Regenerating Public Space in Residential Areas — a Design Proposal for Herrgården in Rosengård

Abstract: This thesis will look at effective methods to regenerate public space in residential areas. Since nowadays many physical and social problems appear in large housing estates, it is urgent to seek efficient and effective ways to solve these problems. We choose Herrgården in the district of Rosengård in Malmö as our study object. We want to change Herrgården from a decayed residential area to a safe and attractive neighborhood. This thesis work contains four parts. We start with an illustration of relevant theories about constructing attractive and safe public spaces in residential areas, which provide guidelines and principles for our further planning proposal. Then, we write some background information about Rosengård and Herrgården based on the official documents, information and statistics from internet and Malmö municipality. In the third stage, we focus on the situational analysis of physical structure of Herrgården such as traffic system, spatial layout and green space, and carry out some comparative studies with its neighboring areas. These analyses make up a good foundation for our own planning proposal. At last, based on the theories and analyses above, a planning proposal with our suggestions is made to improve the current situations of that area. The proposal contains detailed plans and designs of squares, traffic system, landscape elements and green areas. During the thesis project, we also give special attention to improve the safety situation in the community. In general, we find that attractiveness and safety are the most important factors in reconstructing Herrgården residential area. Therefore, we make some improvements and suggestions from these two perspectives. We hope our proposal can satisfy residents’ social needs by improving the physical conditions of Herrgården.