Biotope area factor, a tool for a dense and green city? : case studies of densification plans in Malmö, Sweden

Uppsatsen undersöker grönytefaktorn som ett verktyg för att kontrollera andelen grönyta i förtätningsprojekt. Detta för att se om grönytefaktorn kan vara ett planeringsverktyg för att nå en grön men tät stad. Arbetet utgår från de fyra aspekterna att en hög grönytefaktor ger en bättre infiltration av dagvatten i marken, ett bättre mikroklimat, en högre biologisk mångfald samt en mer rekreativ miljö för de boende. Om så är fallet undersöks genom fallstudier. De omfattar förtätningsplaner i Malmö där grönytefaktor och exploateringstal är beräknade för situationen före och efter förtätningen har ägt rum. I Malmö har man sedan Bo01 arbetat med grönytefaktorn i kommunen och arbetet använder Malmö stads aktuella beräkningsprogram, Miljöbyggprogram Syd, som gäller för all kommunal mark. För att se vad Malmö stads krav på grönytefaktorn skulle resultera i, har hälften av fallstudierna undersökts vidare. De aktuella planerna har då ändrats så att de uppnår en grönytefaktor på 0,5. Tre förslag redovisas från tre olika synvinklar. Ett som är genomfört så snabbt och enkelt som möjligt, ett där den biologiska mångfalden är särskilt prioriterad och ett där de sociala värdena på gården lyfts fram. Resultatet visar på en variation mellan de olika fallstudierna där exploateringstal och grönytefaktorn inte visar ett uppenbart samband. En grön och tät stad är därmed möjlig men det innebär också att grönskan kommer att hamna till stora delar på väggar och tak, då dessa kategorier visade den tydligaste ökningen när grönytefaktorn höjdes. Fallstudierna visar också att en förtätning inte nödvändigtvis innebär en förlust av grönyta utan tvärtom, över lag har grönytefaktorn höjts mer än vad den har sänkts. Det beror på att det är flera verksamhetstomter som har gjorts om till bostadsplaner i dessa fallstudier. Fallstudierna visar även att flera planer har gröna gårdar även utan krav på grönytefaktorn men det finns också de som skulle få ett stort lyft om kommunen ställde högre krav på deras utemiljö. Arbetet visar därmed att det är positivt att ställa krav på bostadsgårdarna, även om grönytefaktorn i sig inte garanterar en bättre utformning kan den höja ambitionen hos de som utför arbetet och därmed kvalitén på utemiljön. Studien visar att en hög grönytefaktor ökar mer genomsläppliga material och grönska på mark vilket bidrar till en fördröjning av dagvatten inom tomten och ett bättre mikroklimat. Det är däremot inte lika entydigt att grönytefaktorn höjer den biologiska mångfalden eller skapar en mer rekreativ miljö utan att ha tilläggsfaktorer som mer direkt styr utformningen mot dessa mål. Det är dock viktigt att följa upp resultatet av de projekt som utförs med grönytefaktorn för att utveckla verktyget i rätt riktning. För att inte grönytefaktorn skall bli något som endast försvarar de ekologiska intressena på bostadsgården är det av betydelse att också lyfta fram mål för hur det skall gynna de boende och användarna av bostadsgården.This study examines the green space factor as a tool to control the proportion of green space in densification projects, to investigate if the green space factor can be a tool for planning a green but dense city. The work is based on the assumptions that a high green space factor provides a better infiltration of rainwater into the ground, a better microclimate, a higher biodiversity and a more recreational environment for the residents. If that is true, are examined through case studies. They are based on densification plans in Malmö, Sweden where green space factor and floor space index are calculated for the situation before and after densification has taken place. To explore the City of Malmö’s demands for green space factor, half of the case studies where investigated further. The current plans have been modified to achieve a green space factor of 0.5, this according to Malmö municipality’s current calculation program for green space factor. Three proposals are presented from three different perspectives, one that is completed as quickly and easily as possible, one where biodiversity is promoted in the plan and one where the social qualities are a priority. The results show a variation between the different case studies where the floor space index and green space factor does not show an obvious connection. A green and dense city is possible according to these measurements, but it also means that the green space will be put on walls and roofs as these categories showed the highest increase when the green space factor was raised. The case studies also show that densification does not necessarily mean a loss of green space, rather the opposite. Overall has the green space factor increased more than it has decreased. This because there are several business plots that have been converted to residental plans among the investigated sites. The case studies also show that several plans already have green yards without the requirement of a green space factor, but there are also those who could be a lot better if the municipality put higher demands on their outdoor environment. This shows that it is positive to make demands on housing estates, although the green space factor in itself does not guarantee a better design. It can however raise the ambition of those who do the work and therefore also the quality of the yard. The thesis concludes that a high green space factor increases more preamble materials and vegetation on the ground which reduce water run of and gives a better microclimate. The biodiversity and the quality of the yard as a recreational environment do not show a clear result and need to be further controlled through other demands than the basic green space factor. However, it is important to follow up the results of the projects carried out with green space factor to develop the tool in the right direction. The green space factor should not be something that only protects the ecological interests on the residential yards, it is important to also highlight targets for how it will benefit the residents and users of the yard

Green space factor as a planning tool : development of the courtyard over time

I en tid då vi blir fler och fler människor på jorden talas det mycket om hållbar utveckling. Det täta stadsidealet förespråkas av många men i spåret av stadsförtätning försvinner många grönytor. För att främja växt- och djurliv i städerna finns det olika planeringsverktyg. Ett av dom kallas för grönytefaktorn och användes för första gången i Sverige till bomässan Bo01 i Malmö. Vid anläggandet av Bo01 ställde man många krav på utemiljön. Ett av kraven var att alla gårdar skulle uppnå 0.5 i grönytefaktor. Det fanns dock inga möjligheter att ge påföljder till de som inte levde upp till kraven. Inte heller kunde man kräva att grönytefaktorn skulle upprätthållas. Hur har detta påverkat grönytefaktorn? Kan grönytefaktorn anses vara ett hållbart planeringsverktyg sett över tid? För att svara på mina frågor har jag gjort en fallstudie på Bo01 i Malmö där jag besökt 17 bostadsgårdar och inventerat de förändringar som skett på tio år. Målet med studien är att undersöka hur utvecklingen av bostadsgårdarna på Bo01 har skett över tid och diskutera vad vi kan lära oss av utvecklingen. Studien har visat att gårdarna inte har förändrats så mycket i den övergripande strukturen. Bara en gård har fått en helt ny gestaltning. I övrigt har små förändringar skett och det är framför allt växtmaterialet som har förändrats. Av fallstudien kan man se att vissa ytor är mer robusta än andra ytor. Det gäller de ytor som representerar markytor. De ytor som representerar växtlighetet är inte så robusta och har förändrats mer. Den genomsnittliga grönytefaktorn för gårdarna har blivit lägre sedan år 2002. Många gårdar levde inte upp till kravet på 0.5 varken år 2002 eller år 2012. Därför kan grönytefaktorn, så som den användes på Bo01 inte anses vara ett hållbart planeringsverktyg sett över tid. Även om faktorn har minskat på Bo01 finns det mycket potential i att utveckla verktyget.In a time when we are becoming more and more people on earth, sustainable development is a hot topic. A dense urban structure is today promoted by many. A lot of green spaces disappears when we build denser. There are various planning tools to promote plant and animal life in the cities. One of them is called the green space factor. The exhibition Bo01 in Malmö was the first place in Sweden to use a planning tool like this. Under the construction of Bo01 there were many demands on the outdoor environment. One of the requirements was that all courtyards would reach 0.5 in green space factor. However, there were no possibilities to provide sanctions for those who did not live up to the requirements. How has this affected the green space factor? Can green space factor be considered as a sustainable planning tool seen over time? To answer my questions, I have done a study on the Bo01 in Malmö where I visited 17 courtyards and observed the changes that has happened over ten years. The aim of the study is to examine how the development of courtyards at Bo01 has occurred over time and discuss what we can learn from that. The study has shown that the courtyards have not changed that much in the overall structure. Only one courtyard has been completely re-design. Otherwise, small changes has occurred and it is mainly the surfaces for plants that has changed. The study shows that some surfaces are more solid than other surfaces. These are the surfaces that represent ground surfaces. The surfaces that represents plants is not as solid and has changed more. The average green space factor for the courtyards is lower today. Many courtyards did not meet the requirement of 0.5 either in 2002 or in 2012. Therefore, the green space factor, as it was used at Bo01 cannot be considered a sustainable planning tool seen over time. Although the green space factor has decreased at Bo01, there is potential in developing the tool

Small residential courtyards big problems : the density ideal's effects on the maintenance work and long-term sustainability

Av FN:s 17 globala mål för hållbar utveckling finns två mål av särskilt intresse för landskapsarkitekturen i kontexten hållbar stadsplanering, mål 11: Hållbara städer och samhällen samt mål 15: Ekosystemtjänster och biologisk mångfald. För att uppnå dessa mål krävs att stadsplanerare hittar långsiktigt hållbara lösningar. Den samtida stadsplaneringens vision om ett hållbart samhälle stavas förtätning, ett stadsbyggnadsideal som präglat den svenska stadsplaneringen i över 40 år. Med förtätade städer följer kompakta bostadsgårdar. I många kommuner tillämpas verktyget grönytefaktor, en räknemodell som hjälper planeringssektorn att tillgodose tillräckligt med ändamålsenliga grönytor på kompakta bostadsgårdar. Men i dagsläget saknas uppföljning, tillika utvärdering, av de bostadsgårdar som gestaltats utifrån denna princip. Å andra sidan finns kunskap att hämta från förvaltningssektorn, vars uppgift är att sköta om och utveckla dessa bostadsgårdar, som en del i ledet av en hållbar stadsutveckling. Genom kvalitativa djupgående intervjuer med representanter från förvaltningssektorn i Uppsala får man ett nytt perspektiv av täthetsidealets och grönytefaktorns effekter. Slutsatsen är att till följd av förtätning och tillämpande av grönytefaktor skapas mångfunktionella bostadsgårdar, vilket leder till en småskalig utformning. Det leder i sin tur till en komplex förvaltning. Detta äventyrar den hållbara stadsutvecklingen. Vidare forskning inom detta område blir viktigt för att finna lösningar på hur samspelet kan stärkas.Of the UN's 17 global goals for sustainable development, there are two goals of particular interest to landscape architecture in the context of sustainable urban planning, goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities and goal 15: Ecosystem services and biodiversity. To achieve these goals, urban planners must find long-term sustainable solutions. Contemporary urban planning's vision of a sustainable society is called densification, an urban planning ideal that has characterized Swedish urban planning for over 40 years. With denser cities comes denser residential courtyards. In many municipalities, the green area factor tool is applied, a model that helps the planning sector to accommodate sufficient, and appropriate, green areas on densified residential courtyards. However, there is currently a lack of follow-up, as well as evaluation, of the residential courtyards designed based on this principle. On the other hand, there is knowledge to be gained from the maintenance sector, whose task is to look after and develop these residential courtyards, as part of the process of sustainable urban development. Through qualitative in-depth interviews with representatives from the maintenance sector in Uppsala, a new perspective is obtained on the effects of the densification ideal and the green space factor. The conclusion is that as a result of densification and application of the green space factor, multifunctional residential courtyards are created, which leads to a small-scale design. This in turn leads to complex management. This endangers sustainable urban development. Further research in this area will be important to find solutions for how the interaction can be strengthened

Sustainable Management of Urban Green Infrastructure – The Challenge of Providing High-Quality Green in Multi-Storey Residential Construction

Vienna is known as one of the most liveable cities worldwide (Mercer, 2015), not least because of Vienna’s green infrastructure (GI). These qualities of life and the trend of urbanisation lead to strong population growth in Vienna. It is predicted that the Viennese population will grow from 1.8 million (2015) to 2 million in 2029 (MA 23, 2014); to offer living space, the creation of up to 120,000 new homes is planned until 2050 (MA 18, 2014). The growth and the resulting exploitation pressure on the (green) areas pose a major challenge for the City of Vienna. The loss of green space induced by land use results in the reduction or loss of ecosystem services. The negative effects of the decline of green areas and the increasing soil sealing already occur especially in areas of high population density. Furthermore, increasing heat stress and risks related to natural disasters like the flood event in 2002 show the importance of green space in urban areas for the maintenance of ecosystem functions. Therefore, a challenge of the next years will be to maintain a high-quality and efficient network of GI. At the moment, the floor area ratio (“Geschoßflächenzahl”) and other values like the degree of soil sealing, the density rate for buildings, building heights etc. are the defining parameters for urban development in Vienna and regulate the degree of building coverage. The supply of the neighbourhoods with open/green space is determined only indirectly. Besides, those parameters are not able to state the quality of green space for humans. Vienna has already recognised the importance of GI and develops guides for developers and urban planners to contribute to encourage GI in the city (MA 18, 2014; MA 22, 2013; MA 22, 2015). But a clear framework for the conservation and provision of minimum standards for urban green space, however, is still missing; incentives for implementation of GI elements are primarily given through grants. Some cities have developed defining parameters or policy instruments for GI to enable a management of open space supply and quality (e.g. Berlin: “Biotope Area Factor”; Malmö: “Green Space Factor”; Seattle: “Green Factor”, Helsinki...), but in the current practice of applying the green space factors almost only ecological aspects are taken into account (Kruuse, 2011; Szulczewska et al., 2014). Socio-cultural aspects such as usability, aesthetics or recreation are rarely considered. For urban planning and administration it would be important to start thinking about a green space factor which, beneath size and space consumption, also takes into account socio-cultural aspects. The main objective of the “AddedValueGreen!” project was to develop a green and open space factor (“Grünflächenfaktor” or “GFF”) which encompasses regulating, socio-cultural and economic effects of urban GI (uGI). The focus was on the management and intervention of private and housing-related spaces to secure a certain amount of high-quality open/green space on building lots. Through the evaluation of housing projects by using the GFF, deficits in the green space supply and quality can be identified and recommendations to improve the GI can be derived. Furthermore, it will be possible to integrate this evaluation tool into other planning levels or management tools

Comparing the implicit valuation of ecosystem services from nature-based solutions in performance-based green area indicators across three European cities

Performance-based green area indicators are increasingly used as policy instruments to promote nature-based solutions in urban property development. We explore the differences and parallels of three green area indicators: Berlin’s Biotope Area Factor (BAF), Stockholm’s Green Area Factor (GYF) and Oslo’s Blue Green Factor (BGF). As policy instruments they vary in their complexity and goals for green and blue structures. The urban planning literature devotes increasing attention to urban ecosystem services (ES) and its potential for utilitarian valuation including assigning preference weights, valuation and pricing of green and blue characteristics of urban development projects. Our comparison shows, however, that nature-based solutions in urban development projects in these three cities are largely planned, designed and implemented without using an explicit ES approach. Nevertheless, the choices of green structures and weighting of areas and structures in each city’s performance-based index constitute implicit valuation of bundles of ecosystem services. By investigating how the three indicator systems’ scores vary in parcel-scale development projects, we identify which ecosystem services each system implicitly promote and neglect. We discuss how variation in the systems’ complexity is the result of policy instrument design trade-offs between comprehensiveness and implementation costs. We argue that using physical proxies of performance in lieu of valuation of ecosystem services lowers site-specific information costs of green area indicators at property level. In the absence of an explicit ES approach, performance-based green area indicators in the three cities have been encouraging nature-based solutions in urban development without pricing of ecosystem services, without apologies. Policy design Green area points Blue-green factor Biotope factor Green space factor Ecosystem ServicesacceptedVersio

The Role of the Environment in Mental Health Promotion: Investigating Mental Well-Being in the Credit River Watershed

As more and more individuals are moving to and living in cities, the mental health burden of illness is rising, having individual, social and economic ramifications across the entire population (Srivastava, 2009). This raises the question of how to prevent, mitigate or reduce the effects of urban stress on individuals living in cities as the population continues to rise. This question was approached within the context the Credit River Watershed. 107 household surveys were administered in two contrasting urban neighbourhoods to discern the habits of respondents with regards to attending different types of natural spaces, and how relaxing those spaces are. These responses showed that overall, respondents found blue space, i.e. being near water features like rivers, ponds, and lakes, to be the most relaxing of all types of space, followed by looking out of windows at natural spaces, and private green space. Factor analysis was conducted on the responses of how relaxing different natural spaces are. This revealed four different factors within the data, which have been named "Self-Reported State of Mental Well-being," "Wilderness and Personal Spaces," "Designed Spaces," and "Relaxing Activities." These factors, excluding the "Self-Reported State of Mental Well-being" factor, were used in designing an Environmental Index of Mental Well-being (EIMWB), which could be used as a way of monitoring the impact of environmental management on mental well-being over time. The information from EIMWB monitoring and other data about the effects of natural spaces on mental well-being could be used together within the context of mental health promotion. Due to the more subjective nature of data connecting mental health with the environment, mental health promotion has not been embraced fully by public health agencies, where most health promotion strategies arepositioned. Assuming that the requirement for hard scientific data will not be changed, alternativevenues within which to place mental health promotion should be considered. This paper thus concludes that environmental management and design within urban areas can provide a setting for environmentally-based mental health promotion

Urban greening strategies for compact areas

Planning of compact and green urban areas has become an emerging issue. Thus, there is a need to examine strategies for implementing green infrastructures in compact urban areas. The aim of this paper is to examine how green infrastructure is developed in a compact urban structure in a case study of the city of Malmö. Six examples of urban greening were selected. The selection was made to obtain a variety of types of green spaces that were not public parks and that were devel- oped (or were intended to be developed) in compact urban structures. The findings suggest that there are reasons for analysing and discussing urban greening strategies in new categories, like building attached, grey and brown green infrastructure. The supply and distribution of cultural ecosystem services that these strategies offer were assessed by how they offer access for viewing, staying or interacting with the places. In this assessment the green infrastructure was divided in public, private and private-personal structures. The limitations and possibilities of different strategies need to be further explored with respect to the kinds of services supplied as well as how benefits are distributed. Cultural eco- system services, such as recreation and social cohesion, cannot be taken for granted based on quantitative measures of green space alone. The spaces must be assessed in terms of types of access offered and who has access

Chapter 4: Building Sustainable dwellings, neighbourhoods and communities

This chapter analyses the residential sector from a well-being perspective and proposes a number of policy priorities that are consistent with wider well-being and sustainability goals. It explores several indicators that can improve policy makers’ ability to monitor progress in delivering these priorities in the sector, as well as guide decisions to capture the benefits of a two-way alignment between climate and wider well-being goals, while also managing trade-offs. The chapter examines the relationship between the proposed indicators and the indicators used by the Sustainable Development Goals and the OECD Framework for Measuring Well-being and Progress