Healthy everyday landscapes : design studies connected to Nyhamnen

Abstract: The urban landscapes are rapidly transforming in order to meet the demands of population growth as well as dealing with issues of climate change. At the same time the health of urban dwellers is urgently declining due to chronic stress and lifestyle factors. This master thesis in Landscape Architecture explores how the aspect of human wellbeing can be integrated in the urban development process through design studies. The theme of the thesis - healthy everyday landscapes - is based on the assumption that in order to deal with issues of health in cities the exposure to healthy environments needs to be increased in the everyday lives of urban dwellers. Nyhamnen that is a new development area centrally located in the harbor of Malmö became the object of this study as it is in an ongoing process of development. The thesis combines research on health with design thinking as well as explores how contemporary urban planning resonates with the theme of healthy everyday landscapes. The process includes theoretical studies, site studies through an internship at an architectural firm and design studies. The process revealed that combining research on health with the discipline of design is a complex task. It requires knowledge of both fields as well as skills to translate it to a specific site and context. The process also revealed that connections between sites are essential to promote healthy everyday landscapes and is therefore difficult to apply on an isolated part of the landscape as within the plan area of Nyhamnen. Thus, the outcome of this process is a green strategy that exceeds the boundaries of Nyhamnen and suggests both an adjoining restorative nature area as well as a connective public path to the inner city. The proposal would therefore need to be a part of a larger strategy for the city. At the same time the process shows that designing healthy everyday landscapes requires on-site experiences that need to be a part of the early stages of an urban design process. The thesis therefore suggests that the theme of healthy everyday landscapes is integrated in large-scale strategies for the city as well as detailed design proposals, and they need to be planned and designed in shifting scales and focal points. The aim of the thesis was to explore how human wellbeing can be integrated in an urban development process. But the outcome of it reveals that healthy everyday landscapes can be combined with other measurements for urban resilience and sustainability, supporting the wellbeing of the urban landscape as a whole.