Creating a pop up park is now everybody's game

(Photo: Thomas Zaar)

A new handbook was launched yesterday about citizen-driven city planning in Stockholm. Behind the project are White Arkitekter and ”Fastighetsägarna Stockholm” (the Stockholm office of the Swedish Property Federation) with the common goal of encouraging people to take initiative and breathe life into the urban space.

“We want to democratise forgotten areas in the city by creating temporary arenas for meetings and activities, free of charge and open for everyone. We hope this handbook encourages more people to get involved in designing the city’s public areas”, says Ulla Bergström, head of the Stockholm studio at White Arkitekter.

The handbook was launched in conjunction with the city traffic committee’s decision to facilitate citizen-driven activities of this kind — among others, new lease rates for public spaces valid from 1st of July 2016, more flexible ways of leasing public areas and the exemption from fees for smaller non-commercial events in order to boost the cultural life in the city. The new rules make it also easier to create temporary parks in parking spaces.

”We noticed last year, when we did the pop up park ‘Pallis’, that the city’s vision of encouraging such initiatives wasn’t really matched by the regulations. Understanding the application and approval processes was an enormous challenge. It’s really wonderful to see that the rules and processes are being changed so that, together, we can contribute to creating the city we wish to live in”, says Kristina Philipson, architect at White.

The handbook for citizen-driven city planning is available (in Swedish) for download as a PDF.

White Arkitekter was founded by Sidney White in 1951 and is Scandinavia’s leading architectural firm with over 800 employees working in 14 offices in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the UK. Our work is research focused and our expertise encompasses architecture, urban design, landscape architecture and interior design.

For nearly two decades, White has invested in establishing a unique research-based department of highly qualified experts in the field of sustainable design. Our founder’s aim was to improve society through architecture and his legacy lives on in our ambition to contribute towards the building of a sustainable world.

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