The current ecological footprint of Gothenburg is 2.5 Million globalhectare or the size of Västra Götaland. If all citizens in the world used as much resources we would need 3 globes to survive.

Now, imagine Gothenburg had an ecological footprint of its own size.

We would have to make drastic changes in many fields, such as transportation, energy, food and waste.

But did you know that as late as one century ago the city of Paris produced more food than it needed, the surplus was exported to London.

In the vision Göteborg 2050 the Gothenburg environment administration sets out the goals the city must reach till 2050 for a sustainable development.

To reduce our ecological footprint we need to shorten distances and make transports more efficient. We need to travel less by car and more by foot, bike, bus and tram.

We need to lower our energy consumption and change its sources.

We need to eat less meat and more vegetables. We need to eat more localy produced food to reduce transports.

We need to cut our waste production in half. The waste we still produce needs to be sorted for recycling.

RENEW

Til 2020 Gothenburg will grow with 8000 new inhabitants/year. This means we will have to build alot of new houses. How we handle this growth is decisive for the future of our city.

During the last century Gothenburg has grown sprawly.

If the city grew denser distances and transports would decrease.

Today the river Göta älv constitutes a border straight through Gothenburg.

Here the city could be densified and connected.

Cities has been planned with similar principles throughout history

Heavy shipping traffic, now passing through the city centre, could be redirected to Nodre Älv north of Gothenburg.

The development we propose would house one thrird of the estimated city growth til 2020 and form a strong connection between the riversides.

Here roofs can be used for leasure, agriculture and solar power. The roofs are terraced to the south so that people, plants and solar panels will have more sun and the apartments will need less heating and lightning.

The structures takes inspiration from the traditional Gothenburg social and architectural heritage such as yellow bricks, streets paved with granite, markets and canals.

 

IMPROVE

Take a look at Gothenburg from above. Like most western cities it is pretty grey. Roofs, streets and squares are all covered with inorganic materials.

Just the rooftops constitutes one third of the city.

What if this area could be used better?

On the flat roofs and in parks crops could be grown. On southfacing roofs solar panels could be mounted. Small windmills could produce electricity. More apartments could be built on some roofs.

A network of sustainable highways could connect the city. They would work as personal rapid transit systems and shelter cycling highways. The sustainable highways could even collect energy and water.