Wanted: Natural residents to share up-and-coming urban quarter

It's not only trendy urban types who are making themselves at home in Sweden's Western Harbour housing project: innovative steps by the planners to promote biodiversity are proving successful as bats, birds and insects move into the Malmö development. Carolyn Fry reports
Malmo's Western Harbour development
Malmo's Western Harbour development is designed to promote sustainable urban living with innovations in waste management, renewable energy, biodiversity and transport. Photograph: Malmo Stad

Jauntily coloured blocks of flats cluster around an elegant spiralling high-rise called the Turning Torso in Sweden's new Western Harbour development. The well-stocked wine racks, chic furniture and children's toys on view through curtainless windows suggest an eclectic mix of urbanites are already making themselves at home. But humans are not the only inhabitants taking up residence here. Outside, bats, birds and insects are also settling in to cosy nesting boxes, bulrush-fringed ponds and sedum-covered roofs.

Located on reclaimed industrial land in the seaside town of Malmö, the Western Harbour is one of several contemporary developments designed to promote sustainable urban living. The 1,300 newly occupied apartments of the first phase (Bo01) were planned from the outset to showcase "green" innovations in waste management, renewable energy and sustainable transport. But the planners went one step further by demanding that developers also incorporate measures to promote biodiversity.

"Each developer had to choose ten "green features" from a list of 35 to incorporate into their designs," explains Annika Kruuse, who was employed as Area Ecologist to monitor progress of Bo01's plant and animal residents. "These included incorporating a 1m sq pond for every 5m sq area of concrete in the courtyard, installing bat boxes inside a plot's boundary, only using materials in the courtyards that had been used before, and installing shelves suitable for swallows to nest on."

Annika's monitoring shows some species have already moved in to the Western Harbour. Nine different seabirds have been recorded as breeding in Bo01, including the common gull (Larus canus), blackbird (Turdus merula) and white wagtail (Motacilla alba). Three of the eight bat species known to inhabit Malmö - the soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus), northern bat (Eptesicus nilssoni) and common noctule (Nyctalus noctula) - have also been spotted there, and bats can be good indicators of flying insects. While many weeds have invaded areas of the Ankarparken recreation ground initially planted as a miniature oak woodland, a saltwater canal developed there is home to several species of fish, molluscs, mussels and crustaceans.

For Bo01's inhabitants, the planners generally get good marks for making biodiversity a priority. Martin Rugfelt, a 37-year-old internet business developer who lives with his wife in a bright yellow three-bedroom house in Bo01, thinks the planners' aims have worked. "At the back of our house there's an open space that is a sustainable ecosystem with a pond and bird ledge," he says. "We have seen small salamanders there, although the local cats are pretty active." Bank worker Henrik Nottorp, 27, also applauds the planners' green aims but feels the area would benefit from bigger green spaces.

Malmo's Western Harbour development
Malmo's Western Harbour development. Photograph: Carolyn Fry

The developers are now using the lessons from Bo01 to plan the green features for the next two building phases, Flagghusen (Bo02) and Fullriggaren (Bo03). Although, the Bo01 houses incorporated features to promote sustainable living and biodiversity, residents have tended to buy them simply for their location or appearance. The aim for the new developments is to raise awareness so people buy them because of their green credentials. "The developers have identified a market for people in their 30s and 40s who are interested in living a green lifestyle," says Eva Dalman, Western Harbour's project manager. "It is the first time the developers have discussed marketing properties according to green criteria, which is very encouraging."

On one of the roads leading down to the sea in the Western Harbour, a low-rise building houses the area's 'ecologically themed' playschool. Warmly wrapped up toddlers play outside in a sandpit, while their older contemporaries make leaf prints in cosy classrooms. All activities undertaken by the 90 one- to five-year-olds are designed to instill the importance of living sustainably and maintaining Earth's biodiversity. A quarter of the food served is organic, and the children are taught to grow their own food. They also separate out all their rubbish for recycling in the "Sopstation" and go on visits to the beach and pond ecosystems of Bo01 to learn about nature. "It's very important that the children grow up understanding ecology and wanting to save the Earth," says teacher Catarina Ramnemark Hannu.

The hope is that by the time this new generation of children comes of age, they will expect and demand to live in houses designed to promote sustainability and biodiversity. The new features being incorporated in Bo02 and Bo03 reflect this predicted social advance. Developers are being asked to install rooftop wind turbines and follow even more stringent rules for encouraging biodiversity than with Bo01. For example, all yards in Bo02 and Bo03 have to include a biotope (a habitat associated with a particular ecological community), as well as three types of box to house animals such as hedgehogs, bumble bees, wild bees or specific types of birds. Meanwhile, plants used have to be rich in nectar or have berries, to provide food for these animal residents.

Malmö has now adopted a similar "green points" scheme to the Western Harbour one in its city-wide environmental building programme. This will increase the number of habitats across a wider area, making it easier for plants and animals to become established and naturally increasing biodiversity. The Bo01 phase of the Western Harbour project is now being viewed as the first step towards incorporating biodiversity as standard in town planning. "I came to the job of ecologist at Bo01 straight from university and I thought at first that so much more could have been done. But I now realise that this is a huge step forward that hasn't been made anywhere else," says Kruuse.