Commissioned by Sundbyberg’s Municipality, Sweden, Mandaworks was asked to develop a proposal for how Sunbybergs City Center could be transformed when the existing at-grade railway is buried underground.  

Currently a barrier in the city’s urban structure, the existing railway is also a key regional connection (5th busiest transport hub) in Stockholm and a catalyst for urban life in the rapidly growing municipality of Sundbyberg.  With the municipality exploring plans to bury the rail line starting in 2019 and dealing with an increased demand for housing and office space, they commissioned five multi-disciplinary teams to explore alternative proposals for the future train station area.

From the municipality’s starting point, Mandaworks developed a 3 dimensional design proposal and working process that focused on securing qualitative public rooms within the future development.  Entitled The Space Odyssey, our project gave top priority to integrating public spaces, both traditional and new, into the proposed urban fabric.  In the process of the project, our team studied the existing needs of Sundbyberg, various programatic elements, and the surface area and volume required for the differing programatic contents. The resulting volumes have a variety of shapes that can be attributed to their function, their sustainability performance requirements, and their atmospheric needs. 

During the process, the spaces were compiled into a catalogue with the principal that an infinite number of spaces could be imagined to open up creative new ways to re-imagine the city and its built environment.  In the creative process, a series of spaces were imagined, visualized and used to build up a dynamic 3 dimensional urban plan that challenged conventions by reversing the traditional order of placing buildings first and then working with the space between. In contrast, our proposal places the spaces first and molds the houses around the desired public spaces.  This working process yielded a dynamic urban fabric with unique variations in the housing fabric and a spatial marriage of public space, contextual qualities, and private development.

By providing space for activities first, social meetings and room for innovation are built into our proposed urban structure for Sundbyberg Center! In our Space Odyssey, the spaces bring life and create future connections that ensure a vibrant center and allow for hidden potentials to emerge. The concrete backbone of the proposal is that a powerful package of public spaces in the city can create a spirited and inspiring working process that involves the municipality, the local residents, and interested developers. And the result of the commission is a creative urban plan with the flexibility to embrace local needs and desires with context sensitivity and diversity.