Dockside Living with Cutting Edge Eco-solutions

Av Peter Nilsson
Publicerad Wednesday 24 September, 2008.

Sundsvall harbour still retains an atmosphere from its old wood industry, and warehouses and industrial buildings now vie for space with newer offices. But this atmosphere will have changed by 2020 with the arrival of more modern architecture, including 1,400 apartments, 100 boat-berths, an art and exhibition hall and an educational environmental building.

Meanwhile the old, compact stone town will live on. The Norra Kajen project is part of the strategy of extending the stone city with its historical grid.

Developers Norrlandspojkarna AB and the Municipality of Sundsvall have teamed up to form Norra Kajen Exploaterings AB, a company assigned with the task of developing the North Quay. The aim is to create Sweden’s first district with its very own closed-loop energy system.

Our entire proposal has an ecological profile. Green stretches are linked with parks, with green infrastrucure on roofs and facades. The plants clean the air. Use of greenery also improves water flow and leads to a better climate, for man and animals alike. Heat pumps are connected to Sundsvall bay, the buildings have recycling systems and electricity is produced by solar panels and a biogas combustion system.

Sundsvall is located by mountains and the sea and this should be experienced. We want to build a city on the water instead of a city by the water, and in this way increase the sense of living together with the sea. We want to see protected inlets and places where people want to be. It’s not enough just to have a quayside to say you have a close proximity to the water. Everyone should be able to come in contact with water and be able to feed the ducks from the kitchen window.

The competition jury in its motivation said that White had taken a “substantial and interesting structural grasp of a possible positive urban development of the entire northern Sundsvall area including the North Quay”.

Competition participants included Vandkunsten, Erséus Arkitekter, Pir 2 Arkitektkontor A/S and Bente Rodahl Arkitekter A/S.