Scandinavian Housing Design since the Mid 1990s: Selected Lessons from Practice

摘要

Recent Scandinavian housing has been widely admired for its perceived high-quality design. Much has been written about individual places and projects. This commentary takes a slightly different, comparative approach. It uses case studies from four cities - Stockholm, Malmoe, Copenhagen and Helsinki - to investigate what common factors and differences may have led Scandinavia to be seen as a beacon of housing excellence. Some of the case study areas are already well known; others less so. Architectural culture; the nature of the development industry and its responses to demands for better design; aspirational local leadership; multi-organizational collaboration; creative use of land ownership rights; promotion of environmental sustainability; infrastructure investment; astute use of governing documents; responsiveness to community and consumer demands; technological and institutional innovation; application of learning to new projects; and the particular cultural and political milieu of Scandinavian society are found, in combination, to be of defining importance in procuring the best housing design across all four cities.