zhaochen wang: swarm kiruna

‘swarm urbanism’ by zhaochen wang, shujia chen and jili huang, kiruna, sweden

image © zhaochen wang, shujia chen and jili huang

manufacturing and post manufacturing towns across north american and europe are starting to decline in natural resources, employment opportunities and a high quality of life.

to respond to these issues, new ways of revitalizing and reinventing the city and urban life need to take fold. recent graduates zhaochen wang, shujia chen and jili huang

of the university of southern california, masters of architecture, post-professional degree, have completed ‘swarm kiruna’ a research project based on the town of kiruna, sweden. as the city’s dependence on iron and mining will decrease over the next 35 years,

‘we have an ambition to make this city not so dependent on the mine’ says mayor kenneth stalnacke. analyzing the surrounding landscape, the needs of the community and desire to transition into a town with new industries,

the students have recommended the relocation of the town to the nearby river.

using ‘slime mould’ a biological reference to design the city, pathways and its infrastructure was first created to allow for efficient lines distribution.

processing a coded system to simulate the network generated from the slime mould the team could rationalize the network into three layers: existing pathways, main pathways and sub-pathways, considering the existing transportation routes.

understanding the complexity, swarm intelligence, has been applied to distribute the city functions, which is not to be mistaken for traditional zoning systems. being a bottom-up system, it considers the nature of urbanism before modernism.

represented as a graphic pixel map, the two layers are overlapped to become a site map of the overall urban design context. using sustainability as a guide, ‘swarm kiruna’ now has its own systems of green parks,

gardens and strategies for maximizing sunlight and the prevailing winds.