Let’s be bold like Denmark and Sweden

Our friends at the Ontario Home Builders’ Association (OHBA) conducted a housing tour in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden, this past spring. Their objective was to cross-pollinate innovative ideas in terms of sustainability, urban design and architecture.

Some of the key findings from their trip?

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes when it comes to innovation; Cities are for people; Be daring and creative when it comes to architecture and infrastructure.

Taking risks must be part of the Nordic DNA — both the public and private sector in Copenhagen and Malmo are quite innovative when it comes to planning and design. The Danes and Swedes are not only unafraid to make planning or design mistakes; they practically welcome them as part of the evolutionary process of city building.

When the city of Malmo introduced cycling- and pedestrian-focused infrastructure, they didn’t have a debate, they didn’t run a pilot and they didn’t get bogged down in red tape. They just did it. If it worked, it worked. If not, they’d try something else.

Pioneering urbanists, like Danish architect Jan Gehl, have helped lead a 50-year transformation of how to create cities for people. Gehl believes in sustainable cities and, in a visit to New York in 2016, he talked about three main components to achieve this goal: People should walk more; spend more time in public spaces; and get out of “private cocoons.”

Now, Copenhagen is the most pedestrian- and cycling-friendly city in the world. The transformation of the city’s landscape was a deliberate result of planning, urban design and architectural decisions where people, rather than cars, were put first in every decision.

Infrastructure — such as stormwater management — usually isn’t very interesting. But the Swedes are changing that. Typically, in the GTA we see hard concrete culverts, sewers, and in newer suburbs, large stormwater management ponds to deal with the run-off from rain and snow. An emerging trend in Sweden is natural, green infrastructure through “low-impact development” to deal with stormwater runoff. This new direction has been incorporated in designs and offered as public amenities across newly-built communities in Sweden.

Danes also don’t appear to be afraid of wild and daring design. Some of the buildings visited were spectacular, yet others might be too avantgarde for our tastes. In Canada, we tend to have a rather conservative appetite for architecture. But this is starting to change in Toronto, with more developers commissioning international architects and young local firms.

On the public sector side of the equation, an abundance of urban design guidelines are often treated as regulations rather than ground rules. Strict zoning bylaws can literally shrink-wrap a site in terms of very specific design step-backs and heights, thereby limiting creativity. Many of the most interesting buildings visited in Sweden and Denmark would not likely be proposed by a private sector developer here, nor make it through the approvals process intact.

Let’s be bold. Let’s follow the lead of our Scandinavian friends and bring some innovation, creativity and flair to architecture and urban design.