Building on a long-term research effort on the National Urban Park in Stockholm, the Beijer urban research group in collaboration with architects has been key in integrating social-ecological considerations in the early planning process of a new university campus area.This initiative won support from the real-estate owner (Akademiska hus), the future tenant (StockholmUniversity), and guarded support from civil society organizations mobilizing to protect NUP.
The Albano area in Stockholm is a contested brownfield located within the park close to the city centre, scheduled for hosting 100 000 m2 of research- and student space for the expansion of Stockholm University.
For the coming years this transdisciplinary project aims at making Albano not only the preferred meeting site for the three largest universities in Scandinavia (KTH, SU and KI), but also aims at increasing the capacity of the area to generate ecosystem services.
Tentative designs include use of local conditions for energy production, and greening of buildings with vegetation selected in relation to the surrounding landscape, and designing of new habitats to support landscape ecological processes of species migration, pollination and seed-dispersal.
It also involves development of institutional designs related to “urban green commons" by which local civil society organizations, students, and scholars can become managers and stewards of habitats and green areas in the area (from wetland ponds to allotment gardens).
Hence, this is an action-research oriented study project for integrating ecosystem services in urban designs, where project researchers take the double role of problem solvers on equal footing with practitioners and as observers, evaluating and documenting the process and its results.
