From wooden wonders to an award-winning water tower: 10 architecture and design projects to see during H22 City Expo

H22 City Expo invites visitors to explore the future landscape of architecture, design, and urban planning with contributions from a range of leading experts, architects, and designers during the 35-day expo in Helsingborg, 30 May-3 July. A diverse programme of exhibitions, seminars, guided city tours, and architectural installations shines a light on the very latest in modern construction technology, smart architecture, and sustainable material choices.

1. Helsingborg’s majestic water tower – A new architectural landmark in Sweden: One of Sweden’s most esteemed living architects, Gert Wingårdh, and his team have created Helsingborg’s new water tower. The water tower won the Kasper Salin Prize in 2022, Sweden’s most prestigious architectural prize that is awarded annually to a Swedish building or building project of high architectural quality. Instead of a compact tower, Wingårdh’s team opens it up by having the outer structure create space on the inside, surrounded by a broad, elevated ring that is ninety metres in diameter. During H22 City Expo, twenty-four different sound channels will play the music of water from the spot-lit pillars, composed by Åke Parmerud and performed by Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.

2. Skogen – An architectural experiment in nature: Ikea has invited young, creative minds from across the globe to show how they experience and inhabit nature and how they have reconnected with nature in new ways. Four major architecture and design universities from around the world, ECAL - Switzerland, MIT - Boston, the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, and Ingvar Kamprad Design Centre, Lund University, explore these issues in an experimental space called ‘Skogen’, Swedish for forest, in Oceanhamnen. The three finalists in a global design competition will also see their affordable and sustainable nature dwellings come to life in Skogen.

3. Woodlife – Swedish architecture is leading the way with wood: The exhibition Woodlife Sweden showcases over 40 architectural projects in which contemporary Swedish architects and designers have made extensive use of wood. The projects visualise how architecture and design can contribute to reducing environmental impact and drive developments towards a circular bio-based economy. The exhibition is produced by the Swedish Institute and Architects Sweden in collaboration with Swedish Wood, the Swedish Wood Award, and Swedish Forest Industries. The exhibition is curated in collaboration with the design programme Swedish Design Moves.

4. People’s Walk – A laneway of equality: Visitors can join in designing a safe urban laneway in Oceanhamnen that is being built on a foundation of equality. The City of Helsingborg is participating in a project financed by Vinnova (Sweden’s innovation agency) that will develop a certification system for equality-driven environments that include everyone. The city is working together with Tengbom architects, RISE, and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute to develop the certification system.

5. People’s Voice: At the centre of People’s Walk is People’s Voice, a pavilion built from 4,000 recyclable crates, the winning proposal in an architecture contest with students from the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University. The crates contain returnable bottles filled with water in different colours that interact with the sun, wind, and rain. Some of the bottles are empty and invite visitors to leave their messages about equality in a bottle.

6. ReCreate: Scientists and the property and construction industry are working together in the international research project ReCreate to find solutions for circular building that reuses concrete from demolished buildings. ReCreate examines the systemic changes needed throughout the construction process, from demolishing to the design of new buildings, with the goal of making circular building standard practice. The Swedish contributors, KTH and Helsingborg’s public housing company Helsingborgshem, are presenting their first results during H22 City Expo.

7. Parapeten - Architecture, form and design: On the elongated breakwater, “Parapeten”, focus will be on conversations about what architecture does and can do - with the aim of broadening the scope of architecture for and with visitors. A newly constructed pergola – an interpretation of the late Swedish architect and landscape architect Per Friberg's legendary pergola from 1955 – is the centerpiece of the place together with a playful pavilion and other design and architecture exhibitions.

8. Young Swedish Design: The exhibition presents the latest and most innovative from young Swedish designers. This forum creates space for interplay between designers, producers, and the public. The exhibition Young Swedish Design 2022 is a co-production between Svensk Form (the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design) and IKEA Museum.

9. Oceanhamnen – A circular district in the making: The climate-smart infrastructure of the future is being created and tested on a large scale in Helsingborg. Circular thinking features strongly in Oceanhamnen with RecoLab, Helsingborg’s hypermodern “recovery lab”, which recycles resources from wastewater and food waste sorted at the source in Oceanhamnen’s properties. An exciting guided tour takes you from Oceanhamnen’s properties straight into RecoLab’s unique circular development facility where the separated waste is processed and recycled.

10. Experience the green construction technology of the future: In a greenhouse on a wooden base in the middle of Oceanhamnen you can meet some of Sweden’s leading players within GreenTech. These are entrepreneurs, citizens, and companies that have decided to enable sustainable construction, today. Actors who all use new technology in different ways to achieve sustainability, circularity, and efficiency. Throughout H22 City Expo, “CoLabs” are being held here – intensive and innovative meetings to see how far we can reach together.

Representatives of the media are welcome to apply for media accreditation here.

For more information and media inquiries, please contact:
Maria Ploberg, Press Officer at H22 City Expo, +46 738-22 43 67, maria.ploberg@helsingborg.se

Helsingborg – The city of expos:
Helsingborg has a proud tradition of organising major expos. As early as 1955, the H55 craft and design fair attracted a million visitors. In 1999, H99 became the forerunner of a wave of housing exhibitions around Sweden. The citywide innovation fest H22 City Expo marks the third time that Helsingborg welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city.