Umeå: Tomtebo strand

Team VEX’s proposal explored opportunities for active participation in urban development.

Conditions: 3 kilometers from central Umeå, right next to the lake Nydalasjön and Universitetsstaden, Tomtebo strand is planned. The nearby Nydalasjön is already a popular recreational area and provides good conditions for interacting with the surrounding city. The ambition is for Umeå municipality to develop Tomtebo strand into an urban district that meets the challenges of the future. The design will contribute to social sustainability, but the development will take place in several stages over a long period of time.

Challenge: There are outdoor areas with swimming and skiing tracks and Umeå’s largest workplace area. How can design and small-scale tests in the present be used as tools to identify relevant actors? How to co-create a neighborhood that is socially sustainable over time? The team will explore methods to investigate how it can become part of a long-term strategy for equal access to quality living environments.

Team VEX took its point of departure in the need to add an additional layer to the conversation about the future city. The work was based on the premise that active participation and co-creation are a result of agency—and on the idea that social, economic and ecological sustainability begin when people are given the opportunity to put down roots, take responsibility and help shape their place.

The work was articulated through a series of questions about the municipality’s role in urban development: how land can be used to strengthen active participation in city-making, how collective processes can interact with individual initiatives and intentions, and how new models can be tested and evaluated in practice. The team also explored the relationship between city and nature, starting from the question of how we can care for nature rather than expect it to serve us. In this work, surplus spaces and gaps in and around the planning area were identified as strategic resources for weaving the city together while preserving parts of the natural environment.

The work was summarised in a report presenting tools for the municipality to distribute responsibility and resources in a small-scale and locally rooted way. The proposal outlined a three-step prototype process, ranging from the exploration of potential land allocation models and tenure forms to concrete on-site testing. One proposal was to allocate a share of development rights to local individual actors during the district’s development through a format referred to as Folktomten. The team also proposed testing a self-sufficient unit as a starter kit for a new form of small-scale homebuilding movement. The report can be found further down the page.

In 2025, VEX continued its work within the framework of Visions in the North step 2. During this phase, the prototypes were implemented and tested, further developing the proposals and exploring new ways of working with participation, responsibility and local engagement in urban development.

The team’s work and next report will be presented at the Visioner i Norr final conference on 25 March 2026. Read more and register for the conference here.

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