Closed down or moisture damaged schools. Empty office premises and apartment buildings. Or, on the other hand, housing shortages and increasing demand for elderly care homes. These are problems that municipalities have to deal with. Tearing down and building new has often been the simple solution, but new times place new demands.
Sustainable planning
Associate Professor Ida Grundel at TEMAT (Technology and Social Change) describes it as something of a dream project. Together with her colleagues Kristina Trygg and Johan Niskanen, she will over four years investigate how Swedish municipalities can work more with sustainable construction. This includes, for example, how new buildings can be planned in order to be used more flexibly, but not least how to renovate and reuse instead of building new ones.
“For the very reason that the construction sector is one of the major climate villains, these aspects must be included as part of community planning,” says Associate Professor Kristina Trygg.
The full name of the project is Circular Planning for transformative change through reuse and renovation (PLAN-C) (Swe: Cirkulär planering för transformativ förändring genom återanvändning och renovering (PLAN-C)). It has received just over SEK 11 million in grants over four years.
Inspiration from Sweden and Europe
The researchers will form a network together with municipal community planners. One purpose is to identify what currently hinders more sustainable planning. The hope is also to find smart ideas and solutions. In Östergötland there are examples from Norrköping's old factories and Linköping's former military area of the city, where old buildings have been converted for new purposes.
“Collecting lessons learned and creating some inspiration is important,” says Assistant Professor Johan Niskanen.
The researchers will also look for good examples in other European countries. One goal is to develop a kind of handbook and a digital knowledge platform for sustainable construction.
“We want the project to lead to something that municipalities can use in practice,” says Ida Grundel.
