Malmö is a case study in the reaction against modern housing projects: new urban schemes in the city centre
replicating the traditional perimeter block (reminiscent of the past), and big new developments comprised of pieces
of showcase architecture (announcing the future).
The leftovers of the modern plan, the suburban slab, serve as a poor backdrop for this ongoing battle — their destiny
is most often the one of the failed experiment. The redesign of Holma can invent new relationships between public
and private space that will mend the existing condition without replacing it, to complete the slab scheme without
abandoning its objectives.
On the project site, a neutral carpet made from different urban fabrics, serves as the foreground for the slabs floating
above. These patterns are complex in their apparent modesty, dealing with different degrees of public and private, open
and closed, intimate and inclusive. In contrast with the slabs, the carpet finally achieves the modern ideal: open urban
living.