Architectural Knowledge and Complex Urban Space : Analysis of Five Proposals for Slussen in Stockholm

This paper presents, compares and evaluates five design proposals for remodelling the famous, or as some would say infamous, Slussen transport interchange in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Slussen is strategically located where the locks between Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea meet the land bridge between northern and southern Sweden. It is now a major hub for Stockholm's road, bus, boat, rail and underground transport systems, which in 1935 was redesigned as integrated transport node in the modernist style. This has now become so physically deteriorated and obsolete that a series of proposals were put forward during the opening years of the new millennium for its complete remodelling. As a contribution to that exercise, the urban design practice Spacescape was commissioned to analyse and evaluate the likely performance of the various regeneration proposals for Slussen, using methodologies based on space syntax theory and other methods, in order to predict the likely outcome of each proposal on Stockhlom's urban life. In what follows, projects by Atelier Nouvel and Habiter Autrement, Big, Foster and Partners and Berg, Nyrens and finally Wingardh and Tema have been compared and evaluated in the light of the goals set out in Stockholm's comprehensive city plan.