Publikum Nynäshamn: Social-ecological Architecture in Public Municipal Space

Sammanfattning: Publikum Nynäshamn docks directly to the west façade of the existing 9 story municipal building with seven floors of open activity space. These surround a full-height atrium across which a two-floor living plant green wall provides the monumental living presence of nature and its ecosystem services in an office environment.  Plants also grace the other side of this two story wall, providing a living backdrop for the heart of the building - the raised three floor high assembly hall. A lunchroom with balconies above the assembly hall provides city views and a roof garden for municipal staff. The two floor high lobby beneath the assembly hall provides a new internal city street between Banana Square and Floravägen – a former back alleyway.  A ground-level colonnade walkway with benches surrounds the new and old buildings, inviting citizens into the building spaces. Public space and circulation is further enhanced with a new passageway opening up the former dead-end southwest corner of Banana Square where the old municipal building met Folkets hus (People’s House). A generous stair complex in this new sunny southern square provides spontaneous seating and meeting spaces as well as additional outdoor access to the two floor café, art gallery, and the largest green roof – one of three accessible green roofs that enhance social and ecological values.  Pedestrian movement can continue through this new passageway directly down to Svandammen (swan pond), and in the opposite direction, directly up to Banana square from the commuter rail station.   The café and two-floor meeting room spaces provide evening and weekend public social spaces for the city residents, complementing existing bars and restaurants in the adjoining Folkets Hus.   Reduced use of energy is encouraged with progressively rising central spaces allowing for the possibility of natural stack ventilation, thermal mass energy storage in concrete (HD/F) slabs, and generous natural daylight through the glazed curtain wall climate shell surrounding the building.  Abstracted winged structures crown the top of the building and grace the building entrances, inspired by the sightings of sea eagles reported in this coastal area, and provides both a signum for the building (instead of a more traditional municipal building tower) and extended surface for rainwater collection that can be used for watering indoor green plant walls and the roof garden vegetation.  The deeper soil of the intensive green roofs not only provides more uptake and retention of rainwater (and thus reduced peak flow rates favorable for stormwater management) but also allows planting of larger, woody plants and bushes, and even small trees, which in turn, among other social and ecological benefits, add natural habitat to a predominantly impervious-surfaced downtown urban area.