water_sc[r]ape - Atelier 27

Hammaro, Sweden Sustainable Satellite To create a new heritage for the future in the municipality of Hammaro is the basic idea we decided to bet on. Water_sc®ape, is a project that collects the main characteristics of the landscape, both visible and invisible to transform them in a new iconic urban form.

Small medieval town is the most representative example of a city whose morphology originates its identity; integration between landscape, site and people determinate a system of values based on the idea of a civic life running in a dense urban space; furthermore its recognizable image makes it an icon in the landscape. The idea of developing an attractive urban form as a means to create a ‘heritage for the future’ originates from the existing built environment, by both giving it the role of town centre and transforming it into the core of the urban revitalization. We approached this issue ‘surrounding’ rather than ‘invading’ the village in order to preserve and improve Hammaro’s natural features and convert this little centre into a symbol for the whole municipality. The main role in this process is to be played by an element embedded into the landscape, water. Water is an adaptable and adaptive element par excellence: apart from sustaining life, it has no shape of its own and it can take any shape in which it is placed; it changes its state as the seasons change and it’s an important way for public transport. Swedish fiordish bays, lake water and water coming from melted ice are the basis of this transformation. Water is the instrument to create a new order in the existing built environment and to set the rules for future developments.

Water digs the ground enclosing the village to emphasize its role as cultural and historical centre; water builds new public spaces creating a difference in height able to host new housing; water depicts new connections between Hammaro and the main Swedish cities through ship canals. Here comes a “landscrape”: a landscape engraved by water that let us to settle down new inhabitants along the canals without damaging the environment. This ‘canyon’ generates a new sustainable way for public mobility by boat and creates public spaces along canals provided by both urban and environmental quality. The incisions on the land host new housing able to keep intact the landscape; they face the canals and stay under the native level of the ground, allowing us to institute pedestrian, cycling and skiing paths in the landscape as near the water. So, water represents the visible-invisible thread that permits us to change the meaning of spaces in different ways; it gives a new quality to the place by using the territory as an opportunity for a sustainable development and by appointing it a clear identity. It’s something that works as a timeline of the urban rhythm, controlling its progress and incorporating the notion of time and evolution.

Water_sc®ape maximizes interactions between existing buildings, new housing, economic progress and environmental conservation suggesting a model of development based on slow growth and density control. The focus of this system is based on five concepts aim to activate a sustainable, efficient and dynamic town: culture, youth, business, landscape and common good. They are the main guides to create an adaptable city betting on young people and changing its features depending on season and time. This will be the Hammaro of the future, a city whose morphology is in continuous evolution and whose form is capable of adapting to every season and ready to respond to climatic changes without losing its identity and recognisability.

the shape of Hammaro Going toward sustainability it means sharing a project of development and coordinate local actions on the territory. To achieve this goal we need to think about a cohesive community who could share strategies, aims and collective spaces. Urban form has to encourage exchange of ideas, thus architecture must become a tool to give a home to the common ground and plan a city step by step. This model focuses on public life and meeting places, thus urban form structures itself exploiting a sequence of wastelands and urban voids kept together by water; the aim is to create a public space network dedicated to urban cohesion and sustainable development. These must be the places where natural and cultural environment meet new urban and economic development; although they consider and work on what’s already built and existing specific natural qualities, they can be suitable to each situation of the future. This is the new idea of sustainability: increasing urban intensity to make a malleable city plenty of community spaces, to be used at different times and at all weather conditions, a large system of a city where people could establish complementary and interdependence relationships. Waterscrape isn’t a series of building and squares laying down on landscape but it’s a landscape itself: if the medieval city was the result of a built block cut by streets, our satellite is carved on the ground giving people the possibility to live the compact city down near the water and to observe an untouched landscape up on the roofs.

improving Hammaro Swedish social democracy it’s an excellent model of development because is based on synergies between State, private business and social equity. Interactions between common good and private practise are the answer to the economic sustainable development for future. Innovation starts by maximising the use of the existing buildings and infrastructures to activate new programs including new business and activities, betting on youth and culture. Our idea of progress comes from some specifi c qualities of Hammaro like agriculture lands, lakes, forest, road network, public mobility and service spaces. Land, soil, home, agriculture, climate, resources and biodiversity are part of a progressive program which starts off with the use of existing materials projected into a sustainable future. How can we create attractive businesses without damaging the image of the landscape and just preserving and improving Hammaro’s native qualities? The answer is by using site values as driving forces of economic development; by acting with an intensification and diversifi cation of existing building; by adding new iconic elements; by improving tourism related to landscape; and, by creating micro-hubs with rotating activities for the job opportunities. This system acts at three different scales:

the district scale: the place of local activities, facilities and private offices: “micro hubs”, that can be addressed by foot, bike, boat or ski and stimulate urban life;
the metropolitan scale: the place of university and big companies able to attract people from all the country by increasing knowledge and culture;
the territorial scale: the place of nature and research lab, whose features activate scientific and responsable tourism.

adaptable Hammaro Investing on youth and culture, activating economic growth and creating new job opportunity it means found a new urban society wirh new rhythm and dynamics. Water_sc®ape isn’t a static idea of a city but a dynamic and organic masterplan, developed step by step, according to the project of water. It is a multifragment system sewed by water, opposite to the steady character of the existing village. The masterplan doesn’t consider a linear development but proposes different stages according to a grape model of growth: a slow growth based on the same features of the site. Political, economic, social, urban and environmental issues go ahead in parallel during each step of Hammaro’s evolution; they are all merged within an integrated plan sensitive to climatic, weather and lifestyle changes. So, revitalizing the town it means redifi ne the idea of innovation activating a new urban methabolism adaptive to urban form; thus city density is something that responds to a new rule of development: the rule of water. Water draws a malleable city as a network of versatile space, rotating activities, new housing and nature where social life, the spontaneous encounter and neighbor interaction are encouraged in every season and at all weather conditions. Watersc®ape’s new inhabitants can enjoy three types of public spaces:

closable spaces: a route network connecting every district to each other, which has a glazed roof to stay hot in winter capable to be opened in summer, with commercial spaces on its sides;
open spaces: an artifi cial urban space along canal in a deep relationship with nature, ready to be a square in summertime and an ice-skating place in wintertime;
natural spaces: an aggregation of undeveloped lands above new housing ready to be used as park for the inhabitants, reachable by bike in summer, and by cross country skiing in winter.

Hammaro: a good place to live Digging the ground, water builds new public spaces creating a difference in height able to host about 400 new housing units, in addition to the students settled down in the above-mentioned tower. New housing are built in the ground to take advantage of earth heating, to face the waterscape and not to contaminate the landscape. The canal keeps together new houses on a border and urban facilities on the other one, with a distance calculated not to canalize cold winds and to allow sunrays to pass.So the apartments, often southern oriented, take benefits from the view, sunlight and fresh air, while the three levels offices merge with life on the street and on the landscape. Watersc®ape provides residences to people in all of life’s stages through three steps: the first one, expected for 2020 aims to settle down 500 inhabitants; in 2025 they will amount to 1000 and for 2030 we imagine to have a 1500 people community. Our proposal includes apartments of varied sizes, for 3-4 people:, a 60sqm simplex, a 90sqm duplex and a 110sqm duplex as well as small towers for offi ce and shared spaces. Each unit is accessible for pedestrians and cyclist, so by car and boat infact every apartement is provided by a parking space outside.