REGENERATIVE CITY

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In a new grand vision for the 40-hectare future development area, Dokken in Bergen, Norway, Third Nature shows high ambitions for the regenerative city in an old logistics port and ferry terminal. The future Dokken is planned as a zero-emission district, emphasizing Bergen’s relation to the fjord, nature, and history, thereby seeking to fulfil the goals of the Paris Agreement.

FACTS
Partner in charge: Flemming Rafn Thomsen
Employees: Rune Wriedt, Sabina Brunstein, Kristina Line, Julia Östlund, Emanuel Reich
Client: City of Bergen
Location: Bergen, Norway
Type: Parallel acquisition
Role: Arkitekt, lead consultant
Size: 40 ha masterplan. 535.000 m2 mixed use and public and cultural buildings
Team: Entasis, Matter by Brix, MOE
Period: 2020, ongoing

The project is developed for Bergen Municipality in close collaboration with Entasis, Matter by Brix and MOE and has fokus on nature-based climate adaptation strategies, a community-based sharing economy, and renewable building materials through a holistic city planning.

A new ‘allmenning’ and a nature-based loop
The current area of Dokken is expanded by receiving surplus materials, such as granite rubble, left over from infrastructural works in the mountainous region around Bergen. The extra land creates more space for nature and urban life at Dokken. In our plan we introduce two primary elements: the first, a new, urban allmenning, is an innovative climate streetscape based on an interpretation of the unique public spaces that intersect the city of Bergen. It ensures a strong relation to the existing qualities of the urban fabric and connects the locations that are characteristic of the Bergen DNA.

The second primary element is an all-encompassing nature-based loop, which connects the new, natural harbourfront with the surrounding green areas. This new coastline is 4.5 kilometres long, a 58% increase of the length of the present industrial quays. The loop makes up one third of the total area, thus creating a huge, green and publicly accessible urban space. All parking in the district is placed underneath the green terrain, removing the cars from the streets.

The new green and blue loop expands on the city’s relation to the fjord and the mountains – a relation central to the understanding of Bergen.

The three pioneers
To kickstart the development of Dokken, we propose three pioneers: The Sea Quarter, which houses the Institute for Marine Research, the Directorate of Fisheries, and the new Bergen Aquarium; The Sugarhouse Square, that engages the public in the new urban development; and Under the Bridge, a place for experiments, entrepreneurship and grass roots under the Puddefjord Bridge.

With a focus on the diverse city, we show variations on a reinterpretation of the historical, Norwegian cluster villages, in which community and sustainable living was naturally important. Klyngetun,

All the building materials in the cluster housing are renewable and reusable, and combined with transformations of the existing industrial buildings, we obtain a large reduction in CO2. For instance, the old Harbour Warehouse is converted into the new Aquarium. Concurrently, the mobility infrastructure is integrated into the landscape, removing the car from the urban space in favour of a light rail, cyclists and pedestrians, all the while preserving the access into Nøstebukten for the large ferries.

The regenerative city – through and through
Creating a regenerative city is about integrating sustainability into all the discrete parts if the city, great or small. In a sustainable future, everything – from our everyday consumer habits to the total ecological footprint of the city – must work together in circular processes, which won’t destroy our nature and climate. The sustainable city must correct the sins of the past by recreating lost narratives and reuniting separate areas and processes – and, in the case of Dokken, by creating new connections and reuniting Bergen with the water.

The regenerative city can improve our feeling of happiness and quality of life by speaking to our senses and our psyche, but it also necessitates a change of paradigm in terms of how we think, plan, govern, experience and live in our cities.

By using nature’s own strategies, we can accommodate for the greatest problems of urbanism: carbon emissions, flooding, cloudbursts, heat island effects, biodiversity, public health, mobility, inequality, etc. For instance, it is more interesting to conceive of a flooding strategy as a green and recreational solution than a tall, concrete wall separating the city and the sea. And it is more interesting to let the trees absorb the rain locally, than leading it away in pipes underneath the city.

The primary elements of our plan, along with the many smaller strategies, describe a regenerative and nature-based approach based on pragmatic no brainers. By stitching the spheres of nature and city together, we obtain the best of both worlds. It is exactly this method of both-and, which characterises our vision of Dokken.

The Sea Quarter

Under the Bridge

‘Tunet’ – sustainable cluster housing by the hill

The Sugar House Square

‘Tunet’ – sustainable cluster housing by the ocean

Well on it’s way towards a third nature. The winning proposal is like a meteor strike in the functionally divided city

Boris Brorman Jensen in The Architect

It is captivatingly futuristic and, alongside the other comparatively simple schemes, speculates just how advanced we could be if we hadn’t neglected our urban waterways for so long.

Financial Times on HOW

A jury member described it as ‘academic hippie platitudes – plenty of feel-good, but completely unnecessarily high readability index’.
The most original is in the solutions presented. Not least what a jury member call ‘the Big Rainwater Penis’.

Creative Business Cup jury

The winning project of the Europan competition presents a visionary proposal for how we draw nature back into the city and utilize the qualities that it can give to the cityscape.

City Architect of Copenhagen, Tina Saaby

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