Collaboration with the City of Stockholm and three-dimensional properties
Jenny Paulsson is an Associate Professor in Real Estate Planning and Land Law the Department of Real Estate and Construction Management. Much of her work is about real estate, not least three-dimensional properties, and she is happy to work across national, organisational and subject boundaries. But she also has an important role at home as new Partner Director for KTH's strategic partnership with the City of Stockholm.
For almost 200 years, since the Institute of Technology was founded in 1827, Stockholm has been KTH's hometown. The university's five campuses are still located within the borders of Greater Stockholm. With such a long common history, it seems a natural development that KTH and the City of Stockholm entered into a strategic partnership in 2014.
Earlier this year, Jenny Paulsson, Associate professor and senior lecturer in Real Estate Planning and Land Law the Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, took over responsibility for the partnership. Last year, a scientific council was established within the partnership which, among other things, will identify the challenges Stockholm faces and which need innovative solutions. The working method of the Scientific Council is now being evaluated and Jenny Paulsson is awaiting the results.
- The scientific council is a pilot where the focus is on raising long-term issues at an overall level and providing an idea of how far research has come in the field, as well as what innovative opportunities there are. Here, the long-term, strategic issues concerning the city's challenges will be raised jointly by officials and researchers. It provides an opportunity to identify knowledge needs for further research as well as innovative opportunities for the city to investigate further. The first year was about transport and mobility with a focus on climate adaptation and now the focus is on an elderly-friendly city.
A screening and review of the strategic partnerships at KTH is also underway. The evaluation is based on self-evaluations and interviews conducted with KTH's partners. Jenny Paulsson is also assisted in the work by partner leader Malin Linngård, who works with collaboration at the University Administration and who has regular contact and administrative reconciliations with the city.
Having a person with experience and contacts is valuable because a large number of activities must be done within the framework of the partnership. There is no formal assignment description, but it is about getting the right people from KTH and the city to participate in the right meetings. The idea is that we will learn from each other and through the partnership it is easier to find the relevant people and to anchor investments. KTH has the research knowledge and the city has practical expertise from its operations. It is obvious that both parties see the benefit of the partnership.
- A priority activity within the partnerships is personnel exchanges, for example in the form of collaborations such as municipal doctoral students and affiliated faculty. We also look at lifelong learning and how the City of Stockholm’s employees can develop their skills through, for example, courses and seminars. KTH's students also play an important role by addressing the city's challenges in, among other things, degree projects and within the framework of Openlab.
How the work within the partnership will look like in the future depends both on what the evaluation concludes and which areas are prioritsed next. There is a great breadth in the discussions and no shortage of challenges to tackle. Jenny Paulsson, however, has a specific wish.
- I would like to see the partnership with the City of Stockholm to become better known, not least at KTH. Despite the fact that a lot happens in the partnership, we have been a bit too anonymous. After all, there is a commitment from both parties to achieve benefits and an opportunity to, for example, more easily obtain research funding through Horizon Europe. We have also been able to continue the activities despite the pandemic by adapting to the new conditions and this shows the strength of the collaboration.
3D properties and Nordic property boundaries
In addition to being responsible for the partnership with the City of Stockholm, Jenny Paulsson researches and teaches on land land and real estate law issues.
One of her ongoing projects, which she is working on together with her doctoral student Lisa Bergsten, is about new forms of leasing. For example, co-owned apartments, a version of owner-occupied apartments that can be linked to social sustainability. Another relatively new form of lease is 3D properties.
- We like to think of a property as unlimited down in the ground and up in the sky, Jenny Paulsson explains. But it is, for example, possible for a non-genuine tenant-owner association to cut off a property volume that consists of business premises in order to become a genuine tenant-owner association. Another example of 3D property ownership is the new railway tunnel for Citybanan, which runs under Stockholm's inner city.
The Department of Real Estate and Construction Management has a well-developed Nordic collaborations with annual meetings between universities, a Nordic graduate school and, of course, research collaborations. Jenny Paulsson is participating in a Nordic project on property boundaries.
- The project is initiated by Aalborg University and aims to study how property boundaries differ in the different countries. For example, what does the process for demarcation look like? How are unclear boundaries, legislation, documents and conflict resolution dealt with? There are many similarities but also important differences between the countries.
Jenny Paulsson also leads a project on BIM-based management of 3D property information, within the strategic innovation programme Smart Built Environment. Doctoral student Jing Sun and representatives from Lund University, the University of Gävle and the National Land Survey are participating in the project. It also includes reference group participants from, among others, the city of Stockholm. The project is about how the various actors in the construction process can share digital information to enable visualisation through 3D models. Especially in cities, it is very useful to work in three dimensions to identify the boundaries between, for example, rights of use.
In addition to collaboration and research, Jenny Paulsson has a great commitment to teaching.
- The other day I held a seminar for law students at Stockholm University, which was actually about 3D properties, she concludes.
A sentence that contains much of what Jenny Paulsson is doing: Teaching, collaboration, research, three-dimensionality and - not least - Stockholm.
Text: Johan C Thorburn
This is the ninth article in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment 's new series of articles on selected research, education or collaboration initiatives from each department. You can find the previous articles here:
- KTH Architecture: Introducing Lighting Design Research in Architecture
- Civil and Architectural Engineering: He is planning a new student competition about self-sufficiency
- Real Estate and Construction Management: New forum for discussion and cooperation on housing issues
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Philosophy and History: The Mediated Planet: Claiming Data for Environmental SDGs
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Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering (SEED): Collaborations to understand and manage water
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Urban Planning and Environment: What makes us decide to change our travel behavior, to opt for innovation and a sustainable future?
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KTH Architecture: Redesign in focus for a sustainable cultural heritage
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Civil and Architectural Engineering: Fossil-free steelmaking – large scale storage of hydrogen in rock caverns