Noisy Neighbours at Sofielund

How might formal models of city planning become more attuned to the value of what is already there? Can noise be used as a planning tool to safeguard places of production, culture and commons in the future city? Can new interpretations of existing legislation help us prevent neighbourhoods from becoming assets in the financial market and instead develop important spaces and networks?

NOISY NEIGHBOURS is a review of a five-year process that has gone beyond established urban development models on a neighbourhood level. It presents new narratives that outline what Sofielund is and can be through neighbourhood mapping, formal planning processes, and artistic practices.

The starting point is Sofielund – an overlooked run-down industrial area that turned into a cultural, social and manufacturing hotspot in Malmö, Sweden. Here, an atlas mapping existing conditions and a new formal plan for Sofielund points out a new direction in taking responsibility for the neighbourhood and city as a whole. The strategic document calls for a slower pace of development in tune with the urban and cultural ecosystems that are already there.

NOISY NEIGHBOURS calls for the preservation of noisy places of production and important meeting spaces for communities. It also introduces a new strategic tool: the “cultural-industrial sound zone” or “kulturljudzon”.

The story of collaborations and exchanges between CSAM, local artists, White Arkitekter and the City of Malmö represented in NOISY NEIGHBOURS gives clues to more open and explorative planning practices that can challenge the politics of land use and real estate speculation.