Abandoned and unused railway structures often possess great potential if they are reclaimed and reused for new purposes. The thesis focuses on the global trend of restoring and revitalizing these areas, converting them into park areas, rail trails and green corridors in the city landscape, while preserving their ecological, social, esthetic and historic values. These rail areas were often abandoned when industries moved out from the cities, either to industrial areas or abroad. The use of railways for transporting industrial goods was also replaced to a large extent my motorized road vehicles in the mid 20th century, leaving the rails under-utilized. Because of their location and intrinsic values, they can be reused for important functions, such as green areas in the city environment, providing space for recreational activities and exercise and social meetings and interactions. I have closely investigated the three park areas High Line in New York, Promenade Plantée in Paris and Schöneberger Südgelände in Berlin, which have all gone through this transformation in recent years. I have summarized my conclusions in three key concepts to consider: design for social values, preserve the architectural history, and leave room for future evolution. The final part of my work is a design program for an abandoned railways area in Stockholm: Eriksdal railway area.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the tendencies among pupils concerning their attitudes towards History and some of the stated goals in the present and in the proposed course plan of History, since there is, probably, a change coming in 2011. The study is built on questionnaires answered by one hundred pupils at a Swedish upper-secondary-school. The results point to the fact that most of these pupils like history, but still they do not wish to make it an obligatory subject, which is a government proposal at the moment. Furthermore, the answers about sources, democracy, the use of History and the consciousness about History, have a clear tendency; there have been too little education about these areas during the pupils former nine years in school, still the pupils think that these are important areas to work with. Moreover, this study shows a disheartening picture when it comes to pupils knowledge of their cultural heritage. Only half of the pupils know which century Gustav Vasa lived in and just a third know what year universal suffrage was introduced in Sweden, two facts that ought to be set in most Swedes? mind..

This study focuses the development on the protection of landscapes with old industries and how it nowadays is appreciated by the inhabitants. The overall aim of this study is to increase the knowledge about how the so called industrial landscape in Norrköping became a cultural heritage that the citizens want to protect. The study also aims to investigate the citizens´ knowledge about the industrial landscape in Norrköping, and what value they think that the place possesses. Data was collected by an information research and six qualitative interviews. The interviews where analysed by qualitative methods techniques.

The purpose of this essay is to shed some light upon the children who grew up in Sweden after their parents fled the war in former Yugoslavia. Did the parents spread their own opinions about the other ethnicities which they fought against in the war to the children, even though they live in a new country? And if so, was it an act of patriotism for the country they once lived in and who was to blame for the war? Did the children who grew up in Sweden share the same attitudes as their parents? To find out about this we used interviews with four people, all with heritage from former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Croatia. What we found out was that the thoughts from the parents partially were passed down to their children, even though the children thought that they had formed their own opinions. In this case the thoughts didn?t relate to any kind of patriotism or who to blame for the war, they rather believed that they shouldn?t blame the other ethnic groups for the war.

Antalet arbetslösa ungdomar är stort i dagens samhälle. Det finns många åtgärder som bedrivs av landets kommuner som riktar sig till unga arbetslösa socialbidragstagare, men det finns för lite kunskap om dessas innehåll och resultat, samt om hur deltagandet i dessa åtgärder upplevs av ungdomarna själva.Syftet med denna studie är att få en ökad förståelse för vilka komponenter som deltagare iungdomsprojekt anser vara viktiga och varför. Vi vände oss till deltagare i projektet Green Team,som riktades mot långtidsarbetslösa ungdomar mellan 21 ? 25 år och som finansierades avstadsdelen Angered. Projektets syfte var att höja ungdomarnas sociala kompetens för att underlätta deras etablering på arbetsmarknaden.

Traditional product features such as price, quality and supply service have been extended and nowadays includes environmental aspects as well. It raises new and increasing demands on haulier companies. The transport sector is responsible for a large part of the pollutants causing today?s environmental problems. The business is being closely monitored and to operate environmental friendly is seen as one of the most important elements for the industry?s future development.

More efficient energy consumption is essential to secure a sustainable future, not least within the building and real estate sector which answers for approximately 40 % of the EU countries total energy consumption. One part of EU: s work to reduce the energy consumption is the directive on energy performance of buildings which among other things have lead to stricter demands on energy performance in new and renovated buildings.One of the difficulties with making buildings more energy effective is that it often demands big investments and although it results in lower operating costs the extent of these savings and therefore also the repayment time can be difficult to decide beforehand. To make it interesting for property owners and also tenants to invest in energy efficient buildings powerful incentives are needed. Favorable loans to energy efficiency projects are one example of governmental instruments that have been tested in other European countries with good results.Reduced operating costs appear to be the main incentive for property owners to make their buildings more energy efficient. The best result of an energy efficiency project is usually achieved by cooperation between property owners and tenants but in order to make that interesting it is important that both parts can profit from the savings.

The climate issue is a significant question, and the problem is mainly caused by human activities. Everyone can help to counteract the enhanced Greenhouse effect by reducing the amounts of energy they use and by not consuming more products then they need.Schools are some of societies many consumers and therefore contribute to the Greenhouse effect. The School also has an important task; to teach and disseminate knowledge and information about the climate and the environment. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education, Skolverket, must all schools regularly consider the environment and sustainable development throughout the entire education process. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many schools in Sweden today.One of many tools that can be used to coordinate environmental work and initiatives, and also to make it more efficient, is environmental management systems.

In this essay the authors have searched to get an understanding of howthe situation where for a person being handicapped and of sámi heritage in Swedenduring the 1800´s to the beginning of 1900´s. In this qualitative study, church booksand local governmental records from the time has been the sources for data. Findingsregarding sámi and disability first of all shows that the sámi didn´t produce any ownwritten records, this means we had to use records produced by Swedish authorities.These are the only records available from the time. Records that gave us theauthorities point of view. When working with historical documents it is the contextwere they were produced in and their implied readership that is of great importance.Using this method gives the possibility to tell the story by the perspective of theexposed, in our case sámi people with disabilities.

This is the result of a 10 week long study about if player behaviors and choices are affectedby the surrounding colors in their environment. A number of players are asked to movethrough a virtual environment, while being clocked, where they have to make left and rightdecisions based on different colors (red, green, blue and gray). While most choices consist oftwo different colors, some use the same color. The result shows that the players most likelyprefer one color over another, and that they most likely prefer a non-neutral color over aneutral color. With these results and the interviews that are conducted the conclusion is madethat it is very likely the players choices are affected by the colors in the environment, but it isnot clear to say how they are affected..

Present essay aims to introduce the reader to central topics regarding Rhododendrons of subgenus Vireya. As a result of a donation, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, received a collection of Vireya from a local amateur grower, Kurt Myllenberg. Since the subgenus Vireya is uncommon in Scandinavian horticulture, the study tries to establish conditions for successful growing. The subgenus Vireya differ from the other Rhododendron species through mainly three characteristics: the presence of two tails, attached to each end of the seed; the ovary-style junction is tapering and the pedicels arises directly from a dome-like base and form an umbel and not a raceme. The subgenus is distributed mostly in the islands of Indonesia and New Guinea, but also from Malaysia to Nepal and in Australia. Since Vireya species mainly grows as epiphytes in the tree canopies, they need high drainage and not too much water.

A large part of Sweden?s green, urban landscape is covered by lawns. Approximately 80 000 ha of maintained grass lawns are part of public courtyards, schoolyards, parks, golf courses, sport fields and traffic environments. Beyond this figure, the lawn is also an essential element in most private villa-gardens. Lawns have become a universal phenomenon through the dispersion of landscape aesthetics from the Western world.

This essay investigates the statements of Växjö municipality?s motives for some of its many environmental projects. The aim of the essay is to be theory-testing as to see how a municipality/city which promotes itself as being ?green? motivates its efforts in the environmental area. Växjö city promotes itself as ?The greenest city in Europe?, an award appointed to the city by BBC and other international media.

SummaryEurope?s public authorities are influential consumers. If they spend their money on greener products and services they can make an important contribution to the work towards a sustainable development. Green public procurement can thereby significantly improve the take-up of new environmental technologies. Through the effects of economies of scale, production costs be lowered and better equip us to fight environmental problems.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the electric solar potential on the Swedish island Gotland. The Gotlandic habitations have been divided into four house categories. For each category energy demand, roof area, geographic orientation androof tilt have been decided. Solar radiation data have been collected from the Swedish solar radiation model STRÅNG (STRÅNG, 2012).The buildings characteristics and the solar radiation have been used as input values in common solar formulas, the solar potential for each building category have been summed up to a total electric solar potential for the region.The electric solar potential on Gotland was calculated to 242 GWh/year with solar data from 2010. Gotlands largest city, Visby, is marked as cultural heritage by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2012).