Abstract This master thesis is a result of the work thas was done for my entry in the international architectural competition Urban spaces and urban life in Ørestad South, that was announced by Ørestadselskabet on the 31st of October 2006. The project work lasted from early November until the deadline on 14th of February. In addition to the proposal that was handed in, the master thesis consists of a number of reflections about the work that was done and design work in general. The proposal is an answer to a not that evident task. One would expect that the assigment was clearly defined in the brief of the competition like this. And so it seems to do but to define the real assignment and join your own aims to it from such an extensive brief can be quite time consuming. Why do architects participate and what is an architectural competition? How does the brief affect the choices and statements made by the entrants? What is a square? What is the strategy that leads to a convincing concept? The role and use of a concept in the design process.

The public spaces of the city from a social sustainability perspective, Jubileumsparken, a public space for the young, aims to see how public spaces can be open and accessible to all young people in the community. New public spaces can be created and formed by urban planning. A public space that is undergoing considerable development is Jubileumsparken, which is situated in Gothenburg. This area constitutes the case study for this thesis. Due to the commercialization in the neo-liberal society of today, there is a risk that economically weak people, such as the young, the unemployed or students, can?t take part of all public spaces.

The practice of landscape architectural involves forming the space in our cities and suburbs, as well as the landscape surrounding. The need of exploiting green environment leads up to, among other issues, flood problem during heavy rain and overfed water environments. The problem is partially caused by the shortage of knowledge, how the environment is responding of the innovations made by the city- urban planning and how to get sustainability. Research and knowledge how to take care of our environment, in a natural way, is increasing. The object of the thesis is to propose control and balance in urban wetlands, and discuss the difference a plant design can do. The thesis deals with discourses in the field of landscape architecture, biological diversity, dam construction, limnology, planting design and management, pollution of the environment and urban design practice.

This thesis is covering my design of an architectural object for the use in a pedagogical setting. The purpose is to create contextual premises for students, making possible the testing of designs, involving plants suitable for the urban environment. Hence, the main features in the object design is suggestive to the urban outdoor rooms - rooms that are formed amongst the city facades. The thesis is also about the design process set out from a technical reality, based on camera imagery. To a large extent, the thesis consists of reflections concerning the object's function towards pedagogy, perception and materials. Furthermore, the object claims to be a hybrid between architecture and landscape architecture.

The aim of our master thesis is first and foremost to win the competition One Prize - mowing to Growing: Reinventing the American Lawn, announced in USA by the organization Terreform 1, the first of December 2009. Apart from winning the competition we have also tried to reach a deeper understanding of food production today and its future possibilities. Our ambition to present a winning design proposal has to a large extent decided the structure of the entire thesis. Our completed and submitted design proposal - growforgold.org - is a way of addressing urban food production in a creative way, keeping the sovereignty of the individual in mind. Instead of presenting a place-specific design solution our proposal aims to create incentives and possibilities for urban farming to take place anywhere and anytime. Our submission to the competition represents both a tool and a platform which, put in practice, could make landscape architecture happen through the hands of the individual.

The purpose of this graduate thesis is to illustrate what could be theeffects of urban renewal carried out in a too hasty manner, the pointbeing that there could be features which have (yet) not been identifiedand therefore are lost if the planning of the city is not given theadequate amount of time and resources.Through a case study located at the wharf of Gullberg (Gullbergskaj)the significance of urban fringes and areas without too strict of aplanning are highlighted. Some guidelines to successful and consideratecity development are somewhat suggested.The survey is mainly based on two types of sources: contemporaryphotography and interviews with a number of people who are allresidents or tenants at the Gullbergskaj. Their testimonies regardingGullbergskaj and their use of this particular environment are used to drawconclusions of the qualities, which are not the typical cultural-historicalqualities but rather a quality defined by the user (of the quay), held by thissection of the Göta älv shoreline.This thesis is also concerned with the potential impact on the qualities ofGullbergskaj, was it to be the object of city renewal.The results of the study are compared to debating articles published in thenewspaper Göteborgs-Posten for a wider understanding of Gothenburg as atrademark, and the public opinion regarding the city planning related toCentrala älvstaden..

This essay deals with the relationship between the mendicant movement and the urbanization during the thirteenth century. The aim has been to explore the significance of the Dominicansand the Franciscans for the creation of an urban landscape. This was made through the study of the urbanization process in southern Halland focusing on the town of Halmstad where the friars were established. The importance of the mendicants was also studied through their absence in the towns of Laholm and Falkenberg. To achieve this investigation in a contextual perspective material from different areas was used such as archaeology, history and history of science and ideas.

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 essays overarching aim is to contribute to the theoretical discussion of transformation processes that are shaping the urban landscapes and further to problematize contemporary planning discourses in Sweden. Drawing on the concept of Foucault?s heterotopia and actor-network theory for spatial analysis, the paper seeks to analyze the complex urban landscape transformation process as an emergent property of human and non-human actor-networks seeking to transform and order space. With the district of Rosenlund in Gothenburg as a starting point, this thesis intends to examine how the cultural infrastructure - used by the residents and visitors of the city - are related to the city's planning and development processes. The case study is based on a boat (Rio Rio) in Rosenlund canal that is defined as a cultural infrastructure.

Behovet och betydelsen av stora stadsparker tycks ha fallit i glömska i samband med förtätning av städer. Planering av nya stora stadsparker tycks numera inte stå på agendan. Få arkitekter, stadsplanerare eller landskapsarkitekter lyfter fram värdet av nya stora stadsparker. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka betydelsen av nya och befintliga stora stadsparker i framtidens städer, samt om nya stora stadsparker planeras. Genom intervjuer med arkitekter, stadsplanerare och landskapsarkitekter i Stockholm, Malmö, Köpenhamn och Berlin, belyser denna uppsats yrkesverksammas syn på framtiden för, och betydelsen av, befintliga och nya stora stadsparker.

This paper is a quantitative case study named Outdoor recreation of urban areas viewed through a gender perspective. The intention of this paper is, by studying gender pattern in outdoor recreation practices in Gothenburg, to describe gender patterns in outdoor recreation of Swedish urban areas. This subject is important to study because of the practices of outdoor recreation forward public health. Today many people suffer from diseases caused by stress and too little exercise, which could be prevented if they practiced outdoor recreation. Not everyone has the same possibility to practice outdoor recreation because of the inequalities between women and men.

This essay intervenes in the politics of urban segregation in Stockholm. The main aim of the essay is to analyze and describe how advanced marginality and territorial stigmatization are expressed in the lived experiences of four unemployed youths, that have participated in a labor market training program located in the ?social vulnerable? area Rågsved. With a theoretical framework based in Henri Lefebvre?s production of social space the empirical findings are interpreted in regard to how the youths produce social space in dialectical interplay with urban politics, advanced marginality, territorial stigmatization, and their local neighborhood.

Efter andra världskriget blev bilen tillgänglig för den breda folkmassan och utgjorde därmed det huvudsakliga transportmedlet. För att öka bilens framkomlighet och säkerheten kring bilens framfart formulerades stadsbyggnadsprinciper till förmån för biltrafiken. Stockholms tunnelbana och dess förorter byggdes samtidigt som massbilismen tilläts dominera stadsbyggandet. Det här kandidatarbetet syftar till att undersöka Stockholms tunnelbaneförorters konfigurationer av urban form utifrån frågan om vilka trafikslag som prioriteras genom följande frågeställningar: - Vilka konfigurationer av urban form kännetecknar biltrafikorienterade- respektive kollektivtrafikorienterade stadsdelar? - Gynnar Stockholms tunnelbaneförorters konfigurationer av urban form ett visst sätt att resa? Metoden för studien är en analysmodell för urban form i förhållande till trafikprioritering som tillämpas på de fyra tunnelbaneförorterna Vällingby, Skärholmen, Akalla och Skarpnäck.

Efter andra världskriget blev bilen tillgänglig för den breda folkmassan och utgjorde därmed det huvudsakliga transportmedlet. För att öka bilens framkomlighet och säkerheten kring bilens framfart formulerades stadsbyggnadsprinciper till förmån för biltrafiken. Stockholms tunnelbana och dess förorter byggdes samtidigt som massbilismen tilläts dominera stadsbyggandet. Det här kandidatarbetet syftar till att undersöka Stockholms tunnelbaneförorters konfigurationer av urban form utifrån frågan om vilka trafikslag som prioriteras genom följande frågeställningar: - Vilka konfigurationer av urban form kännetecknar biltrafikorienterade- respektive kollektivtrafikorienterade stadsdelar? - Gynnar Stockholms tunnelbaneförorters konfigurationer av urban form ett visst sätt att resa? Metoden för studien är en analysmodell för urban form i förhållande till trafikprioritering som tillämpas på de fyra tunnelbaneförorterna Vällingby, Skärholmen, Akalla och Skarpnäck.

Förslag på hur Arkitekturskolan kan ritas och programmeras om för att bli en offentlig byggnad i staden som ger mycket tillbaka till Stockholms invånare. Form och program är utformat att ge alla som befinner sig i och utanför byggnaden en ny syn på staden där inte bara gatuplan är offentligt och takplan är privat. Runt byggnaden slingras sig en offentlig promenad som leder upp till det öppna takplanet med bra utsikt över staden. Byggnaden har delats upp för att skapa torg på plan 2. GA är en offentlig plats likt en galleria 2.0..