Sustainable community planning in focus: lessons from the Arctic Design Center
For two and a half years, Arctic Design Center has worked to strengthen Norrbotten's capacity in sustainable community planning.
– Early in the project, we realized that the municipalities need someone to roll up their sleeves with them, says project manager Carolina Lundmark Weinz.
Now the lessons learned will be taken into account in a new project for housing supply.
Arctic Design Center has served as a unifying link, a place where problems meet solutions and where ideas can grow. The goal was to establish a node in upper Norrland for issues related to the policy area of designed living environment. From the beginning, there was discussion about whether the node should be a physical center or a function. The project manager's investigation gave a clear answer.
– We have managed to listen to what the actual needs are in the county. It is not a physical center that is needed, but the function that connects expertise and needs, strengthens development efforts and is a unifying node between actors, says Carolina Lundmark Weinz.
She describes a county where there is great willingness to work on the issues, but also many obstacles to doing so.
– There is a major shortage of resources in the municipalities. You are stuck with these daily tasks that you have to get done, and you don't have time for development work.Carolina Lundmark Weinz is now finishing her project management job for Arctic Design Center – and is moving on to the sequel, BOST.
She highlights that much of Norrbotten's buildings date from the 1960s and 70s, and that the need for maintenance and development is great.
“Where we are, it is absolutely indefensible not to manage and develop the resources that already exist in the first place. And we have a huge journey to make there,” she says.
Since many municipalities in the county have done very little with both new construction and development for several decades, there is a lack of current knowledge and experience. The project has aimed to fill that void.
“Incredibly important resource”
Arctic Design Center has provided assistance from students at Luleå University of Technology. Several initiatives have, or will involve students. Students at the architecture program of the Master of Science in Engineering have contributed ideas to Älvsbyn municipality. One of these students then made a thesis on public health-promoting community planning commissioned by Arctic Design Center. Students were asked to come up with proposals for a movable pavilion building and this summer Luleå and Piteå welcome architecture students from all over the world to the Arknat architecture festival.
– The students are an incredibly important resource, because they are the future community planners and community builders. There is a win-win in being able to strengthen their education. They have the sustainability perspective, the holistic perspective, systems thinking and all that. We want to sharpen that knowledge even more by working in concrete cases.
The example of Älvsbyn clearly shows how the project has worked in practice. Students from LTU were tasked with analyzing and proposing changes in the city center. In parallel, the Co-Creation Agency worked with citizen dialogue. The result was a report that the municipality is now using for continued development.
Both the students and the Medskapandebyrån identified the small lake, with an adjoining park, near Storgatan in Älvsbyn as an important area to build on.
The hope is that some of the students will then choose to start their professional lives in the county. One who saw the opportunities was the student who did her degree project in collaboration with the Arctic Design Center. She chose to stay in Norrbotten after graduation and now works here.
– When they finish, they will have incredibly valuable skills on how to build a sustainable society. Many of the students are not from Norrbotten and have never visited our municipalities before. When they graduate, they will have already built relationships with the municipalities in Norrbotten, they have a local contact. And they have seen that this is a place with incredible opportunities.
“Will, drive and competence”
– There are such fantastic people working on these issues, all over the county. There is a will, drive and competence. And everyone wants this. What a great bunch we have in Norrbotten, she says.
Arctic Design Center has made that will visible and supported it with knowledge, structure and new working methods. Documenting and highlighting local good examples has also been important.
– Something that has been incredibly rewarding in this project is that we have been able to make one, soon two films about actors who have made fantastic journeys implementing the values of the policy area. And that is something that is very concrete, and we will see that we can do it too.
“Need more housing quickly”
Another lesson is that social values are often overlooked, something she describes as the biggest obstacle to development. The established policy for a designed living environment states that short-term economic gains must not be prioritized over long-term social values. But in practice, this is difficult. Carolina points to a paradox: the need for more housing and the demand for speed.
– We need more housing and it needs to happen quickly. We don't have the luxury of making the demands we would like to make. And then you end up compromising on social values all the time.
She sees a solution in clearer regulations.
– Some form of legislation is needed for social values. The Planning and Building Act is not enough. Social values are constantly being downgraded. We should have a social declaration for every construction project, just as there is a requirement for climate declarations for all new and renovations. Otherwise, development will be too slow, says Carolina Lundmark Weinz.
It is a challenge to prioritize social values when Norrbotten needs to build a lot of new things in a short time. Photo: Simon Eliasson.
Carolina believes that the years with the project have resulted in a regional knowledge boost in the area and that we have become better at collaborating across actor boundaries - now we are ready to take new steps in the development journey. Arctic Design Center is now ending, but the work continues in BOST - a new three-year project with Region Norrbotten, Invest in Norrbotten and Luleå University of Technology. The project is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and will be project managed by Carolina.
“The foundation for building further”
– Now we are zooming in further and looking at concrete initiatives for a sustainable housing supply, and not just through new construction. For example, we need to stimulate relocation chains and strengthen and develop what is already built. Find circular models for the construction sector. Densify, so that we don't take up more land.
The work is now continuing in new forms. Attractive and safe living environments have been included as a goal in Norrbotten's new regional development strategy (RUS) and an action plan should be developed.
– It is important to create a hierarchy in the development of the policy area – if there is a formulation in RUS and an action plan, then we can formulate projects accordingly, apply for funds and get more resources into the municipalities. That is the basis for building on and creating more initiatives going forward, says Carolina Lundmark Weinz.
Text: Sara Stylbäck Vesa
