The "Formgivning" of Domus, Kristianstad

Abstract: Today, we are creating and building more than ever. While buildings rise from the horizon, the consumption of building materials increases massively. More than 22% of global carbon dioxide emissions come from the consumption of building materials such as concrete, steel, and aluminum, etc. 55% of embodied carbon in a conventional building is in the structure and substructure (Smedley, 2019). Hence, it is important to make our buildings meaningful both for the city and people. The word ”formgivning” means “design” in Sweden, which means to give a form that has not yet been given. Today, we can see many architects act like a designer rather than an architect. They actually give a physical form to buildings rather than give a “lifestyle” to the city and people. Architectures suddenly become sculptures like David, Venus De Milo, and Manneken Pis. Modern architecture has a passion for escaping from historical architectural styles and trying to invent something purely functional and new. With the development of engineering technologies and building materials, modernist architecture becomes wild and unstoppable, creating buildings fighting against the built context. As a side effect of this careless and barbarous “formgivning”, many cities worldwide start to lose their identity and so do their citizens. One of these victims is Kristianstad. Kristianstad won the prize ”the city center of the year 2014”. However, the city trade in the city center is instead a problem today. Many stores have left the city center and people believe that it is the shopping center Galleria Boulevard where the problem rests. The situation has worsened since C4 Shopping opened in Hammar just a little bit outside of the city center. Today, empty rooms start to dominate the city center. People are the greatest attraction in a city (Gehl, 2010). However, many urban planners and architects have gradually forgotten about doing people-centered designs. No matter where we are, we can see that new buildings are occupying our cities coldly, bringing many problems ranging from shortages of usage to social issues. This report seeks an understanding of the problematic situation that may be caused by the shopping mall Galleria Boulevard and demonstrates a transformation of this area with the help of Jan Gehl’s theory about people-centered design