Carpe Futurum

Climate-smart heat deliveries

Uppsala is growing and in order to ensure the delivery of heat to the city’s residents in a climate-smart and sustainable way, a new combined heat and power plant was needed. The design of the building with the graphic pattern on the enameled and transparent profile glass that thins out the higher you go in the building symbolizes the process of evaporation of water, which is the very basis for the production of electricity. The water vapor is cooled and the excess heat is discharged into the district heating network to heat homes and businesses. The goal is to create a carbon-neutral business by 2025.

The art of standing out

A combined heat and power plant is built to last for many years and produce heat and electricity in a safe and secure manner. The buildings are often large and tall with enormous spans. They are highly visible and affect both the city’s silhouette and the surrounding environment. Carpe Futurum is located close to the city center and next to the avenue leading into the center. Therefore, it is particularly important to create a coherent expression across all the building parts of the facility so that the whole adapts beautifully to its surroundings.

The goal has been to create a clear addition to the other buildings on the Vattenfall site and at the same time interact with the color palette often found in Uppsala. What is visible from different places in the city and from the adjacent streets should be designed as nice and clean facades to the greatest extent possible. As the boiler building is one of the tallest buildings in the city and forms a landmark in Uppsala, it was important to give it the same design care as the church, the castle and the water tower.

The experience of the building would work both from close up and from a distance. To minimize visual competition with the cathedral and the castle when approaching the city on the E4, the new facility is located as far north as possible on the site. In terms of color, inspiration is drawn from both Uppsala’s signature buildings and existing industrial buildings.

The facades of the upper parts of the boiler building consist of profile glass with alternating white glass and enameled glass in orange tones. The choice of profile glass is based on the fact that it is a material that does not age and requires minimal maintenance. It is a simple building system with few components and which, with its dimensions, can also be assembled in such a way that the building’s softly curved facade and rounded corners can be easily built. Both the outside and inside facades are completely smooth with this system, which makes maintenance of the facades easy.

Durable materials

The building materials for the frame and facade have been chosen to be durable, have a long lifespan and require minimal maintenance. We have chosen to work with a few materials; untreated profiled concrete, profiled glass in two colors and black-painted steel. The materials can withstand all the stresses that are associated with the process itself. The boiler building’s very high concrete base can withstand most things in the form of impacts and collisions at ground level, both on the outside and inside. It is easy to clean and durable in such a way that it is durable. The exterior is cast against a patterned form that gives an industrial expression. This takes the scale down from the large and makes it more human. The surface is otherwise untreated.

Process equipment that has limitations in what can be done aesthetically and parts that make noise were placed behind the main building and hidden from the streets. With a uniform color on these parts, they form a whole in themselves, even if the content is varied. Above all, the views from the area around the roundabout at Bolandsgatan and Stålgatan are important with many people passing by daily.

After the competition stage, a process of close dialogue with Vattenfall followed, in which all building components and functions were to be designed in accordance with the main principles of the competition proposal. Throughout the procurement process and production, liljewall has had coordination with the supplier and Vattenfall to ensure that the qualities are maintained. Compromises and adaptations have been made without losing the original values.