Subsoil leveling
The project is about sustainable resource use of underground space, or planning the volume below the ground surface. Nowadays, in addition to the foundations of buildings, many vertical building elements are located underground, such as shops, garages, storage rooms, shelters, tunnel accesses and the like.
There are also many horizontal facilities below the ground surface, such as traffic tunnels, utility tunnels, water and sewage pipes, cables, etc. Together, this creates a complex use when the facilities risk crossing each other, and it is not uncommon for facilities to be secret and not included in supporting material. Today, the subsoil is not planned in the same way as above ground in, for example, municipal plans under the Planning and Building Act. Above ground, master planning is done, and this project aims for the municipalities to develop "sub-surface planning".
Below the ground there are also natural resources that can be used for many different purposes, such as groundwater extraction, geothermal heat, rock material, soil layers suitable for storing heat and cold, which we collectively call geosystem services. Today, building in urban areas is also becoming more and more challenging, as people increasingly want to reuse previously exploited land resources, which are often contaminated, and build in areas with technically challenging subsoil conditions. The Planning and Building Act, which regulates the planning processes, currently provides little guidance on planning and utilization of subsoil space.
The overall aim of the project is to increase subsoil information for use in all planning stages from municipal comprehensive planning, deepening of comprehensive plans, district development, area planning to detailed planning.
The project is a collaboration with Chalmers Architecture and Civil Engineering (project manager). Funded by Formas and BeFo.
Kristina Nilsson
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