Planning to build sustainable? : the case of Storsjö Strand

Abstract

The municipality of Östersund is presently developing a new township called Storsjö Strand close to the town centre by the lakefront of the lake Storsjön. The ambition is that the new area should be a good example of more sustainable building engineering and societal planning. Mid Sweden University was engaged to follow the process in action research setting, and to enhance the learning process. A triple helix process intending to better achieve such outcomes was presented at the Eco-tech 2014 conference. The process has now moved to a stage where the first two buildings are erected.

This paper reports on present status with a focus on how the sustainability goals have been transferred through the chain of involved organizations and individuals, developers and contractors, but also how the goals affect the production of the building, regarding materials, methods and costs, based on interviews . We have observed connections between sustainability outcomes, and the combination of quality of the goals set for the project and the types of processes for achieving them. So far, it seems like the sustainability goals partly have been transferred through the process. The process will be followed until the buildings has been in use for some time.