GOTHENBURG SWEDEN

The smaller and friendly cousin to Stockholm on the west coast of Sweden has industrial roots in shipping, fishing and textiles. Since the mid-1990s the sound of pile drivers has echoed from across the water to downtown Gothenburg as new offices and residential buildings cropped up along the north banks of the Göta Älv river in a development called Norra Älvstranden. More than 600 acres of industrial property along a five-kilometer stretch between the Älvsborgsbron Bridge and the Göta Älvbron Bridge on the island of Hisingen have undergone a major transformation. 

New offices and apartment units are lined up in tidy rows of colorful buildings along the river like the shipping containers that once sat there. Construction has progressed from central Sannegårdshamnen south to Eriksburg and north to Lindholmen comprising some 6,000 new residential units and over 200,000 ft2 of office space. By the time it is completed in 2025 it will house 13,000 people, provide offices for 40,000 and have 13,000 students. These are impressive figures for any city. When you consider that the population of Gothenburg is approximately 500,000 people, they are staggering. 

The public boats ferry passengers to and from the Lilla Bommen port at Central Station three times an hour throughout the day keeping commute times minimal. Critical mass has triggered another wave of development brining grocery stores, community centers and more businesses, as if to fulfill the promise: build it and they will come.

 RIVER CITY

The City recognizes they have a winner on their hands, so have plans to develop sites further east, further west and on the south side of the river. Norra Älvstranden together with these new developments will form River City. Gothenburg sought assistance from outside to help envision a new plan for the city. To do this they used a unique process. Rather than initiating a worldwide competition and selecting a single winning scheme, this spring, Gothenburg invited design teams to a workshop where they would have an opportunity to present and discuss master plan concepts. From around 100 applications received, they chose 10 teams from all over the world to present on June 11^th. 

Then the teams shared and exchanged ideas in a series of brainstorming sessions and workshops throughout the week. The presentations and discussions are on YouTube and the material from these presentations is on display in central Gothenburg next to the Ferris wheel. In the summer of 2012 the city will make a decision on the River City vision. It remains to be seen what this process will yield. Now that Gothenburg is armed with ideas from 10 teams, the question is: can the city planners hit the target?

LINDHOLMEN

Businesses and schools, located primarily in the growing Lindholmen Science Park, take advantage of a short jump across the bridge to downtown. The initial wave of businesses slowly filled out the existing industrial warehouse buildings in the area. These are widely spaced buildings with vast seas of asphalt between them. The injection of parking planters and tree lined paths to main entrances are modest improvements. 

The east side of the marina remains an inhospitable space to pedestrians. Crossing the marina bridge to the west, the Science Park is a cluster of new office buildings adjacent to the Lindholmen campus of Chalmers IT University. 

The hub of this school and business complex is the “Kuggen (The Cog)” building by WingårdhsArchitects. The design goal for heating energy use is 60 KwH/m2 per year, a high bar for an office building rivaling the targeted average heating energy use for the Royal Seaport development. Bold form and unconventional planning are the byproduct of a thoughtful energy conscious concept. The colorful terra cotta panels are symbolic of the energy and vibrancy of ideas this building is designed to incubate. 

The bridge connections to the school and office building enforce this idea. Inside are flexible work environments to foster innovation and collaboration between the university and businesses. Triangular windows maximize views and daylight while minimizing open area and heat loss. Solar panels on the roof generate a percentage of the buildings power needs. The halo of steel rails around the top floor of the building is the guide for a kinetic billboard-sized, multi-colored brise soleil that tracks the sun throughout the day. This building is a carnival of design ideas - an architect’s fantasy realized.

Developments in River City are guided by the national building codes for energy. The Hamnhuset apartment buildings in the Sannegårdshamnen area have gone well beyond this requirement by building to the Passivhus standard. At 115 units, it is Sweden's largest passive house.  The apartments are heated not by radiators but by household appliances and the occupants’ own body heat. The ground-breaking design uses just a quarter of the energy of conventional housing and generates 70% lower carbon dioxide emissions compared with a standard block of flats. This CNN video will tell you more about passive house design.

PASSIVEHUS CENTRUM

Passivhus Centrum is a Swedish sponsored organization responsible for educating designers and contractors in the building industry about the details, technology and methods required to build a passive house. The center is an educational resource to the industry; a showroom for Swedish manufactured heat exchangers and refrigerators; a gallery for full size mockup wall sections, slab insulation details and building materials; and classroom environments for instruction.

In 2010 the building code advisory of the EU directed that, effective 2020, new residential buildings shall achieve a “near zero energy” standard of 15 kwH/m2 per year (avoiding the use of the trademark “Passivhus” term.) The only known way to achieve this standard is through passive house techniques like those Hans Eek is teaching at the center.

The techniques are not technically difficult to understand, nor are they expensive additions to the bottom line construction cost. Reports on the Lindas and Sannegårdshamnen projects in Gothenburg indicate that the additional 4-5% construction costs are offset within a 5-10 year period by the reduced energy costs. Based on figures for the retrofit of a 1970’s housing project in Alsingsos, the technique is cost effective on existing buildings, too.

The biggest challenges in implementing these requirements are keeping the building materials dry and maintaining the quality of construction required to achieve the strict air infiltration requirements. By making the requirements clear from the outset and providing instructional material to assist designers and builders through the process, Sweden has managed to overcome these challenges.

I left my meeting with Hans Eek at the Swedish Passivhus Centrum inspired to extol the virtues of passive house design like an evangelical preacher. Sealing and insulating the building better can make a house 10 times more efficient than current standards. No other single product or system approach comes close to this kind of savings. Implementing passive house strategies in new housing projects should be a no-brainer.