Hybridlandskap : nya möjligheter för offentliga platser i staden

Sammanfattning: This project explores how artificial landscapes as parks and squares above ground can save space by using the vertical voids in urban environments and how they can create spatial and social as well as ecological qualities and connections. Hybrid landscapes are a phenomenon of current interest within the field of architecture and urbanism. Architecture as surface, where facades and roofs become possible to tread, is a relatively recent occurence that has over the past few years become an increasingly common sight in architectural magazines and on international architecture exhibitions. Many of my selected reference projects have often been associated with sensational contemporary design trends generated by advanced computer software. But the phenomenon is also a result of other different currents of change that exist within today's society, such as densified cities with a lack of open space, which is also expressed in architecture. From the point of view of a landscape architect I wanted to study the many possibilities that this phenomenon opens up for public spaces in urban environments and consequently for entire city structures. In my first chapter I define hybrid landscapes and explore the background and the ideas behind it, to eventually be able to transfer these ideas into my own reality here in Sweden. In chapter 2, I study different reference projects that all show new landscape projects in urban environments. By cathegorizing the different projects I define their relations with the existing urban structure; their simailarities and differences, and how social, spatial and functional qualities are achieved. On the basis of one of the typologies I find a suitable spot for an application in Stockholm. This application, a public space deck above the existing infrastructure where Torkel Knutssonsgatan was once led down as a gap through Mariaberget, creates a new link between Hornsgatan and Riddarfjärden (and thereby also the rest of the city). Futhermore, it also connects the broken green promenade along Mariaberget. Unlike most of the other typologies, decks can create otherwise impossible connections and flows of people, an important aspect that characterizes public spaces. This one does without claiming land or disturbing other functions, and at the same time providing new qualities within the existing environment. Where changes in the existing infrastructure are too complicated, the new public spaces will have to adjust to the given conditions. When one is forced to think in a new way and take advantage of the challenges and the qualities that it implies it will create new interesting solutions.