spaces are un-built ground inside the city, and therefore effects city expansion, they are often used for smart growth building projects. At the same time many public open spaces, such as green areas, are popular and well used areas among the inhabitants. Community planners aim to use improved quality in green areas as a way to compensate the loss of open spaces. There are many factors that could affect the quality of places, for example location and city structure, human movements, accessibility and visibility as well as size and content of the area.

The Swedish city Uppsala is increasingly growing and there is a great demand on housing. A demand that is faced through conversion of larger areas and infill inside the city. The aim is to create a denser and more sustainable city and also fulfill a public need of better public transport amongst other things. But the inhabitants of Uppsala value their green areas greatly and this creates local newspaper debates. These inhabitants express either positive and negative views on the city development, but the majority becomes displeased when the urban planning inflicts green areas.

The city block Seminariet in Uppsala is a present project of condensation in one of Uppsala's larger re-developing districts called Librobäck. Both new buildings and a park are to be situated in the block. Today the block contains the former institution for educational studies and a garden and a free-standing brick building surrounded by a garden dominates it. It is a larger green area in a city district with a small amount of public open spaces. The garden is not very much used as a public park, but because of an increasing district population due to new housing blocks, it might become more and more important as a green space. There are many qualities in the garden, such as a fully grown green structure, its history and strong identity and a lot of space to play and have picnic on. The block is also situated in between two well-liked green routes and three city districts, all with very little public open space. A park in the block may become a green passageway and a link between these district and green routes.

This proposal to an local development plan aims to create a park with good accessibility and visibility from passing streets. Three new building blocks are to be situated in the corners of the block leaving a wide strip of park ground in between. This saves an adequate part of the old orchard and many existing qualities. It creates a park of approximately 17 500 m2, hopefully with enough space to contain many different outdoor. The park connects to the main street in the area and to a path leading to the neighbor district. This makes the park easier to notice. With a linkage to other green areas, a good visibility in the city structure, many qualities and its historical identity, the park becomes a popular district park, known to more than just its neighborhood.