*Image: White arkitekter. 2024.* Tomtebo strand, Umeå.

Visions in the North step 2

Umeå: Tomtebo strand

OMLAND: FOLKTOMTEN – Spaces 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’s proposal OMLAND wants to add a layer to the development of Tomtebo strand and raise questions about the city of the future. The proposal is based on the thesis that active participation and co-creation is an effect of space for action. The team highlights social, economic and ecological sustainability starting with putting down roots; that you get the opportunity to be involved in shaping your life and your place.

The team asks questions like: How can the municipality use its land to strengthen active participation in urban construction and citizen and user-driven urban development? How can the collective interact with individual wills? How can new models be evaluated in practice? Can we serve nature, instead of expecting nature to serve us? They point to overlaps and gaps inside and outside the planning area that may be strategically appropriate to prioritize to weave the city together and save parts of the natural area.

The team proposes new tools for the municipality to distribute responsibilities and resources on a small and local scale. They want to work with a prototype in three steps for further development of the ideas and deeper discussion. The steps range from investigating possible land allocation models and forms of tenure to concrete tests on the ground. During the emergence of the district, the specific proposal is to grant a share of the building rights to local individual actors in the format they call Folktomten. They also propose to test a self-sufficient unit as a starter kit for a new kind of home ownership movement.

Designed Living Environment

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