”The Sea City” in Trelleborg: A climate-adapted design proposal to combat flooding from cloudbursts and rising sea levels

Abstract: Scientific studies indicate that the effects of the ongoing climate crisis negatively affect and sometimes also threaten the built environment, humanity and nature in many ways. Cloudbursts and rising sea levels are two examples of such effects, which result in complex dilemmas and interesting challenges that planners and urban designers face within their field of work. These two effects are noticeable already today and will continue to be even more in the future, why there is a need to remedy them somehow. One causing dilemma behind this is that humanity, for long, has developed urban cities detached from nature. The aspect of biodiversity, room for greenery and water resources have often been overruled, to instead make room for humanity and people’s needs where convenience in all aspects is put first, with the boundless need for resources it entails. As a consequence of this, many of today’s cities are not adapted to handle the extreme weather situations that the climate crisis brings, and heavy downpours and rising sea levels put cities at risk of flooding. One can say that this is due to, for example, the enhanced amount of hardened surfaces and the limitation of climate adaptation solutions in modern cities. Another dilemma is how to continue building dense, urban cities in coastal areas that are both climate adapted to flooding, and with a high degree of sustainability that secures life quality for future generations. A third dilemma is that planners, while designing, must fulfill their clients’ (developers’) budgets and requirements and provide what the housing market buyers find attractive. Summarized, all these dilemmas point to the increased needs of modernized, more future-proof methods within the field of urban design. How can planners help solve these critical questions? One site that is threatened by these problems is ”Sjöstaden” (”The Sea City”) in Trelleborg, Skåne County in Sweden. The aim of this thesis project is to design a new city district within ”Sjöstaden”, Trelleborg. In the design proposal, new buildings and blue- and green solutions are climate-adapted to withstand flooding caused by cloudbursts and the rising sea level. This aim has resulted in the two research questions below. Research questions 1. How can buildings in the new city district of ”Sjöstaden” in Trelleborg be designed and climate-adapted to withstand the effects of a changing climate (e.i., coastal floods and cloudbursts)? 2. How can the blue and green solutions in the new city district of ”Sjöstaden” in Trelleborg be designed and climate-adapted to fulfill their purposes when coastal floods and cloudbursts happen?