Architects move entire swedish town 2 miles

Kiruna 4-ever, the winning proposal to relocate the Swedish town All photos: White.se

The northernmost town in the country is home to 20,000 people, but they will all be shifted two miles to the east in the next decade, as Kiruna's mine threatens to swallow the whole settlement.

The iron mine is the area's largest employer and one of the most valuable iron ore deposits in the country. In 2004, though, the state-owned Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB informed officials that to sustain its activity, it would need to dig even deeper ino the land around Kiruna, putting the ground underneath the whole town under threat.

With cracks spreading through the area 10 years later, 3,000 apartment blocks and homes and 2.2 million square feet of schools, offices and hospitals are all no longer safe. The result is an endangered, uncertain society, with locals aware that if they buy a home or open a company, it could only be a matter of years until it is taken away completely.

The ambitious solution? Move everything down the road.

"When people hear that we're designing, creating and building a whole new city from scratch they think we're doing a utopian experiment," architect Mikael Stenqvist told the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26447507

But the project is very much real. The work begins next month, following the approval of proposals from Stockholm-based architects White Arkitekter AB. The firm's vision for the new Kiruna involves a denser city Centre than the current town, with extra office and retail real estate designed to create a more diverse economy less dependent on the mine.

Without LKAB, though, the plans would not be possible at all.

The mining company will provide more than a billion dollars to fund the demolition of the old town's buildings amd the construction costs of the new ones - including the painstaking disassembly of the century-old church, which will then be put back together again, piece by piece, at the other end.

One of Kiruna's churches, which will have to be moved along with the rest of the town Photo: Beeforty2

For those who have lost a screw while transporting a wardrobe or bed between homes, the idea is unthinkable. For the people managing Kiruna's move, though, the church is just a tiny piece of a logistical nightmare.

"If this project goes wrong, the survival of Kiruna, its inhabitants and its economy is at stake. That gives us great concern - unlike any other project we work on," admitted Stenqvist.

If all goes smoothly, the new city Centre will be built before everyone is slowly moved across over many years. A new town hall is hoped to be in place by 2016.

With any luck, the new, bigger Kiruna will also attract tourists for the first time - the current town is just 15 minutes from the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi, but nobody ever visits.

Before that happens, though, there is the small matter of LKAB having to buy every single property from their owners so they can afford to buy a replacement in the new town. The offer? 25 per cent above the market value.

"But," noted Stenqvist, "how do you work out what the market value is for a house in a city that doesn't even exist?"

In the run-up to the groundbreaking next month, the architects have been meticulously tagged every existing home with assets and factors that could detemine their worth.

"We're even putting a monetary value on bus stops," he added.