The closed ecosystem of Økern’s new community center, “Økern Portal,” has great potential as a sustainable model for future developments. It offers new businesses, open spaces, and recreational activities for Oslo’s residents in a previously fractured and neglected area of Norway’s metropolis. City officials regard Økern Portal as a “Living Lab”, a term used for addressing specific areas that are targeted for innovation. However, since this project has not yet been realized, it is crucial to investigate what makes a development “sustainable.” In the following, you will get some insights on how Økern can practice what it preaches.

 

A snapshot of the existing center at Økern (Image: Ørjan Furnes)

The Semi-Public Sphere (Social Sustainability)

Privately owned public open spaces (POPOS) are becoming more common around the world. POPOS are typically shopping centres, restaurant porches and plazas. These spaces can be perceived as public, but their owners ultimately decide who can use them. As is the case for the Økern Portal project, private developers have the right to design their own “public” areas. Often, this can be a good thing as owners put great time and effort into creating functional and attractive design that compliments the more retail-oriented aspects of a project. There are, however, several challenges that go along with what we call semi-public spaces. One major challenge is the social exclusion of vulnerable groups such as drug addicts, which POPOS would remove due to their marginal status and precarious financial security. POPOS also present another challenge to new developments by stifling local initiatives. Not just anyone can set up an event in POPOS; it must be the owner’s initiative.

Mobility (Socio-Environmental Sustainability)

One of the challenges for innovative urban development is the lack of space, often perpetuated by large car-based infrastructure, which fragments the city. Shopping centres are designed under the assumption that private transportation is the ideal, but this is exclusive to those who can afford cars and opens communal spaces to visitors from outside the community. Additionally, shopping centres are often positioned at the periphery of development. Either these centres of growth are built along larger transport veins, or they develop their own need for transport. A known symbol of the traditional mall are the vast parking lots that populate once vast green spaces, which could otherwise be used for community gatherings or other activities. Consequently, walkability and light mobility play second-fiddle to the needs of cars. This dependency on automobiles for new and attractive urban developments can go so far as to scare pedestrians from the street, effectively removing signs of life from the public sphere. Aside from this, navigating the labyrinth of parking lots, big box stores, and highways is highly inconvenient, perhaps next to impossible.

Regional Context

Hovinbyen is a satellite city of Oslo with its own ambition to become a community centre. During our interviews with residents around Økern Centre, several respondents mandated their preference for more activity that strengthened their existing community without introducing outside visitors who might disrupt the existing fabric. Økern Portal could foster this type of activity if it caters to the interests of residents from surrounding communities. At the same time, building a shopping mall and other large attractions can foster competition between the city centres, which in turn can have both positive and negative outcomes. On one hand, such a development strategy can shift customer masses, increase consumption, and give birth to new transport patterns. On the other, it can strengthen the region by facilitating deeper connections with surrounding communities through new densified transport nodes, thus increasing coverage and capacity for potential new inhabitants.

Circular Malls (Environmental-Economic Sustainability)

Well then. What would a sustainable shopping center look like? An intriguing example for Økern Centre comes from Sweden’s ReTuna, which is the world’s first second-hand shopping mall. Operating solely from second-hand goods, ReTuna demonstrates how consumption can be driven by needs other than growth. We can transition toward a truly circular economy from our current state by innovating practices that promote better use of existing resources, rather than expending new resources for profit. However, only altering our consumption patterns is a fragmented solution for this issue of sustainable urban development. Planning processes for new projects like Økern Portal must involve local residents.

A concept map for the potential of shopping malls constructed by the authors (Image: Ørjan Furnes)

Experimental City Lots (Citizen Participation)

Fresh and innovative ideas are not born from the helms of corporate board rooms, but from the people on the ground. Citizen participation is paramount to the success of urban development projects, both for idea generation as well as its democratic nature. What better person should know what works best in their community than the residents themselves? Økern Portal can, and should, incorporate ideas from the people that use this area to enhance its value, and ensure the life of this project over the long-term. It is often the case that genius is found at the margins of society, the people who are neglected. Engaging all facets of the community will create a more colourful community space that will shine as an example for others to follow.

The Future Community Hub

In short, we must futureproof our development projects if they are to be a positive force for society. Based on the aforementioned criteria, the shopping mall of the future will have to prove that it provides: socially just public spaces, efficient and space effective transport solutions, meets local needs, and focuses on circular and regenerative services. A shopping center as a multi-functional space, consisting of art installations, theatre, community gardens, and open areas for recreation, can achieve all of these markers for sustainability. If the developer of Økern Portal, Steen & Strøm, adapts these initiatives into their project, they must fully embody them in practice. We believe that there still is room for improvement in the design which would make Økern Portal a staple for sustainable community hubs elsewhere. This can be done by implementing successful concepts from other malls like ReTuna in Sweden and working in close communication with the public sector and local stakeholders. For the sake of innovation, it is necessary to implement a bold design that stands the test of time, making the project a model of sustainable holistic development for the globe.

 

Authors: Andre Helgestad, Ørjan Furnes, and Antony Martel