STRIKING A BALANCE / uRBAN GREEN-BLUE DISTRICTS in sweden

November 20, 2018 / 4 minute video + 2 minute read

I struggled a bit trying to title this video/post because I thought, “What’s the best way to describe a so-called ‘green-blue’ district?” I think most people are familiar with the concept of green design, but blue design? Maybe we can infer that, yes, it’s design related to water - but what exactly does THAT look like? The two projects that I visited in Sweden (similar to the Dutch IJberg district from my last video) started to give me a better understanding of how urban development can, not only incorporate green and blue space, but capitalize on these properties. In times of crisis, how can we actually USE the stormwater coming in as a means of powering our energy supplies? How can urban environments provide little disruption in the water cycle? How can this balance actually give back to the larger community through waste-to-energy conversion? Most importantly, how can these developments act as an educational tool in how we monitor and utilize our water sources?

The amazing piece about these developments is that they begin to restructure how residents think about their behavior. Water infrastructure is no longer buried, but exhibited and celebrated. A sense of community is founded upon a joint effort in living more intentionally. And better yet, where people live now becomes a point of pride and shows the rest of the world, “Look what we’re contributing to better our homes and our city!” While these green-blue grids balance building and landscape proportionately, they also show the possibilities of balancing our positive and negative actions and their effects on the natural environment. There’s a give-and-take mentality, a holistic lifestyle born from seeing the one-to-one relationship of the built and the natural.