White’s unique team continue to develop the Helsingborg of the future

Av Peter Nilsson
Publicerad Monday 22 June, 2009.

“It feels very inspiring that the jury wants to go forward with our ideas,” says Jonas Olsson who has led White’s team through the competition that attracted more than 60 teams from all over Europe.

H+ is Helsingborg’s largest urban planning project in modern times and one of the most ambitious in northern Europe. It’s focus is on linking areas of the northern part of the city with its southern areas. Of the 63 teams who expressed their interest in the open competition, five were selected and commissioned to develop plans for the project area.

Today it was officially disclosed which proposals and teams the jury suggests the city should continue to work with, and these are Tolerant City (Schönherr Landscape), Mindzone (White) and Our Vision (Foster+Partners).

“Tolerant City is the most complete proposal that can be developed, which makes it a worthy winner. The jury also feels that Mindzone and Our Vision can give valuable input and so should also participate in the ongoing work,” says Agneta Hammer, director of urban planning and jury chairperson.

The following is part of the jury’s motivation regarding White’s proposal:
“The Mindzone proposal is seen as a strong contribution at an analytical and holistic scale. The proposal offers a convincing network of connections to carefully integrate the future H+ area with the existing city.”

During the competition process, White worked in a large team with international experts from various fields who have together developed solutions and ideas that are far removed from the conventional way of working with urban planning.

“Nowadays, it is not so much about designing grand detailed plans. Success is rather to be found in the ability to find a way forward that corresponds to the challenges our society is facing, such as increased co-operation between the city, business and academia, social innovation and process thinking,” says Jonas Olsson, architect at White in Malmö and head of the team behind Mindzone.

Apart from colleagues from White itself, the team has been composed of Leif Edvinsson, professor at Lund University and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, one of the world’s leading experts in intellectual capital, and a key figure behind this concept, a group from WSP involved in strategy and infrastructure, Danish Imitio with expertise within sociology as well as Wuz Risk Consultancy AB who are experts in risk assessment and risk management.

“It is the combination of this unique team and our strong process-oriented thinking that has brought us this far, and together we have shown that we have the capacity needed for a project on this large scale,” says Jonas Olsson.
In simple terms the commission concerns creating a masterplan for an area of more than a million square metres, with the aim of combining the obviously divided town where north and south have never managed to meet. The time perspective for the process is 2035, at which time Helsingborg should have a clear new identity as a town of knowledge and a creative hub in the Öresund region.

Some of the keys include developing the city’s campus area, for example, extending and broadening cultural life, supporting entrepreneurship and developing a social and cultural individuality that clearly distinguishes itself from the mainstream.

“In working with H+ we have created a convincing approach and established working methods that feel very strong. I am convinced that this will result in several commissions in the future,” says Jonas Olsson.