BIG: Turn Slussen Inside Out
Big projects need great determination and skill. The city of Stockholm in Sweden is in search of a design for their urban space, Slussen, where cars, trains and buses could move continuously without problems. Architecture company, BIG, took on the task and found an innovative design to match the needs of the city.
Slussen Project Description
"Stockholm, the Venice of Scandinavia, is built on a handful of rocky islands where the archipelago meets the big lakes. Where salt and fresh water flow together lies Slussen (the Lock) at the only natural ford between the northern and southern embankments, connecting Södermalm (the Southside) to Gamla Stan (the island of Old Town), home of the Swedish royal family.
When we got invited to an international competition for the refurbishment of the area, we went there to take a look. What we found was strangely intriguing."
"A dynamic three-dimensional urban space on multiple levels shaped by the flow of cars, trains and buses. The continuous movement and turning radii of cars introduced a soft curvilinear morphology in the otherwise rectangular Scandinavian town scape.
Could we transform this unique three-dimensional form of urban space to accommodate – not cars, but people? We propose to turn Slussen inside out, by wrapping all the vehicular infrastructure in multiple layers of public programs and urban spaces."
"Here is the existing Slussen. Is it really that complicated?
The boats sail through here, the trains move here, the buses go here and the cars drive here…
We keep all the flows and erase the rest….
On top of all this we add a virgin site for the people of Stockholm to finally reach the water. We crop it to fit the site and slice it up to let air and views inside."
"To frame it, we extend the existing parts of Søder out to reach the water – the urban blocks to the west…the hillside hotel…and we complete the courtyard of the City Museum, turning it into a continuous loop.
To introduce new public programs, we introduce a Nobel Museum and a Library on the east embankment. And to the west we turn two auditoria into the Twin Peaks Theatres. A drizzle of skylights perforate the pavement providing light and air to all the programs below. Some of the holes allow trees to create shelter and shade.
The inversion of the proportion of pedestrian space to car lanes dramatically increases the amount of public space. Rather than one vast undefined space we propose two new highly differentiated urban spaces."
"Our proposal is a new generation evolved from the existing Slussen. Rather than being an infrastructural node for car traffic, we turn Slussen into an urban infrastructure for public life. It will be shaped by the flow of people rather than flow of cars. Cars, buses and trains will be organised to support the free flow of public life from the city to the water, from the level of the quay to the roof of Gondolen. Its slopes and curves will seek to create places for people to move, rest and enjoy living next to the water.
One of the new urban spaces is sheltered and well-defined at the heart of all the old and new programs. The other is located in the middle of Slussen, with a 360 degree panorama of the harbour and the lake and the Stockholm skyline.
Whereas the existing Slussen is the child of a modernist faith in the car as the driving force of the city of the future, the new Slussen is evolved from the belief in quality of life and human interaction as the infrastructure for an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable city. So now the Big question is if Stockholm wants REVOLUTION or EVOLUTION?"
PROJECT: SLUSSEN
CLIENT: STOCKHOLM STAD
COLLABORATORS: AKT
SIZE: 85.000 M2
LOCATION STOCKHOLM, Sweden
CREDIT LIST
Architect: BIG
Partner-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels
Projectleader: Niels Lund Petersen
Project Team: Jan Magasanik, Daniel Sundlin, Marc Jay, Johan Cool, David Marek, Ole Schrøder, Roberto Rosales Salazar, Maria Mavrikou, Kamil Szoltysek, Ondrej Tichy.
Collaborators: AKT
[...] BIG Wins Competition for The World Village of Women Sports BIG have won again! [...]