Mind the Mindemyren

A new spatial analysis tool for linking building densification to public transport and street network accessibility in Bergen City in Norway

Conference paper (2017)

Authors

A. Nes Spatial Planning and Strategy - Architecture and the Built Environment
Remco Elric de Koning Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
Research Group
Spatial Planning and Strategy (Architecture and the Built Environment) (TU Delft)
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Published Date

2017

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Architecture and the Built Environment

Department

Urbanism

Research Group

Spatial Planning and Strategy

Abstract

Bergen city in Norway is undergoing an enormous population growth. People are moving from the villages to the city. Finding suitable space is a challenge due to Bergen’s situation in between seven mountains. Moreover, Norway’s strong property rights impede the development of integrated plans for densification. At the moment, several privately initiated projects with high building densities are being implemented. However, they are poorly connected to the urban street network, have no active frontages on the ground floor level and therefore tend to be anti-urban.
In this respect, Bergen municipality wanted to identify all the possibilities for densification in the current situation. Therefore, the following issues were evaluated: street network and public transport accessibility, building density, degree of functional diversity, restrictions on (private) properties and current land use plans.
Our approach was to analyse three areas in Bergen (Bergen centre, Danmarksplass and Mindemyren) in the current situation to discover how the urban transformation takes place in a natural way. Firstly, we studied the relationship between street network accessibility (with the Space Syntax method), degrees of FSI and GSI on building density (with the Spacematrix method) and degrees of function mix. Secondly, we wanted to reveal the legal issues that arise from the strong Norwegian property rights. Thirdly, we added the accessibility of public transport lines through the angular step depth in the model. We combined all these issues by using GIS.
It turns out that the degree of street network integration affects the location of commercial activities and the degree of building density and function mix. When the street network accessibility increases on a local and global level, property owners start to submit plans that exploit their properties to the utmost. The same goes for public transport stops with frequently running light rail vehicles. Thus, as follows from the theory of the natural urban transformation process, densification can be steered by improving the street network accessibility on multiple scale levels. The area with the largest potentials for facilitating densification is the Mindemyren area. How and in what way it will take place, depend on the spatial configuration of the local street network and accessibility to public transport stops. Some results from experiments in the Mindemyren area will be demonstrated.