Experiment Lövholmen – Seminar and discussions

26 May 2016

Seminar
17.00–20.00 PM

Participants: Peter Lynch and Elizabeth Hatz (KTH Arkitekturs Studio 7) as well as Arna Mackic, Studio LA.

 Seminar and discussions about city planning and a viewing of the exhibition Latent City.

Programme

17.00 – 18.00:

  • Exhibition ”The Latent city”: models, drawings, etc, by students from the School of architecture at KTH.
  • Writer’s wall: Lövholmen – ideas, visions, questions. What’s your opinion?
  • Food and beverages is available at the café.

18-18.45: Outlooks and inspiration

  • Arna Mackic – experimental urban planning, examples from Amsterdam (in english).
  • Peter Lynch & Elizabeth Hatz, KTH: ”The Latent city” (in english)

19-20: Lövholmen, the meaning and potential of the area

  • During spring 2016 students from the master course at the School of architecture at KTH, has been working with Lövholmen as a case study. The project is about finding new connections between dwelling, work and location through city farming and planning models based on inclusion and site-specificity. They will present learnings and ideas, which will serve as basis for further discussions (in english).
  • Short presentations by artists active in the area – the locations history, its meaning today, potentials, doubts, ideas (in Swedish).
  • Discussion (in Swedish).

About Lövholmen

Liljeholmen was the first industrial suburb of Stockholm, where Lövholmen today is the last remain of this old industrial landscape. Färgfabriken has been active in Lövholmen since 1995, residing in a building from 1889. The last decade has seen industries and offices move out of Lövholmen, while at the same time the central area Liljeholmen has transformed from a somewhat sleepy suburb to an extension of the inner city, with many new dwellings and a shopping mall.

Lövholmen, Stockholm’s last central industrial area, is highly interesting for exploitation because of its location on the waterfront and proximity to public transport. It is pointed out as an area of development for dwellings, in a programme from 2008. Lövholmen’s 23 000 square meters are divided between six different landowners, and even if the planning is ongoing, no transformation has yet begun.

So, Lövholmen is in a state of transition. Its rough and derelict impression of today stands in sharp contrast to the different visions being presented by city planners and property developers. This first impression also stands in contrast to what’s actually going on behind the scenes; in fact right now Lövholmen is a cultural hub – with more than 300 artists, architects, writers and creators working here.

The case of Lövholmen allows us to highlight a number of questions relevant to Stockholm, and other cities in the world, in regards to future urban areas. What relevance do these kinds of worn down areas have? How are the areas dealt with before exploitation starts, and how could they be kept open and active during construction? How do deal with historical industrial areas as part of a city’s cultural heritage? What does it mean that these sites are often being taken over by creative forces in these phases of transition – and what happens to the creativity when the building cranes are brought in and the new private dwellings are in place? For whom are the plans and future buildings? Is there potential for Lövholmen to be something new or will the results be conventional and much like everything else built today? How could the multifaceted city life of tomorrow unfold? How could Lövholmen play an important role in the bridging of the city’s mental and physical barriers, rather than adding to the segregation?

Partners

The evening was arranged in collaboration with KTH & the Dutch Embassy in Stockholm.