Future Living & Spaces

Unique collaboration will provide better living to Brunnshögs residents

Caroline Wendt
September 21, 2021

In Brunnshög, houses are being built that integrate innovations and explore future ways of living in different manners. Real estate owners that could be seen as competitors work partly together to create a digital platform. This is a unique collaboration with the potential to increase the contact between inhabitants, the municipality, businesses, associations and real estate owners. LKF already tests the first version of its living platform in Xplorion. Midroc follows during summer with the construction start of their housing project Life. We asked Midroc, Serneke and LKF how they look at e their special collaboration.

Many stakeholders work together in the Brunnshögs group such as LKF, Midroc, Serneke, Kärnhem, ICA Fastigheter, Ikano bostäder, Sundprojekt and Lund Municipality to name a few. Meetings are held every third week between the representatives of construction companies and those who will build in Brunnshög. One of their hot topics is how to create a digital platform. The idea is to share some areas and give inhabitants access to different services through the platform, for example, to use some spaces in different housings and work together with those that live near.

In November, LKF launched its very first version of a housing platform with the new building Xplorion where the tenants of the 54 apartments can actively shape the housing platform. In summer 2021, Midroc starts with the construction of its housing project Life which provides 42 apartments in the center of Brunnshög. The house is planned to be ready for moving in by 2023. Even though the ground is still untouched the organisation is far ahead with its work around the housing platform and will be able to offer its customers to follow the process via the digital platform. The latter will initially only host basic information and a newsletter, but new functions will follow until the moving-in date. Just like LKF, Midroc will also use the digital platform Brikks from ViaEuropa.

Brf Life Facade from Brunnshögsgatan, with an outer gym. Picture: Midroc Properties.

Linn Runquist is a project manager within property development at Midroc Properties and part of the platform group. How do you think the collaboration is going?  

– It is unique that the talk between constructors is so open, and that we can coordinate, pitch ideas und discuss questions. It is really rewarding to hear how others are reasoning. All are on the same terms and share openly. We all win by finding the digital products that can be the key to an innovative district. Digital solutions in a common area can give customers better service, create synergies and that can mean savings. A key question can be, for example, the storage of data and integrity where we can all share our experiences.

Which services will be available on Midrocs digital platform?

– It will partly be functions that are connected to sustainability, such as seeing one’s own energy consumption and the buildings energy consumption and to access mobility solutions like, for example, an electric carpool and a bicycle pool as well as the booking of the laundry in the laundry lounge. Then we are also working on more services with smart technology which could be in the form of digital locks but until now there are some challenges to be solved. Digital locks give access to social and shared spaces, for example, the green house, but one can also create other possibilities. Perhaps one can also start training groups and a platform for sharing surplus like, for example, a recycling service. We are open to have others participating in many of these areas and the bigger the network becomes the better. It can be extra good to give room to collaborate for us since we have many small apartments, where one maybe lives alone.

What could make the collaboration even better?

– In the future we will have more focus meetings where we deal with interesting questions through special theme-meetings, that I think will engage [people]. We get help with contacts to both municipalities and businesses from Future by Lund in those forums. This the key to go from more general discussions to concrete ones.  

Bildtext, big picture: Interior picture of Lifes ”Social Hub”, a common space for inhabitants where one can meet, play games, sit and work with different things. The social hub will be situated next to the laundry lounge and the bicycle room with the bike pool and a workshop in the back.

Alexandra Gedda, Marketing Manager at Serneke, member of the Brunnshög group.  

Serneke plans Lunds tallest house, a skyscraper with 35 floors and a new hotel concept directly at Brunnshögs plaza. The top floor will host a publicly accessible terrace from which one can oversee Lund.

– We combine housing and leasing forms with gardening terraces, co-working and common spaces. We think that that will encourage new forms of sharing economies between the inhabitants, says Alexandra Gedda.

You are working together with other real estate companies to create a shared platform. At the same time, you are competitors – how do you think the collaboration goes and what do you get out of it?

– Collaboration is key when it comes to developing new technology and innovations. It is both better and more fun if we learn from each other. We from Serneke want to listen and at the same contribute with new ideas. It is cool to be able to grow with the area. Everybody gains from Brunnshög becoming a successful and well-functioning district, both the real estate companies and the inhabitants. For us at Seneke a ”win-win situation” is always the best solution.

Which common services are being prepared and which ones could additionally interesting?

–  Together we are looking mainly at sharing services. But why keeping it at that? An innovative district like Brunnshög could go a bit further. There could be a “neighbour offer” to reduce food waste, for example, if restaurants and shops have surplus lunches. All residents could get quick information about via a resident-platform about, for example, blockages of waste and if certain streets are closed. On the platform can be anything that helps and makes our daily lives more sustainable, that can be creating groups with a rolling scheme for lifts to activities or babysitting. There could also be boxes to facilitate deliveries of online orders and a booking system for activities in the surroundings, simply all technology that unites and simplifies.  

Colive, where LKF test a co-living concept with less apartments in combination with access to larger common areas. Picture: LKF

Henriette Jareklew, digital leader and responsible for innovation at LKF, member of the Brunnshög group.

The municipally owned real estate company LKF has recently completed their innovation project Xplorion in southern Brunnshög. Xplorion received the award of ”Årets klimatsmarta boende” (this year’s climate smart housing) and ”Årets bygge 2021” (this year’s bulding 2021) and will be portrayed in BBC’s StoryWorks documentary about sustainable houses. Next to Xplorion, LKF also builds Skymningen, which will be ready during around 2021/22, and Colive (ready in 2022) where they test a co-living concept with less apartments in combination with access to larger common areas. LKF also builds another house, Mariehus (ready in 2023), with a focus on mobility.  

You are working together to build a common platform. At the same you are competitors – how do you think the collaboration goes and what do you get out of it?

– I don’t feel that we are competitors but there is a sense of working together in the group, says Henriette Jareklew. We are all convinced that we must collaborate to go ahead with the digitalisation. Then of course from there everybody continues working with what we came forward with together the way it fits them, based on their horizon. It’s a give and take.  

Which common services are being prepared and which can be additionally interesting?

– One example of that is that we from LKF have a lab apartment where we will test digital locks. Its open for the other real estate companies to be part of our tests or to come and test by themselves. Then we discuss together which locks could be of interest. We also have different sensors in the lab apartment, for example a moisture meter, a motion detector and a thermometer. We can connect them to the housing platform. All real estate companies are interested in offering particular services so that older people can live in their home as long as possible. The sensors could for instance ring the alarm if no water has been used for a day or if one doesn’t detect any motion in the apartment. We are also looking together at that. We are looking into a sharing service so that one, for example, can borrow a tool from a neighbour in the area.

LKF is testing its new housing platform in the Xplorion building since November 2020.

– The customers like the new interface and the possibility to find all information in one place. One absolutely sees potential with getting more services onto the platform. Now, we develop further the housing platform with help of the feedback from our customers. Its, among others, about which services one wants to have in the portal and how they shall be prioritized.

More texts about the digital platform here (in Swedish):

Framtidens boende med digital teknik

Digital teknik skapar framtidens ICA-butik

Translation: Christin Scheller

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