The urban planning of the future invites nature

In 2022, Belatchew won Sweden's first natural course land designation competition together with Selvaag Bostad and Urbio. Nina Åman is an urban architect at Nacka municipality, which organized the competition, and she shares her challenges and visions regarding urban planning.

 

– In a natural environment, nature is integrated into the city in a way that climate-proofs the future. Here in Nacka, we have nature, mountains, sea and lake that characterize the municipality, says Nina Åman.

Bringing nature into the city and the buildings requires new ways of thinking and planning, so that after a few years the reality still looks like the visionary images.

– In this land reference, we focused a lot on that in the evaluation criteria and we got great solutions for how the greenery can be integrated into the building. In Selvaag’s concept, they also have a host in the house who can help with irrigation, says Nina.

But building sustainably and at the same time maintaining good architecture involves challenges because an important aspect of sustainability is building with quality.

– In architecture and urban planning, it is part of handling challenges with a focus on building both robust and beautiful while being climate-smart. As a municipality, we cannot set special requirements, but we see that more and more building operators are working actively with the climate issue. For example, some have started to build only in wood. And we as a municipality encourage to always work more sustainably. The climate issue is now a hygiene factor and something that will become more and more integrated in society, says Nina.

– Another thing that is important is that we have to rethink how we plan urban development when we decide where the storm water should go and where we should have bicycle parking. We must also start by protecting biological diversity and creating meeting places for people where people can spontaneously meet and talk to each other.

– In Sweden, perhaps many people live alone, there is a war around the corner and the climate crisis is becoming more and more apparent. I think we humans need a little more kindness. And if we can contribute to that by bringing people closer together and creating a city with nature in it, then we are well on our way to sustainable construction for the future, concludes Nina Åman.