Daniaparken, Malmö
The park’s very ambitious programme of illumina-
tion, created in cooperation with a specialist, plays
a very important role for the experience of the park
during the dark hours and seasons, not only for the
visitor but also for those who see the park from a
distance.
In 2003, Daniaparken was one of 14 contemporary
parks nominated for the Rosa Barba European
Landscape Award.
It is rather a rule than an exception that design
projects undergo changes during the design and
construction process. This was true in the case of
Daniaparken. The single change of materials which
had the greatest impact on the architectural design
was probably the change from granite walls to
façades of tarred wood on the Node. You can debate
whether the Node, as well as the park as a whole,
has gained something from that substitution. The
eclectic idea about resembling a citadel was replaced
with a fresh idea, based upon reflections of a marine
context. The ultimate solution, with the walls having
an inner façade covered with granite under a coping
of granite, results in a meeting of materials (with the
tarred wood) that is not successful. You can compare
this with the Balconies, where there is both an inner
and outside façade of wood and even though they
have different expressions this does not cause the
same visual conflict.
The tarred wood demands frequent maintenance,
which the municipality does not fulfil in a proper
way. Consequently, the surfaces look greyish and
dried out already, a few years after construction.Also the Scouts had to undergo a change of materi-
als. The paving of granite slabs was partly replaced
with in-situ cast concrete and the wing wall was
constructed as a solid in-situ cast concrete wall,
instead of a concrete body with wooden covering.
But these changes have not caused any disadvan-
tage to the Scouts or to the park.Typically for an Andersson urban landscape design,
there is little vegetation. He has, over the years,
developed a lack of confidence in the unpredict-
ability and changeability of vegetation in an urban
context. In Daniaparkenm, vegetation does not play
any leading part. Rows of trees have been con-
centrated along the walks. Mixed borders of small
shrubs distinguish the Lawn from the gravelled walk
along the shore and there is a perennial garden in
the northern part of the park.The shrubs and perennials have established well,
which is not the case with the trees. Actually, many
of them died during the first year after planting.
The trees were not planted in single pits, but in a
long, continuous trench. The planting site consists
of 800mm soil, 400mm mineral soil and 400mm