"Mobility houses are perfect for testing innovative ideas"

The modern parking garage is so much more than parking: a tool to reduce car dependency, free up urban space and bring life to neighborhoods.
- Like a Kinder Egg with several solutions in one," says Anders Eriksson Modin, architect and head of the Mobility business area at FOJAB.

- From the 1960s onwards, society was planned to be easily accessible by car. At the same time, this has meant that large areas have been reserved for traffic, areas that could have been used for other things, such as more trees and plantings, playgrounds, outdoor seating, wider sidewalks and bicycle lanes. As cities in Sweden and around the world now demand more sustainable traffic solutions and quality urban environments, the mobility house is an important piece of the puzzle.

How do you do it? What exactly is a mobility garage, and how does it differ from a traditional parking garage?

- A mobility hub has many more qualities. First and foremost, it is a hub for different transport solutions: private and shared cars, bike parking and bike pool, micro-mobility in the form of electric scooters, charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. The idea is to offer smooth transitions between different sustainable modes of transportation so that private car use and fossil car dependency can be reduced. We see that mobility hubs can offer attractive alternatives to private car ownership and enable a simpler everyday life without compromising on quality and accessibility.

- Our ambition is also for the building to contribute to life in the city and its surroundings. The volume can be advantageously shaded with housing, preschool or offices. At FOJAB, we have designed mobility houses with, among other things, a grocery store, parcel delivery, gym, café. We also want to include vegetation and other ecosystem services that benefit biodiversity and strengthen the city's natural values.

International interest
Sweden's major municipalities are at the forefront of sustainable mobility. The view of the mobility house as an enabler is spreading to more cities - also internationally. FOJAB is currently working on a urban development projects in Iceland where an entirely new district is planned with a rapid bus line as the backbone of local public transport, providing the conditions for shorter commutes, simpler everyday life and improved quality of life. Here, the concept of the mobility house and how they are designed, programmed and placed has attracted great interest as part of the solution.

A parking revolution
Ever since the car became everybody's property, the question of how to solve the parking problem has been on the agenda. The answers have varied over the years. Anders calls the development a parking revolution.

- Underground parking was the prevailing solution for a long time, but it is increasingly being questioned. It costs a lot in both money and carbon. On-ground parking, on the other hand, takes up a huge amount of space - the average car is parked over 95% of the time. By consolidating parking in one place and sharing our vehicles, land can be used more efficiently. This frees up space that can be used to create great urban environments, more housing, more greenery.

Converting to housing
The next step in the parking evolution is mobility houses with the possibility of conversion, says Anders.

- When designing and building mobility buildings, we need to take into account that private car use may look different in the future. Attitudes to car ownership are changing and the need to own a car may decrease in the future. We don't want to build and then have to demolish, so we design for flexibility in the structure. If you remove the ramps between floors, a mobility building that is no longer needed can instead be transformed into housing or offices, using the existing frame.

What is it like to work on the shape and design of mobility houses?

- It's fun, a combination of efficient machinery and free rein design. First, you need a parking lot layout that makes the project economical, without compromising on comfort and safety. We at FOJAB are good at that. Once the parking solution is in place, the design is very free. We have done facades in corrugated sheet metal and with integrated solar cells, we have used waste materials that push the boundaries of reuse. At the mobility center Parkside in Malmö, there is a running staircase along one side that leads to a rooftop gym overlooking the Öresund. Mobility houses are perfect for testing innovative ideas.

Please contact Anders!
E-mail: anders.eriksson@fojab.se
Mobile: +46 703 08 23 96