Good Practices

Baltic Urban Lab is collecting examples of brownfield regeneration projects from the Baltic Sea region and beyond to share examples of how cities have successfully managed complex urban regeneration projects. Cities around the region with similar challenges can learn from these examples. In addition, a collection of tested citizen participation tools is available to get concrete ideas and inspiration for stakeholder involvement activities.   

Brownfield regeneration

The underused Skoone bastion area which has a great potential to be developed as a human scale and attractive public space will be activated and redesigned with the objective to include the stakeholders in the early stage planning processes.

The municipality of Norrköping has co-worked with the developers in the Inner Harbor and created a Quality program for the new district as a framework and common goal. 

Norrköping faces a major challenge when the inner harbor is being transformed into an integrated part of the city with new homes, canals, baths and parks.

The port area of the City of Rotterdam is currently under redevelopment - from heavily contaminted harbour site to creative Makers District. 

Former industrial territory where development of new ideas of revitalisation. For the first time in Riga, a student competition was organised with multidisciplinary teams and different stakeholder involvement activities to prepare proposals for Mūkusala development concept. 

Turku’s Pilot area in Baltic Urban Lab project, Itäharju brownfield site is part of Turku campus and science park area. Developing the campus and science park area is one of three spearhead projects chosen by the city council in spring 2016. The aim is high-quality land-use, housing, traffic and construction planning and implementation.

Hiedanranta city district is being co-developed by the city, citizens, businesses and local communities towards smart and sustaianble new city district of Tampere. 

Vulkan is a full scale example of sustainable urban development, based on the sharing of localities, resources and energy in a dense and multifunctional area – telling it’s story in different ways, through buildings, monuments and legends.

Fixfabriken is an urban planning project located in the Majorna district in Gothenburg, Sweden. Fixfabriken is a part of a bigger project called BoStad2021 which aim is to provide Gothenburg with 7000 new accommodations by the end of 2021.

The Hammarby Sjöstad (Eng: Hammarby Waterfront City) is an environmentally friendly neighborhood of 160 ha which previously served as an industrial waterfront. Hammarby Sjöstad is situated along the Hammarby Lake and located approximately 3 km south of the city center of Stockholm.

Brownfield regeneration deals with similar planning challenges in different cities and countries. The method of "One-day peer-workshop with a site visit" was developed in the Baltic Urban Lab project to offer an intensive and informal face-to-face forum for information and experience exchange for peers and to allow them to learn from similar planning cases that they are dealing with themselves.

Kangas is one of the most significant project of brownfield regeneration - a former paper mill and the smart future district of the future where people live, work, study and enjoy themselves.

Eternitten is a post industrial area in Aalborg, Denmark, currently under redevelopment. 

Telliskivi Creative City has been developed from a brownfield consisting of soviet-era factories into a vibrant, artist-friendly complex that has spaces for businesses, restaurants, shops and organising events.

The “Zachem” Chemical Plant in Bydgoszcz was one of the oldest and at the same time largest in Poland. Nowadays, the old chemical park is being revitalized as Bydgoszcz Industrial and Technological Park.

The Västra Hamnen (Bo01) has been gone through a variety of changes e.g. waterfront regeneration and  a transformation towards sustainable housing.

Brownfield regeneration from private gardens to campus area for University of Latvia as part of the redevelopment activities in the neighbourhood of Torņakalns, Riga.

A 140-year old wooden building reconstructed and transformed into a wooden architecture centre - Koka Riga -  in the 19th century wooden factory district in Grīziņkalns area.

 

The ‘Spīķeri’ block, a old warehouse area was re-developed and turned into a public area for culture, education and entertainment activities for inhabitants and visitors.

Riga restored the abadoned Miera Garden and its surroundings creating safer and more attrative environment for recreation.

Citizen participation and stakeholder involvement

To encourage co-creation and offer an easy way to give feedback on different development plans, the City of Tallinn developed a mobile app for urban planning.  The AvaLinn app - AvaLinn meaning open city - was launched in January 2018 and it was piloted for the planning of the Skoone Bastion area in several idea-gatherings. 

Turku Future Forum is a future-oriented, participatory platform, which aims at co-creating the future of the city through direct, face-to-face interaction between different stakeholders. It consists of interactive forums and workshops open for everyone, which focus on central themes of city development.

Two cleaning days were organised in the Mūkusala pilot site in 2016 and 2017. The events raised awareness regarding the brownfield site among the local stakeholders and acted as a plaform for spreading the information about forthcoming changes to the area. 

The City of Riga organized a student competition in  order to find new and fresh ideas for the development of Mūkusala pilot site but also to test a new planning method. 

By using citizen participation methods in the municipality of Botkyrka located in east central Sweden, close to Stockholm, a Public Health Park promoting gender equality has been created. 

A citizen summit was organized to vote on climate change adaptation methods developed earlier in a scenario workshop participated by local stakeholders.

Safety walks are being organized in order to gather residents’ experiences on their own living environment in Turku.

City of Turku used sparring groups to create a low threshold way for citizens to participate and share their opinions in the development of sustainable Skanssi district.

Gothenburg carried out a wide citizen dialogue process to formulate a vision for Älvstaden in cooperation with variety of stakeholders, with special attention paid to children and youth.

3D models were used to encourage public participation in creation of a vision for Industrial area in Norrköping.

Citizen budgeting was tested in connection to planning a riverside area in Örebro with around 100 students involved.

 Citizens were invited to give input on the Tallinn main street project aimed to redesign city space and create a modern, human scale main street.

During the “The red rose carpet” activity a group of young girls were closely engaged in the refurbishment of public spaces in Rosengårg, Malmö.