Last week, I had the chance to visit Norra Djurgården on a field study for my Swedish class. Also known as Stockholm Royal Seaport, Norra Djurgården is a neighborhood and a testing ground for sustainable energy, water, and material initiatives. Sweden is known as a leader in sustainability, and it was cool to see this environmentalism in action. Definitely my favorite field study of the semester. Here are some photos I took during our tour:
As you can see from the photos above, the architecture here is very experimental and funky. If you want to build an apartment here, you have to be approved first. Constructors receive points if they plan to include greenery, solar energy, and other sustainable measures in the apartment. If they reach a certain amount of points, then they are allowed to build the apartment.
The neighborhood also uses biogas produced from restaurant and kitchen waste. Residents dispose of their trash in specialized recycling bins outside their apartments. WE do this in Årsta too, but the difference in Norra Djurgården is that their trash chutes travel through underground tunnels to collection stations instead of being picked up by cleaners and dump trucks. You can read more about how trash zooms through vacuum tubes in Stockholm here.
Now tell me this isn’t the most Swedish thing you’ve heard: When Norra Djurgården was being constructed, urban planners realized that new buildings would interfere with frogs’ ability to mate in the spring, so they built tunnels 2 meters underground for the frogs to meet each other.
Anyway, Stockholm was beautiful on this day! The weather report had me expecting a cloudy day, so it felt even nicer when the sun came out. Perfect for a little field trip.
Ev in Sweden 