“In a bold and confident way, and with a built-in faith in man’s inner power, this project creates the conditions for unexpected meetings.” The City of Malmö’s design jury has awarded The Embassy of Sharing, designed by Midroc Property Development and Wingårdh Architects, first place in the land allocation agreement competition for the last downtown lot in the city’s Hyllie district.

In January a land allocation agreement competition was announced for the purpose of procuring a design scheme whose form and function would enhance the city’s vision for the Hyllie district. Of the fifteen firms who submitted expressions of interest, seven were selected to participate in the competition, and the project entitled The Embassy of Sharing ultimately emerged victorious.

The competition area is the last downtown lot in Hyllie and lies adjacent to the Emporia shopping center, also designed by Wingårdh Architects. Their design for Hyllie is a complex of buildings totally about 55,000 square meters of floor area. It includes offices, socials spaces, commercial spaces, and both rental and condominium apartments. The development is divided into seven blocks with various identities and functions. They are all bound together by a public green area that includes some small gathering places that are sheltered from traffic noise and wind.

“We want to create a distinctly green environment that contributes something to Hyllie that it lacks today: clearly articulated public places embedded in greenery and designed at a human scale,” says Joakim Lyth, the Managing Director of Wingårdh’s Malmö office. “They are meant to serve as a complement to Hyllie Station Square, in the same way that [the diminutive] Lilla Torg complements [the city’s main plaza,] Stortorget.”

The City of Malmö’s jury gives the following explanation for selecting Wingårdh’s submission as the winner:

“The enormous diversity of expression, scale, function, and character and the submission’s ambitious and rigorous goals for long-term sustainability for both people and environment captured the jury’s attention. The diversity, with the lighthouse leading the way, clearly marks Hyllie as a place, and with its great gusto for experimentation and bold character, the project captures the cosmopolitan character of the Öresund region. In a bold and confident way, and with a built-in faith in man’s inner power, this scheme creates the conditions for unexpected meetings. The submission’s greenery highlights Hyllie’s brand as unparalleled in sustainability but adds to it new dimensions such as circular economy, locally produced services and goods, and vegetation on multiple levels where people can linger and rest their eyes. The jury has determined that the project provides very good conditions for adding new qualities to Hyllie’s urban life by translating the monumentality of the surroundings and combining it with inviting small-scale functions and places. The diversity of the submission stands out in the context, as the submitting team has driven the concept, the functions, the structure, and the social engagement a bit further than the usual. The submission is challenging but in a credible and innovative way. The jury believes this could make the project highly impactful if it were to be realized. The Embassy of Sharing includes most of the strong components the jury was looking for.”

Jury:
Håkan Thulin, Director of Development, Property Management Office (Jury Chair); Magnus Alfredsson, Departmental Director, Property Management Office; Anna Sohlberg, Departmental Director, City Planning Department; Ingemar Gråhamn, City Architect, City Planning Department; Patrik Widerberg, Departmental Director, Office of Streets; and Pehr Andersson, Director of Business, Chamber of Commerce.

Info:
The parcel is about 12,000 m² in area and is located at the corner of Hyllie Stationsväg and Hyllie Boulevard, next to Emporia and Hyllie Station Square.

The project includes a total of about 55,000 m² of building floor area, of which rental and condominium apartments, including housing for students and for the elderly, total about 27,000 m² and offices, including start-up incubator space, total about 21,000 m². Sharing spaces and social areas total another 2,300 m² and ground-floor commercial space about 5,000 m².

For further information contact:
Magnus Skiöld, CEO, Midroc Properties, tel. 010-470 74 05, or Joakim Lyth, Managing Director, Wingårdh Architects in Malmö, tel. 010-788 10 00