BIG!

VM Housing

Ørestads Boulevard 57-59
2300 Copenhagen
Denmark
http://www.vmhusene.dk

So much to see!

BoKlok

http://www.boklok.com/Sverige/Vara-projekt/Skane-lan/Slutsalda/Tygelsjo-Sjotorpsangar/Projektet/

It’s a BoKlok project where they are building the houses when you are here. If you click on “Karta” you will get a map. The address is Sjötorpsvägen, Tygelsjö. Its about 15 minutes drive from Malmö and I think it’s easiest if your contact could help you get in touch with the site manager, if not contact me.



Bau-How

http://bau-how.com/#/welcome/

Here you should contact Sverker Andreasson

They are building their first house in Copenhagen about now, Sverker knows more about where and how.



NCC Komplett

This is a now closed initiative from NCC where they did build house elements with everything in a factory, put them on trucks, transported them to a BIG tent and put them together. Sverker Andreasson used to work with this and could probably tell you more. I’ve attached a presentation done a few years ago by Sverker, and I think Glenn has some more information about it to. There are houses built in Stockholm that you should be able to look at. If Sverker can’t give you an address contact me and I will help you.



Open House

http://www.openhouse.se/?id=8

This is a company that has built a lot of houses, but closed their factory about two years ago. They have an area just outside Malmö where you can se how their houses look, and hopefully you will be able to look inside an apartment. This is a really interesting “block” just outside one of Malmös better suburbs on a field. In the start there were mostly Danish people living in the apartments because it was so close to the bridge to Denmark, and it was much cheaper to live in Sweden. Now it has changed a bit, and the houses doesn’t stand alone on the field any longer, but it’s still a very interesting place to go to. It takes about 10 minutes to go by car, but you can easily go by bus.

I have talked to a man called Jörgen Olsson who will help you.

I’ve attached a presentation done by the former manager a couple of years ago.



Modulenthus

http://www.modulenthus.se

This is a housing company building one family houses. They have come a long way in industrialising and have a high level of prefab. Their factory is located in Hässleholm, about 1 hour drive from Malmö and a lot of houses being built around Malmö.

I have spoken to the factory manager, Jan Persson, he is excited about you coming. I happened to mention Glenn Ballard, witch he is a big fan of…



Then there is a company in Stockholm doing prefab called Lindbäcks Bygg http://www.lindbacks.se/bygg/page15.php

I will try to get in touch with someone there in the next week

transportation

Bjorn! How about bus? I've heard from someone that bus is much cheaper than train. is it ok to take bus maybe from Linkoping to Stockholm based on your suggestion? I found this website http://www.swebusexpress.se/

copenhagen

Architecture in Copenhagen


1.JDS Architects - http://www.jdsarchitects.com/
BIG_Bjarke Ingels Group - http://www.big.dk/

About their housing
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.arcspace.com/architects/plot/vm/17.vm_houses.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.arcspace.com/architects/plot/vm/vm.html&h=300&w=300&sz=15&tbnid=YSF5HrBCRx_uYM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3DVM%2Bhouses&hl=en&usg=__9e-Zn5N7x-jPGyBmZXf9TB8E86U=&ei=QXJYS6L9EJXIsAPe25XGBw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&ved=0CAwQ9QEwAA


2.3XN Architects
http://www.3xn.dk/

Tivoli Concert Hall
Copenhagen, Denmark

Horten Facade_Danish Law Firm, Horten Headquarters in the Tuborg South neighbourhood of Copenhagen.


3.Green Light house(sustainable prefab building)They offer a tour but it costs about 400 dollars which is too much...
http://greenlighthouse.ku.dk/english
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=10576

Suggestions from Anna

Hi guys,

I spoke to a woman who works for a consulting firm in Malmo. She suggested some more things to see:

Moelven (Bjorn also suggested this visit) - She will provide us with a contact. The factory is somewhere on the way from Malmo to Stockholm.

Bauhow - a group designing prefab in Malmo. These people have not built anything yet (later this year), but they were part of a failed NCC (Swedish construction company) initiative to do volymelement (the box units prefabbed with MEP).

Open House - Another failed initiative, but there are some built houses outside of Malmo. She will provide some contact info so we can talk to them if we want...

She also mentioned that they would love to take us out to lunch and we are welcome to drop our bags in her office...

Itinerary (right now)

Sat Feb 6 - Arrive in Copenhagen
Mon, Feb 8 - Production development - BoKlok - Malmo

Tuesday Morning, Feb 9 - Travel to Gullringen. Visit BoKlok sites.

Tuesday afternoon/Wednesday morning, Feb 9/10: visit Boklok factory

Wednesday - visit Moelven(?)

Thursday or Friday - Visit Anders Holmsberg(?)

Saturday or sunday - Flay to SFO

Bjorn - What do you think the feasibility is of driving in Sweden at this time of year? It seems like we might need to drive to Gullringen and I am wondering if we should drive all the way up?

I've done some more research for you guys.

I spoke to a guy at "Arkitekthus" to try to get some info on how/where their houses are produced. It turned out the level of prefabrication is not particularly high. Walls are prefabricated in a factory (2,5 h from Stockholm) and all the rest is done on site. The thing about Arkitekthus is that they offer a nice collection of "monteringsfärdiga hus", a common genre in Sweden, but in this case with unusually high ambitions in terms of design. There are other things I think would be more interesting for you to look at, in case you don't have a lot of time and want to a broader scan of the market.

I talked to one of the young architects I mentioned to you before. His name is Anders Holmberg (www.andersholmberg.se) and he's currently working with a small manufacturer (1 h from Stockholm) on a collection of affordable houses using a supposedly very ambitious prefabrication method ("A new affordable typehouse collection for Björklidenhus" on his website). Some of these houses, and some zero energy ones where he's using a different technique, are about to be assembled just outside of Stockholm around the time you get here, in case that is February. He would be happy to support you with a guided tour, images and other stuff you need. (Anders on American prefab: "They need help over there!") :-)

Another manufacturer at the forefront of offsite construction in Sweden is "Moelven". They claim to be ahead of the big companies in this sense, and they will probably have a project at various stages of completion in their factory around the time you get here. The factory is just outside a small town where the train stops going from Malmö to Stockholm, and they will probably also do onsite work on another project in Stockholm around the same time...

How does this sound?

/Björn

TENTATIVE! schedule

Hi Everyone...

John, Matt and I were discussing schedule and we outlined the following plan. The plan is open for comment, but if you have serious objections please voice them now.

First, we thought the week before spring break is the best time to go because (1) midterms are generally the week earlier, (2) students who want to extend the trip can do so easily and (3) we will have spring break free to focus intently on thesis and catch up on any lost work.

March 12/13 (Fri or Sat) - Fly to Copenhagen

March 13/14 - BIG projects/ other architecture (suggestions please!) around Copenhagen.
Sunday night - travel to Malmo

March 15 and 16 - Malmo
One day - visit Boklok factory out side of town
The other day - visit sites in Malmo (suggestions!)

March 16 or 17 - train to Stockholm

March 17,18 (maybe 19) - Sites in and around Stockholm (Arkitektus, the guys Bjorn mentioned... hopefully a smaller developer/architect)

March 20 - Fly Stockholm - SFO

OPTIONAL - Matt is researching England sites so potentially we could fly Stockholm to London via RyanAir and see prefab there on the way home....

Leave comments in the comments...

flight fares sweden / london

hello everyone,

I did some preliminary search on flight fares with several options: trips to london and sweden (stockholm or stockholm + malmo), or trip to sweden only (stockholm or stockholm + malmo).
If the trip is to malmo, we would have to fly to copenhagen which is very near, either from london or from stockholm, or from san francisco. I´m not sure if going to both countries or the three of them would affect some people´s visas- I guess this could be a problem since we have such an international group.

The prices up to now are similar during all the month of february and start of march, I looked from saturday to saturday, for one week. It looks as it doesn´t change much with days or weeks, but of course, the closer it gets the more expensive it will get too.
Here are the approximate cheapest fares I found for these options:

OPTION 1. Visit to London and Sweden

San Francisco- London : 700$

OPTION 1A : London and Stockholm- TOTAL +- 800$

London- Stockholm (skavsta) (ryanair): 50-100$

OPTION 1B: London and Malmo- flights to Copenhagen (near malmo)- TOTAL +- 800$

London- Copenhagen : 100$

OPTION 2. Visit to sweden from stockholm

OPTION 2A : san francisco- stockholm (arlanda)- TOTAL +- 850$

between 800 and 900 $, via London, or US cities

OPTION 2B : Stockholm and malmo/ copenhagen: TOTAL +-970$

Stockholm- Copenhagen- from there road to malmo : 120 $ (norwegian airways)

OPTION 3. Visit to sweden from malmo:

the flight would be from san francisco to copenhagen, similar price than option 2 (around 800$), and from there if necessary round trip to stockholm (120$)

As for the fares, is doesn´t look as they change much with the week, so we might have to decide on a week to look closer.I can start to look at the cheapest hostel fares for these cities too.

olimpia

So, those of you planning to go to Sweden:

Visiting BoKlok sounds interesting. I know nothing about their process of prefabrication or how well developed it is, but I guess you guys have an idea. There are some nice things to see in Malmö too, so stopping by down there is probably a nice idea. Just over the bridge, in Denmark, there's a couple of projects by BIG that could be worth a visit. In Malmö there's a fairly new residential waterfront development on former industrial land called Västra Hamnen (with a residential tower by Calatrava which might be interesting too). And if anyone of you wants to meet up with Edvin and Anna, who were in Berkeley 2007-2008, they live in Malmö.

I did some research on "monteringsfärdigt", and it seems like the current or next big thing in building construction in Sweden nowadays is "volymelement". These are box-like units that are prefabricated in a factory with plumbing, tiles, wallpaper and everything, transported to the site on trucks (setting their limits in size), and then easily stacked and joined together into a finished building. The process is from what I can understand cheaper than normal construction, but demands a lot of planning and cooperation. Is this what you are looking into...?

I found a report from "Boverket" ("The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning - Boverket - is the central government authority for town and country planning, management of land and water resources, building and housing.") which describes the state of the Swedish construction industry in this aspect as of 2005. It might be useful to you guys, and I can help you with translation when I know more specifically what you're looking for. It seems like the big dragons among Swedish construction companys (Skanska, NCC, Peab, JM etc.) have been slow starters in all this, and some smaller companies have done more interesting stuff, earlier.

I found an old (2003) issue of "Arkitekten" (the monthly journal of the Swedish equivalent of the AIA) with articles on some projects using "volymelement". One of them was about a couple of young architects in Stockholm teaming up with a smaller construction company to build some rowhouses in a small town an hour away from Stockholm. The project was initiated by the architects themselves and the degree of prefabrication is said to have been 98%. That project might be interesting to you, and if so, I could try to get in touch with them about it.

If you let me know more specifically what you are researching, what info you need, and what your plans are for the moment, I'll be happy to help you out.




I looked up some accomodation options for you as well. I live in central Stockholm and could host one ore two of you for a few nights if needed, but this is a good place to start:


Matches on hostelworld.com

Best Hostel Old Town Skeppsbron:
Great location on the old town waterfront, next to Tarantino's favorite bar in Stockholm. Not my favorite bar...

2kronor Hostel - Old Town:
Old town waterfront too.

Archipelago Hostel Old Town:
5 min from old town center

Rygerfjord Hostel:
On a boat. Seems nice. A little more off from old town, 10 min

The Red Boat Mälaren:
On a boat. Seems ok. Close to the bridge between the old town and the southern island.

Långholmens Vandrarhem STF/HI:
Voted best hostel in Sweden. Popular. slightly off. Former prison!)

STF/IYHF af Chapman:
Classic. Spectacular accomodation on a sailing ship on Skeppsholmen. The island used to belong to the navy, but now a museum of modern art (by Moneo) and the Royal University College of Fine Arts.

STF/IYHF Skeppsholmen:
Next to af Chapman.

Castanea Old Town Hostel:
Nice location and all.


Not on Hostelworld:

Gustaf af Klint:
Close to the bridge between the old town and the southern island. http://www.gustafafklint.se/




And of course there are some general architectural must-sees in Stockholm, including the Woodland Cemetary (Skogskyrkogården) by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, the Stockholm Public Library (Stadsbiblioteket) by Asplund, the City Hall (Stadshuset) by Ragnar Östberg. Guided tours in English should not be a problem at all.

So, let me know as soon as you can how many are coming, when, and what you need me for..!


best,


/Björn (your man on site, translator, and guide to Stockholm nightlife)



P.S. Laurie, I found nothing on Arkitectus. Could you give a link? D.S.