This thesis is a study of residential environments and a design concept for a proposed housing area in Tierp.
The industrial era created a need for the central planning of housing. The confined environments that arised in cities during the 19th century, together with modernistic and democratic ideas, led to regulations in planning and housing. Though the overall goal has been the same: to create a good standard in living, the ideas of how to achieve that have varied. The starting point for following generations has been to attend to the insufficiencies of the earlier planning periods. The ideal has led from the strict grid pattern city, through the garden city to early and late modernism and in the 1970's back to the traditional city once again. Today a kind of market oriented pluralism prevails, where different ideals take on their own directions side by side.
The small scale, well-defined borders between the private and public as well as closeness to nature, are factors that people covet in their living environment. Privacy and possibility to affect the shape of their own home, strongly contribute to peoples choice of a separate housing. At the same time, people want closeness to public spots, where they can meet their neighbours in casual circumstances, with no need to invite them to their own homes.
Space has often been discussed in planning literature from different perspectives. The different physical elements that form the space in our housing environments create different social and functional conditions. The shape of the space and its content is important for our orientation, for the possibility to identify different social borders and for what we associate the place with. A well-defined spatial structure with a pleasant grade of variation and distinct borders between the private and the public areas, are good starting points for a functional living environment with possibilities of positive visual experiences.
Tierp is situated in northern Uppland between Uppsala and Gävle. The origin of the village, you can find in the northern-upplandic agrarian culture and the iron industry. When the railroad between Uppsala and Gävle was constructed at the end of the 19th century, a station was built where central Tierp today lies. There a small "station-village" grew up. The small community was soon given a grand grid patterned city plan, based on the ideal of that time. It was soon changed after more "sittean" ideas that made the plan based on the actual needs and the existing surroundings. A uniform small-scale town was to be the character of Tierp until the arrival of the modernistic era, when traffic planning and housing areas shattered this assembled characteristic. Today Tierp offers a cheap, close-to-nature living and good public service. It makes the community attractive for families. A positive annual immigration has made the municipal authorities investigate possible options for new housing areas. Vallskoga in the northern border of central Tierp, is one of the places under study. Vallskoga consists of a stretched field and is bordered by Sjukarby, one of the old villages that once constituted Tierp before the appearance of the railroad.
This thesis finishes with a concept for a proposed housing area in Vallskoga. The concept programme is based on the idea of a living suited for the scale a...
