Raoul Lindberg
“Digital support for urban development improves the process and dialogue with stakeholders. When everyone sees how and why different solutions affect the environment, we can have more constructive conversations and make better decisions.”
These words belong to Oskar Berglund, Land Development Engineer at the Swedish municipality of Malmö who is leading the detailed planning of a new city district there. Key players in the urban planning process in the Nordic countries, municipalities are pioneering the use of new technology when it comes to sustainable urban development. Increasingly, municipal city planners are starting to use Autodesk Forma in their effort to manage the complexity of urban planning, bringing about the best possible city districts for the coming generations.
The planning process is similar across the Nordic countries, where the municipalities are an engaged and important partner throughout the whole process. They also share similar challenges: housing shortages, new demands on sustainability, the need to maintain high living conditions, stricter regulations, tight project deadlines, and budget constraints to name a few. Ambitious climate goals are also high on the governmental agenda, which puts further pressure on urban planning teams at the municipality level. Today, projects are getting larger and denser, making the planning process more complex. This creates a need for increased and improved digitalization to better streamline communications as well as pave the way for more data-driven decisions. A survey conducted by Autodesk in Sweden in 2022 showed that the most used digital tools by municipalities lacked, for example, analytic capabilities that could potentially speed up and simplify the planning process. Furthermore, social sustainability is becoming a more explicit goal in many projects, which requires even more advanced planning.
Another important issue is transparency, to give all stakeholders in the planning process a clear view on how the design proposals will affect them and their differing interests. Transparency requires information that’s clear and easy for everyone to understand instead of overly technical documentation that only experts can interpret. These are real and painstaking problems for all urban planners in the Nordic municipalities. Therefore, intelligent, data-driven planning tools such as Forma are gaining a lot of interest from the representatives of the municipalities to help them improve the way they work and collaborate.
So, how have the municipalities in our Nordic countries taken up the opportunities to use data-driven planning and AI to solve these seriously big challenges? Here are some examples that we think clearly show the concrete benefits Forma provides in both improving their workflow and projects.
Rødovre, Denmark
At 12 km2 Denmark’s third smallest municipality is one of its most densely populated, where 42,000 residents call home. “This places great demands on land use, which is why we are constantly working to apply the latest and best digital solutions to our planning work,” says the municipality’s now former city architect, Jesper Pagh who since moved to Horsens municipality. “The aim, for example, is to strengthen the quality of local plans and optimize cooperation with developers, so that together we can create as much value as possible for the municipality’s residents.”
This is where the municipality’s planning department has been leveraging Forma to help achieve better quality in their urban developments; currently it’s being used for three housing projects totalling around 200,000m2 including Rødovre’s largest urban development called Bykernen.
“Municipal urban development is a complex process that takes place in close cooperation with politicians, developers, external consultants and other partners. Forma makes it easy to visualize what is practically possible, enabling stakeholders to understand a project easier and make key decisions. Even though we are in the development phase, the tool provides measurable data on sun, wind and noise on the finished building, making it much easier to compare different project proposals and choose the best one,” says Pagh.
“Forma makes it easy to visualize what is practically possible, enabling stakeholders to understand a project easier and make key decisions.”
Jesper Pagh, former city architect, Rødovre municipality
New housing needs to be mindful of noise due to a major ring road that runs through the municipality; having Forma’s noise analysis has been vital to the team here. Pagh: “Now we can easily measure and visualize traffic noise in a concrete way and ensure that in our new urban development projects we can better shelter citizens and users from noise, prevent health problems and provide quality of life. These are key elements of good architecture.”
Vantaa, Finland
For the development of the Kivistö district in Vantaa, the municipality wanted to preserve the proximity to nature and, at the same time, expand the residential neighborhood. Denser neighborhoods can be a form of sustainable development, but at the same time, can potentially pose a challenge for the well-being of residents if living qualities are not monitored. The city planners therefore chose to use Forma’s platform in two new areas in the district: Onnenkivi (50,000m2) and Lumikvartsi (60,000m2).
“There are plenty of valid reasons for highly compact urban construction, such as climate aspects, but how do we ensure that the environment still stays pleasant and residents thrive there?” says Anna-Ritta Kujala, regional architect of the City of Vantaa.
In these areas, the municipality has used Forma to see how different design proposals affect the final result and to make decisions using a variety of information. One such example is the noise analysis which has given the team quick results and more insights into noise conditions at the early stage. Now it has been feasible to consider, among other things, how speed limits for traffic in the area affect various proposals.
When the effects of different solution proposals can be visualized and evaluated more quickly by the stakeholders involved, the quality of the design also increases, which is recurring feedback from the municipalities we talk to.
“It is almost as if the software forces you to test different possibilities. In the Lumikvartsi area, where the plans were almost completed, we managed to further refine the plans for the neighborhood’s courtyards. We could easily see how wind effects could be reduced and where a sun terrace could be placed. Even though the original plan was very good, we have managed to add tangible values to the design with the help of this technology,” comments city planner Ville Leppänen.
Town plan architect Niina Rinne adds: “Intelligent software solutions can teach a designer to see differently. It’s now easy to do multiple wind analyses and reflect on perspectives for which there might not have been enough time before, at least not in such a comprehensive way, or the work would have had to be outsourced. Now the designer can quickly see the impact of different solutions on people’s lives. Forma acts as a supporting layer of intelligence for the designer, which helps to improve the quality of the plans we create.”
“Forma acts as a supporting layer of intelligence for the designer, which helps to improve the quality of the plans we create.”
Niina Rinne, town plan architect, Vantaa municipality
Bergen and Bodø, Norway
Bergen municipality is rapidly developing and has been an early adopter of Forma. Using Forma on projects of different scales, they’ve already experienced clear benefits such as maintaining a high quality of living for residents in new developments and improved communication and collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders. Knut Knutsen, city planner and architect at Bergen municipality explains: “As a municipality we need to have the latest technology to create sustainable urban projects and serve our present and future users and inhabitants, and nature in the most efficient way. Forma helps us maintain an overview and easily create scenarios for big public plans as well as checking private plans using all the analyses. We used Forma for the vision and strategy plan of Dokken which is biggest transformation project in downtown Bergen. We also use it for the first zoning plan for Dokken and other public housing, landscape and social infrastructure projects like Grønneviksøren.”
In Bodø, the municipality was already closely involved when the property developer Clemens Eiendom used Forma in several projects and where it facilitated good cooperation between the parties involved from the outset. “With Forma, we have had access to analysis for wind and solar, among other things, early in the planning process, something that has been useful for us as a municipality and landowner. By working iteratively and in an analysis-driven way, we saved time and improved our entire planning process,” says Mats Marthinussen, department manager for city development in Bodø municipality.
Malmö, Sweden
In Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, a new nature-sensitive area called Elinelund is set to become a vibrant, sustainable district. The municipality of Malmö has used Forma to facilitate cooperation between different public administrations by explaining and visualizing how alternative ways of building affect noise, sunlight, planning of social areas and protection of the valuable nature in the nearby limestone quarry. This lively neighborhood comprises housing (2,000 homes), an elementary school, a preschool, a sports hall, and parking garage along with business premises and parks. As the landowner, the municipality produces the detailed plan, which requires good preparatory work, so that the building rights become commercially attractive. Malmö has also used Forma in the development of the third stage of the Elinelund area that is in the final stages of the planning process.
“In a visual data model, we and the city planning office have been able to easily twist and turn the locations and height of buildings and streets to find interesting solutions. It has made the process faster and easier,” says Oskar Berglund, project manager at the Traffic and Property Management Department in Malmö.
Also here, Forma has contributed to improving transparency in the planning process. Representatives from the school have been able to view the municipality’s visualizations to see, for example, how noise affects the school environment depending on the placement of the buildings. “The wind usually blows from the southwest and we got suggestions to stagger buildings to reduce the wind carrying the noise all the way into the area. With Forma’s simulations, we can quickly make noise, wind, and solar studies that would otherwise take weeks or months to produce,” explains Annie Altengård, planning architect at the City Planning Office and who, together with Oskar Berglund, leads the detailed planning work.
“Digital support for urban development improves the process and dialogue with stakeholders. When everyone sees how and why different solutions affect the environment, we can have more constructive conversations and make better decisions,” concludes Berglund.
“With Forma’s simulations, we can quickly make noise, wind, and solar studies that would otherwise take weeks or months to produce.”
Annie Altengård, planning architect at the City Planning Office, Malmö municipality
Norrköping, Sweden
Further north in Norrköping, the municipality estimates that the population will grow to 175,000 inhabitants in 2035 compared with 140,000 today; accommodating all these new residents will require about 15,000 new homes to be built over the coming years. Here too the municipality recognizes that urban development is becoming increasingly complex, that more demands are placed on its built environment. Not least when it comes to taking climate change into account, all of which risks clashing with the ambitions of keeping a high building pace. Norrköping, like other Nordic municipalities, is now implementing Agenda 2030, with a strong focus on goal 11 to ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.’
“A good urban planning proposal is the sum of many different qualities and spatial factors that work together. To support that work, we are now testing Forma, which makes it possible to sketch new urban structures and in parallel carry out several different analyses such as noise, sun, daylight, and wind. The result is a faster and more dynamic design process, than the processes where each technology area must be analyzed by a separate external consultant,” explains Erik Telldén, former digital strategist at Norrköping municipality.
Keen to test Forma?
Reach out to our team to hear more about how Forma can help your municipality to improve decision-making, collaboration, and sustainability outcomes in your developments.
Thank you to the municipalities of Rødovre, Bergen, Bodø, Vantaa, Malmö, and Norrköping for their support with the story.