At Kämnärsrätten, AF Bostäder is driving one of Sweden’s largest investments in student housing. The plans cover six new quarters, and the company is on a purposeful development journey in which each new construction project becomes more innovative and sustainable than the last. The last quarter is the best by far – and the next will be even better.
At Kämnärsrätten, AF Bostäder is driving one of Sweden’s largest investments in student housing. The plans cover six new quarters, and the company is on a purposeful development journey in which each new construction project becomes more innovative and sustainable than the last. The last quarter is the best by far – and the next will be even better.
AF Bostäder began construction at Kämnärsrätten in 2017. The area, which previously consisted of “four-leaf clover” buildings from the 1960s, is being transformed step-by-step into a well-planned city district, with a focus on sustainable urban design and thriving student life. The new quarters are entwined along a connecting thoroughfare for pedestrians and cyclists with green spaces for activities and places for socialising.
“The entire investment is characterised by a community building perspective, in which we promote all aspects of sustainable development: social, environmental and economic,” says Magnus, former Property Development Manager at AF Bostäder. “Three of the quarters have been completed, two have been started, and when the sixth and final one is completed in a few years we will have doubled the student housing available along Kämnärsvägen, halved the energy consumption, reduced climate impact connected with production and transport, and created a long-term sustainable city district in which students and Lund residents can have a good future.”
The housing areas have their own identities, with their own aims and solutions. At the same time, they each offer an opportunity to try out ideas and gain experience that can be applied in improvements for the next project. In each quarter that is built there is development and fine-tuning of everything from housing environment, energy solutions and climate impact to property management, waste sorting, biodiversity – and construction methods. In recent years, AF Bostäder has, among other things, tried building according to certifications such as Miljöbyggnad and Svanen. The company has also set up its own standards and developed solutions using different types of material and building techniques.
“Climate impact, the living experience, health, diversity and total economy can be adjusted and improved the whole time,” says Magnus. “That’s why we are not involved in batch production or with developing a homogenous ideal model that we repeat for several years. Instead, we take what we have learned and start every project from scratch. Development is so rapid that we have considerable possibilities to make advances from one building project to the next. So it is our responsibility to do that.”
A significant step is that since 2020, AF Bostäder has conducted climate impact calculations for all new building projects, something that is required by law from 2022, in order to map and reduce the climate impact of new construction. So far, the company has conducted climate impact calculations at the now completed Hippocampus and the ongoing project at Pireus. The calculations have mainly focused on the main shell and facades, as these cause the largest emissions in new construction, among other things during manufacturing and transport. The results have been extremely useful in the design of Rhodos, which will be the next construction project.
“Rhodos will be everything we have dared to dream about in recent years – tasteful and pleasant architecture, good solutions for cyclists, a verdant outdoor environment that promotes biodiversity, an orangery heated with residual heat, and energy consumption as low as half of the requirements for new construction. The climate impact calculations have also led to a well-considered design in which emissions linked to construction stay under 200 kilos of carbon dioxide equivalents per square metre – a 25% reduction compared with the average for Hippocampus and Pireus. Rhodos represents the sum of our experiences and in sustainability, terms will be the best we have ever done. At least until we break ground on the next project,” concludes Magnus.
Latest update June 3, 2022