Bring the Park of Fredriksdal to life - How to wake a sleeping beauty!
Once upon a time there was a park. Although lush and leafy, the park was considered unsafe and not used to its full potential. Through resident participation, engagement and some magic, the park underwent a metamorphosis and turned into a beautiful place. The residents felt proud of their new park, and lived happily (and healthier) ever after, with only a slight fear of crossing paths with dinosaurs!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”
G.B. Shaw
Local
Sweden
City of Helsingborg
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-06-03
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Planning Department, City of Helsingborg Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Cecilia Last name of representative: Fredriksson Gender: Female Nationality: Sweden Function: Urban Planner Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Järnvägsgatan 22 Town: Helsingborg Postal code: 25189 Country: Sweden Direct Tel:+46 72 974 75 55 E-mail:cecilia.fredriksson@helsingborg.se Website:https://helsingborg.se/
It all started with repeated concerns about the feeling of safety in the neighbourhood Fredriksdal in the northeast of Helsingborg. More specifically, the park lacked the amenities that would make it attractive for the community. Meanwhile the Swedish Police Authority assessed that the area met all the criteria for being a vulnerable area with an alarming situation in socio-economic risk factors.
In order to reverse the negative trend, we at the planning department put together financial means and capacity to invest in and work with the public space. It resulted in an overarching goal to develop the park's potential and maximise its use while empowering residents to have an impact on the area they live in and love.
With a neighbourhood characterised as segregated and socioeconomically weak, we faced a challenge in what methods and strategies to apply when tackling social inequalities and reaching out to residents with low trust in authorities. With The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child becoming a Swedish law in 2020 it felt particularly important to focus on children's rights. Therefore, the Childrens perspective and accessibility has been our main priority.
Our ambition was to encourage the neighbourhood to use their green spaces more. To emphasise the parks' already existing qualities of green infrastructure by facilitating recreational and physical activities. In order to make the park safer we adapted environmental design, such as better and innovative lighting but also co-creative initiatives. In addition to new meeting places, an outdoor gym, a play lane and a public toilet, a large part of our budget was spent on an adventurous dinosaur themed playground with high aesthetic qualities. The playground has become identity-bearing for the neighbourhood and provides the residents with joy and pride. With the participation of residents and children we have turned this once run-down space into a playful, accessible, safe and biodiverse park.
Childrens Perspective
Accessibility
Feeling of Safety
Physical Activity
Biodiversity
Fredriksdal was built in the 1960’s as a part of Sweden’s ambitious housing programme. Criticism today towards the neighbourhoods focuses on poor housing standards and segregation, with a large proportion of marginalised people, often with immigrant background, living here. However, we also see many positive aspects today, such as traffic separation, the presence of open green areas and with nature in the immediate surroundings.
A socially sustainable park
The neighbourhood has a low socioeconomic status, which we aimed to counter with residential participation in co-creative and physical activities. By that method, we ensured that residents have access to their park with facilities and programming that would fit their specific needs. Our ambition was to make the public space accessible and welcoming for all, without privileging one person or group over another.
A green sustainable park
When it comes to climate actions, green infrastructure such as big planters with diverse greenery have many environmental benefits including preserving plant and animal habitats, reducing heat islands, decreasing air pollution and help water filtration. When conducting a rain mapping, we saw that the park is situated in a valley. Out of a climate perspective, it is therefore of high importance to let the place remain a park, not just for the neighbourhood but also the whole area. On a smaller scale we have made space for dead wood to improve the habitat for insects, birds and hedgehogs, it´s called the Tree Treasure.
An economically sustainable park
Well-planned parks can have economic benefits that are often many times greater than the funds initially invested in the project. Great investments in green structure and attractive and functional equipment, with materials chosen with care to last over time, shows that we care and can in further change the neighbourhood status and identity for the better.
In reviving the park, it was important that all the equipment interacted in terms of aesthetics. Elements such as colours and materials were selected to create a feeling of unity and with beautiful and appealing aesthetics to come together. All with the goal to attract and tickle the imagination and lust to play. Disadvantaged neighbourhoods are often overlooked when it comes to exclusive design so we ensured that the materials chosen were sustainable, would last over time and stand against vandalism. We wanted to show the residents the area is important and we believe it gives a sense of pride.
In the development of the dinosaur themed playground as the heart of the park, it was important that the design blended well with the encircling nature. The already existing vegetation with great qualities and strong feeling of a mysterious forest was something we wanted to preserve and strengthen. As a result, surrounded by the largest lizards in history, children can now discover, crawl into the jaws of a Tyrannosaurus, dig for fossils and experience other adventures. In the design of the Family Toilet, we have improved functions and accessibility, with the interior design all in child-friendly height. Add to that the fantastic and beautiful illustrations of dinosaurs covering both the outside and inside. To maximise the experience there are sound effects, all to create positive emotions for the visitors.
To increase the feeling of safety in the park, a major challenge was the lack of eyes on the street, especially at night. Knowing that places with broad representation have an impact on safety we applied the power of ten, meaning all the facilities in the park were placed in connection to each other. Our ambition was to attract people of different ages, backgrounds and needs to meet at any time of day. In addition, with new and smarter lighting poles more efficiently placed, we also encourage the use of the non-coded green spaces throughout all seasons.
Designing for all considering accessibility has been of the highest importance in our work. Children in wheelchairs should be able to enjoy playing with their peers without obstacles or discrimination. And we don’t stop with only accessibility for the children but also for adults, who should be able to accompany their child even in a wheelchair. For the physical accessibility in the playground design, the expression “something for everyone” has been a guiding star when renovating the park. Together with residents we have now created a beautiful green park filled with recreational activities which is accessible to all and free of charge.
When designing the playground, we ensured the presence of facilities and equipment for children of all ages and that meet all needs, with the biggest jungle gym on the site adjusted to wheelchairs. All the tables and benches are suited to wheelchairs as well. Underneath the equipment we try to have as much sand as possible, which is climate friendly, but also include harder materials since it's more accessible. Moreover, there is a wide range of swings and a seesaw specifically designed for wheelchairs. We have also noticed that this particular equipment seems popular amongst all children, regardless of level of ability. When having the option of walking on a plain sidewalk or climbing obstacles, we believe that the latter is more interesting. With that in mind we created the one-kilometre-long Play Lane with the main aim of stimulating play, movement and joy. The lane consists of two classic obstacle courses with various degrees of difficulty and one lane with obstacles fitted mainly for wheelchairs. In a bigger context the Play Lane connects Fredriksdal with another neighbouring district that also faces socio-economic challenges.
Renovating the park, with people that needs it the most as our main priority, has been a way of encouraging integration and create a feeling of pride for this socioeconomically weak neighbourhood.
To reduce the risk of formulating the needs of the park from a top-down perspective it became important to know how the residents used the park. From surveys and safety walks we got some answers from a broad representation, except for the youth perspective. Below we will highlight two successful methods of engaging children and youth, with results that gave input to the park's design.
The play experts:
Who really knows best about playgrounds? Children of course. Our experience is that a co-creative process with children will undeniably give a much better outcome rather than only having adults' imaginations set the limits. We have successfully used this method several times in developing new playgrounds, Fredriksdal was no exception when we invited our young play experts to come up with ideas. The mission was communicated in the media and a jury was formed consisting of both city representatives and students from the local school. About 75 ideas were submitted from more than one hundred children in the autumn 2020 and after a participatory process, dinosaurs were chosen as the winning theme for the playground.
The portable chair-experiment:
Another challenge was that we didn’t know which areas people liked in the park. Therefore, we came up with an experiment of monitoring portable chairs to see where they were being moved to. To minimize the risk that the chairs would be vandalised or stolen we wanted to create ownership for them amongst the youth, so we contacted the nearby school for collaboration. When in dialogue with youth, it is important they find the content relevant, interesting and that they feel listened to. To help foster a participatory process we invited a well-known local street artist that would engage the seventh graders in painting the chairs. We received only positive feedback, and at the end of summer not only did most of the chairs remain in the park, still usable, we also got a valid result of likeable spots.
We take pride in that most of our projects in urban space are developed through collaboration with different stakeholders, throughout the project design to implementation. Without a doubt the neighbourhood residents are the most important stakeholder with valuable insights into the place they live in and love. For Fredriksdal, the mission was to better engage the community to achieve long-term and sustainable outcomes. In a bigger perspective, engagement and public dialogue benefits the whole city, and involvement of residential participation in neighbourhood design is a democratic principle that is important.
Inspired by successful and proven partnership solutions for the development and management of urban environments, we invited stakeholders to participate in Fredriksdals own local cooperation (BID) in 2019. Property owners, the police and the principal from the nearby school as long with representatives from other municipal administrations participated, with the aim of securing safe and attractive places in the neighbourhood. The work was led by the national non-profit organization The Safer Sweden Foundation, and together we worked out an action plan with concrete measures. For example, we carried out a cleaning day to change the attitude of littering in the area. Also, the police participated in activities with preventive purposes and for relationship building. The value of the BID has been that it brought together diverse local perspectives, and broader understanding of one another and the neighbourhood. Together we are stronger.
By combining several disciplines, it has enabled us to attack the challenges with a variety of approaches to create greater value for the design outcome. This was further helped by having gathered expertise and specialists such as landscape architects, urban planners, ecologists, lighting engineers and a Children’s rights strategist, where together we have taken on the challenges from a holistic perspective.
One of our ambitions have been to strengthen the biodiversity in the park. In order to assure that, the municipality ecologist has been involved. A nature value inventory was made to get the right preconditions according to the flora and fauna. The result is interesting, with a relatively high number of species and wide bird fauna in the park. When thinning out the vegetation, great consideration was therefore taken to the wildlife habitat. When pruning the trees, we used arborists to ensure safety and give old trees longer life and increase biodiversity.
Safety-analyses were carried out in the entire neighbourhood. The focus was on situational crime prevention and CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) which formed an invaluable complement to the continued work of the park's design in terms of innovative lighting. In addition, the nature value inventory also gave us the means to actively choose not to have lighting in certain places to reduce the ecological impact.
Space activation through art is a discipline that is becoming increasingly used and has had a great impact on bringing new life and identity to a neighbourhood. With that in mind we involved a renowned local street artist from Helsingborg who has participated in several of our dialogues during the physical development of the park. We see that public art adds meaning and uniqueness to the community, and for Fredriksdal the integration of culture has generated a better sense of place and pride.
By renovating the previously run-down park, we created a beautiful space where residents can congregate safely, enjoy nature, play and to engage in recreational activities. With mainly positive reviews, we see that the benefits for the community in Fredriksdal are countless, with a sense of community ownership and pride in the robust and long-lasting park which is bringing multiple generations together. Furthermore, one of the benefits of improving play possibilities is that children develop perceptual skills, sensory integration as well as improving balance and posture. The playground, because of its size and design, joins the category of excursion-playgrounds with the aim of attracting children from all over the city to visit. Already a lot of citizens from all over town visited the playground. This is a way of encouraging integration and create a feeling of pride for the neighbourhood.
A fun and inclusive inauguration – for all:
In June 2022, when the renovation of the park was completed, we organised a grand opening. In honour of the day, we had invited all the neighbourhood children and nearby schools as well as citizens in the rest of the city to visit. The festivities were a huge success, offering sweets for everyone, sing-alongs and magic shows. Moreover, the local wheelchair association participated with wheelchairs for loan with the purpose of raising awareness about disabilities.
Highlighting history:
During the process it became evident that the area, which is referred to as the park, needed a proper name. Therefore, the space in which the dinosaur playground is located was renamed Gisela Trapp's Park. Gisela Trapp is one of the women who defined Helsingborg's history. The naming of the park is also intended to create a clearer identity of the site and is part of the work to highlight the women in Helsingborg's history.
In 2019, a decision was made to accelerate the City of Helsingborg’s innovation work. The initiative was called H22 – a long-term investment to improve quality of life for those living and working in the city. The path to achieving the goals has involved challenges, but also inspiring opportunities, which culminated in a 35-day long city expo in 2022. The creative bureaucracy has guided and encouraged us in our project to achieve a better result. Our project was a part of H22, and the inauguration was communicated as one of 500 program features. Highlighted below are three important innovative characters:
Our “Green, Play and Safety”- Planning strategy for social infrastructures at the neighbourhood level. It does not only give us the advantage of increasing our budget but also brings knowledge together resulting in a design for all. By combining multiple disciplines and with the help of collaborative cross-sectional activities, each brings a unique and distinct approach that together will add a higher value when shaping places.
Our Family Toilet is, as far as we know, a unique project where children have been asked about their fears and dreams of public toilets. The developing process was a close collaboration between the municipality and the supplier to which we both contributed with time and funds with the result: an inclusive product that fits all.
The Lighting of the Future and IoT – It's an unusually enlightening project where we over the next ten years will replace large parts of the city's lighting system with a more energy-efficient and smarter one. In addition to lighting, the poles and fixtures can communicate with nearby sensors that collect data on traffic, air quality, and noise to name a few. It benefits everyone and we get a safer and more caring city that is easier to live in. The park in Fredriksdal is among the first neighbourhoods to undergo the transition with this new technology of becoming a smarter and safer city.
As an investment, this project is interdepartmental, with funds allocated for both Green, Play and safety from different budgets. This informs the project trough out the whole process and gives it strength and depth by the interaction between departments and a wider understanding for the project from the beginning. The strategy of combining the different fields of green, play and safety brings new solutions addressing specific needs.
The methodology used in the design is in many ways well known, with space analysis, site visits, safety walks with citizens and the police, nature value analyses, among other things. Most of all this project was influenced by all the different dialogues with children, youth and adults mainly from the neighbourhood. We have met people in different ways, for instance in a cleaning day where residents could help tidy the area and at the same time grab some coffee and talk about the space, while their children painted suggestions for the new playground. We also conducted one-to-one conversations with children on how to make a toilet nicer, friendlier and a fun place to visit. The dialogue with residents has clearly been the main method for this project.
In our quest to counteract unsafe and unused environments and transform them while adding a strong identity, placemaking is an important approach. With the placemaking in Fredriksdal, it has both been a matter of changing the physical environment and its functions in order to include more users, and about the participation of residents which further encourages involvement. For instance, we used placemaking in the co-creative chair experiment. The result from the chair initiative shows that the residents’ time spent in public space has indeed increased.
All the methods, trials and lessons we learned are added to our toolbox so that they can be reused in other projects, with or without modification depending on purpose.
Tree Treasure is a concept in progress. We work with dead and halfdead wood to increase the habitat for insects, birds and hedgehogs. This concept is valuable and meant to be applied in other green areas, instead of just cutting down old trees.
The Family Toilet has already been replicated at two other parks in Helsingborg with some variations, and we are in the middle of a development process for a dementia friendly toilet. The collaboration with the toilet company has been a very agile process where we all are interested in continued development. This unique product can in the future be developed further, and benefit families, children and the elderly in other cities and countries if this concept is more widely spread.
In this project we used a new digital tool for dialogue with children linked to playground design called PLADDRA, and it’s meant to involve children in new ways. By using a reading tablet the children could design their own playground, and afterwards they can experience it outside on the site in full scaled AR-mode. Meanwhile we are both observing them and listening to them. PLADDRA is in the middle of a UX-design process and the work continues in other projects with lessons learned from this one.
The accessibility of the playground is evaluated to increase our knowledge for the next playground project, it’s an ever-ongoing learning process where we can always be better.
Based on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals we identified three goals that could be especially linked to our project. To address the global challenges within our local context, we realised that they share one important characteristic; they cannot begin to be solved without joint effort. In our work we use already proven methods as well as exploring new ones in collaboration with various stakeholders.
Goal 5: Gender Equality – Gender inequality concerning public toilets is a reality for many people. With the design for The Family toilet, we have considered the many differentiated needs of people. When it comes to the feeling of safety in public spaces, a lot of people feel less safe after dark, but the extent of which women, trans and non-binary people feel unsafe is significantly greater. With that in mind our actions such as lighting and design are correlating with the ambition to increase the feeling of safety.
Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities – The Family toilets full name: “THE FAMILY TOILET FOR DINOSAURS… and everyone else” is to make sure nobody feels excluded. It is accessible for wheelchairs as well as families with a pram and ensures that everyone can use the facilities. The presence of a toilet on site enables families to extend their visit to the park, to a whole day activity at no cost. The same applies for the play lane and playground, accessible for those in wheelchairs. In the renovation of the park, we have allocated resources to a neighbourhood where they are most needed. In addition, by working with inclusive dialogues and participatory methods we support an increase of residents’ trust in neighbours and society.
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities – Beautifying the park has added as much value as providing universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible green public spaces, welcoming people of all ages, backgrounds and needs. We have achieved this through applying design for all and participatory processes.
