Holma Malmo
Status Europan 11, Competition
Client Europan
Program Housing Masterplan
Area 175.000 m2
Location Malmo, Sweden

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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.

In collaboration with FOR-A