Stockholm…Stress…Shutdown
30 June - 2 July 2016
Hälsningar Från Stockholm!
Well, I finally made it to Stockholm and somehow my left foot looks like it swallowed a banana and I am in bed with flu. Not the greatest start to a expl-ork-cation, but I’ll take it. I genuinely think that this is my body’s way of notifying me that it is time to just stop and shutdown for a while. The only thing that bugs me about it is that I’ve waited all my life to go to Sweden, and I finally get there only to spend two days cooped up in my flat. Honestly, if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
Thankfully, I am staying in a really nice studio apartment in Solna called 2Home Hotel Solna, which has a gym, laundry room, sauna, and is in a nice neighborhood with a COOP grocery store nearby. I really can’t complain.
Though I did not get to see as much of Stockholm as I would have liked, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT! The coffee here is amazing! The aroma is simply intoxicating, and I get a little excited-high every time I smell a whiff in the street. Plus, this summer light is gorgeous! Twilight is my favorite time of day, and during the summer nights in Stockholm, night is just an extended version of twilight. The sky is just full of the most amazing blues, purples, golds, pinks, and orange. Simply beautiful!
Did you get any work done on your project?
Of course I did! Because I am such a stubborn person, I have hard time giving up on things. So in the space of four hours, I reserved my train seat to Copenhagen, walked most of Hammarby Sjöstad, talked with a few locals, and had some time to catch some rays and an ice cream before I left. Sadly, I was not able to interview a few of the store owners I wanted to speak with before I left, but I made sure to take their contact information.
Hammarby Sjöstad Eco-Living Done Right
Hammarby is a lakeside community that is a few kilometers south of Stockholm’s city center. Development of this site began in the early 1990s as part of Stockholm’s bid for the 2004 Olympics. Even then the plan was to develop the former industrial area into an ecological sports center and athlete’s village. The mission of Hammarby Sjöstad is to create an urban district which would be twice as good in terms of reduced environmental impact, and which would use half of the amount of energy used in a typical development (Inghe-Hellström 2005). So successful that it is referred to as the Hammarby Model, the backbone of the design is the incorporation of infrastructure from the beginning. Some of these measures include (Source: http://www.futurecommunities.net/):
- New public transportation routes
- Two new bus routes (intercity buses are fueled by bio-gas).
- A free ferry service.
- New tram line that links Hammarby to the city center.
- A care sharing scheme, which includes twenty-five cars placed around the neighborhood.
- District heating and cooling
- Apartments are linked to the city’s district heating, and district cooling is offered to offices and stores.
- Sewage from the apartments is converted into heat energy and bio-gas for use in district heating plants and public transportation vehicles.
- Incorporation of solar panels or solar cells into building envelopes.
- An underground waste collection system for the neighborhood as a whole
- ENVAC waste system.
- Solid waste from the processing of sewage is composted and used in foresting.
- Development of greenspaces to support local wildlife and provide a united aesthetic:
- Linear greenspaces that connect ends of the community to each other.
- A nature reserve.
- Lowering the road alongside the development by two meters to reduce noise pollution.