The Albano area north of Roslagstull in Stockholm is an old industrial land that has been transformed into a new university district with institutions, services, student, and researcher residences. Albano has a strategic location between Stockholm University Frescati, the Royal Institute of Technology, and the Karolinska Institute, with the aim to become the hub of Science City as various educational institutions meet here.
Being a campus area, needs for students, as well as their teachers and researchers, are to be met as a working and social environment. The campus being filled with many visitors daily requires a variation of multifunctional spaces.
The campus has a unique location, being situated in the national city park and the culturally significant landscape around lake Brunnsviken. The surrounding landscapes sets high demands on the design to both support and enhance them. The campus area becoming an important structure, binding, and linking together the various sub-areas, spatially, socially, and ecologically.
The Albano project participated in a national effort for sustainable urban development with the Sweden Green Building Council which ensured that the project had an ambitious environmental profile. In the project initiation a mapping of ecosystem services was developed to support planning and supplementation of efforts for both ecological and social sustainability.
Campus Albano is planned as a mixed campus, consisting of both residential and learning environments and public facilities, providing a lively district both day and night.
The overall outdoor design aims to create inviting and experiential public spaces for social and working life. Public spaces of various character and scale are added for studies, meetings, and recreation, such as public green terraces, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, and squares. The campus has a high degree of integration between indoor and outdoor spaces, including outdoor workspaces to support students and researchers in their work.
Topography, sightlines, flows and good orientation have been important aspects. High accessibility requirements are met in an environment that in some parts have significant height differences, resulting in an intricate outdoor space.
The importance of ecological sustainability has permeated throughout the project, affecting planning, design, technical solutions, and the choice of vegetation. Making the Albano Campus an innovative space with a focus on the future while still connecting through design and vegetation to its historical and cultural surroundings.
The project consists of a system of public spaces connecting campus buildings and the Albano Park in the north. A large part of the campus area is built on slabs, constricting the usage of trees to bring greenery to the area. To create pleasant environments vertical vegetation plays an important role in these spaces. Robust materials such as site-cast concrete and Swedish natural stone in combination with careful furnishing that withstands wear over time are used to retain sustainability. An important sustainability aspect has been to reuse all excavated rock on the site in the park, ravine or crushed into bearing layers.
The Albano Park is a dynamic landscape for stormwater delay designed so that the water levels may vary over the year. Forest plantations, with newly planted trees and relocated mature trees from other parts of the city, develop over time through gradual thinning. Larger areas of meadow establish biological diversity.
To create functional diversity the area must be adaptable to changes, which has been ensured by using vegetation that strengthen ecological opportunities in a range of ecosystem services. Among other things, by strengthening existing green environments and dispersal connections to the national city park. Climate adaptation is enabled by a large amount of greenery in the area, delaying and cleaning stormwater in a system where water is led via green roofs and terraces, tree plantations to open water channels along building fronts, to newly constructed stormwater ponds.
In the park there is Future Island, an artwork created by OOZE in close collaboration with landscape architects and developers. The artwork consists of an island made of recycled stone from the site, divided into two climate zones. Exploring, demonstrating, and enabling discussion of the impact of climate change on nature.
Campus Albano is a project of great complexity that has involved many disciplines over a long time. Nivå Landskapsarkitektur has been responsible for the design of the project’s outdoor spaces throughout the project. A close collaboration was carried out with the client, architects, engineers, and experts in various fields. The result being a multifunctional and accessible campus where creative and innovative solutions form historical, social, and ecological sustainability.
Architecture offices involved in the design: BSK Architects, CCO Architects, Cedervall Architects, Arkitema, Brunnberg & Forshed, Joliark, Pörner & Partner
Artwork: Ooze, Statens konstråd
Location: Campus Albano, 113 47 Stockholm
Design year: 2006-2023
Year Completed: 2023
