Adaptive voids in the urban landscape: Limhamns Kalkbrott in Malmo
(2025) In Adaptive voids in the urban landscape: Limhamns Kalkbrott in Malmo ASBM01 20251Department of Architecture and Built Environment
- Abstract
- Urban voids are not merely physical gaps on the city map. These are spaces that remain beyond programming, control, and conventional use. Often the result of economic downturns, industrial decline, or intentional neglect, such areas are frequently perceived as uncomfortable, unsafe, or unusable.
Yet it is precisely their ambiguity that carries significant potential - the capacity to flexibly adapt to a changing urban context, becoming sites for green corridors, social initiatives, and ecological regeneration. This research explores how these voids can be meaningfully integrated into the urban fabric.
A key case study is Limhamns kalkbrott - a limestone quarry and the largest unbuilt void in Malmö, now specified as a nature reserve.... (More) - Urban voids are not merely physical gaps on the city map. These are spaces that remain beyond programming, control, and conventional use. Often the result of economic downturns, industrial decline, or intentional neglect, such areas are frequently perceived as uncomfortable, unsafe, or unusable.
Yet it is precisely their ambiguity that carries significant potential - the capacity to flexibly adapt to a changing urban context, becoming sites for green corridors, social initiatives, and ecological regeneration. This research explores how these voids can be meaningfully integrated into the urban fabric.
A key case study is Limhamns kalkbrott - a limestone quarry and the largest unbuilt void in Malmö, now specified as a nature reserve. This landscape, a remnant of industrial history, is gradually being reclaimed by nature. However, despite its ecological value, the quarry remains disconnected from its surrounding urban context and has the appearance of an abandoned site.
The aim of the project is not to “fill in” the void, but to allow it to expand beyond its physical limits: through ecological richness, through the memory embedded in the landscape, and through connections to surrounding neighborhoods. These connections can be physical - such as pedestrian paths and green corridors - as well as conceptual, expressed through architecture, materiality, and atmosphere.
In this context,Limhamns kalkbrott serves as a central example - a place that demonstrates how sustainable urban development can grow not through building over every empty space, but by recognizing the value of openness, slowness, and pause in the city. Instead of treating voids as problems to solve, we can see them as opportunities - spaces that invite reflection, foster biodiversity, and create meaningful connections between people and place. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9195679
- author
- Startseva, Mariia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- ASBM01 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- publication/series
- Adaptive voids in the urban landscape: Limhamns Kalkbrott in Malmo
- language
- English
- id
- 9195679
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-10 09:31:59
- date last changed
- 2025-06-10 09:31:59
@misc{9195679,
abstract = {{Urban voids are not merely physical gaps on the city map. These are spaces that remain beyond programming, control, and conventional use. Often the result of economic downturns, industrial decline, or intentional neglect, such areas are frequently perceived as uncomfortable, unsafe, or unusable.
Yet it is precisely their ambiguity that carries significant potential - the capacity to flexibly adapt to a changing urban context, becoming sites for green corridors, social initiatives, and ecological regeneration. This research explores how these voids can be meaningfully integrated into the urban fabric.
A key case study is Limhamns kalkbrott - a limestone quarry and the largest unbuilt void in Malmö, now specified as a nature reserve. This landscape, a remnant of industrial history, is gradually being reclaimed by nature. However, despite its ecological value, the quarry remains disconnected from its surrounding urban context and has the appearance of an abandoned site.
The aim of the project is not to “fill in” the void, but to allow it to expand beyond its physical limits: through ecological richness, through the memory embedded in the landscape, and through connections to surrounding neighborhoods. These connections can be physical - such as pedestrian paths and green corridors - as well as conceptual, expressed through architecture, materiality, and atmosphere.
In this context,Limhamns kalkbrott serves as a central example - a place that demonstrates how sustainable urban development can grow not through building over every empty space, but by recognizing the value of openness, slowness, and pause in the city. Instead of treating voids as problems to solve, we can see them as opportunities - spaces that invite reflection, foster biodiversity, and create meaningful connections between people and place.}},
author = {{Startseva, Mariia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
series = {{Adaptive voids in the urban landscape: Limhamns Kalkbrott in Malmo}},
title = {{Adaptive voids in the urban landscape: Limhamns Kalkbrott in Malmo}},
year = {{2025}},
}