Original challenge: How can we allow the citizen house to be an open place, where citizens and visitors are safe and welcome, so they can and want to stay there.
Challenge from: Fastighetskontoret, the City of Stockholm
Redefined challenge: How can we make Medborgarhuset the ‘Heart of Södermalm’, attracting more citizens, creating a better flow within the house, and ensuring that people have a positive experience?
Solution: The Roadmap to the heart of Södermalm

Team: Rosebuds
Linnea Thimm, Simon Vindevåg, Freja Fernholm, Helena Samaras, Paulamillie Makafu, Musawenkosi Sifani

Report abstract

In collaboration with the city of Stockholm through Fastighetskontoret, a group of students from Sweden, Brazil, Finland, Tanzania and Botswana taking the Master course at Openlab were given the challenge of “How can we allow the citizen house to be an open place, where citizens and visitors are safe and welcome, so they can and want to stay there.” Interviews with various stakeholders within the house and from the city of Stockholm largely revealed that there was an issue of excluding design, and that the house is not completely public. Excluding design means that there were no or a lack of facilities like: public restrooms, sitting areas and a simple spot to get coffee. This led to the reframing of the challenge into the Point of View (POV): “How can we make Medborgarhuset the ‘Heart of Södermalm’, attracting more citizens, creating a better flow within the house, and ensuring that people have a positive experience?” The insights from our observations, surveys, and interviews with visitors, tenants, security and government officials helped us develop 5 concepts: Missing Puzzle, The Pulse, Wonderdome, House of Stories, Utopia. The 5 concepts were then mostly merged into one larger concept, presented as ‘The Roadmap to the heart of Södermalm’. A Roadmap creates a vision for the house which is transformative, beginning with a simpler step that is building a community, followed by effecting inclusive interior interior design or allowing third party rental option, then ultimately making the house a truly public space. These steps ensure that the vision of Medborgarhuset being a public house for all is fulfilled, effectively becoming ‘The Roadmap to the heart of Södermalm’.