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The aim of the competition is to create an independent housing  community with a clear ecologically and socially sustainable profile. Questions of energy, social interaction, services and new ways of living/working should be addressed. Also the slow growth must be considered; the project will have to be developed in stages, but each stage must be able to support itself. The project should manifest a clear identity. Connections to the surroundings are also important; access to the coastline, walking paths in the forests and along farmlands and maintaining existing natural qualities. Interventions must respect the scale of the site, and the existing buildings.

Hammarö is a growing municipality, the growth is slow but constant.The project site has several buildings. The total area of these are about 15 000 sqm, and most of them are nicely tucked into the terrain or between large pine trees. Some of them are empty; there is a restaurant, a kindergarten, a conference centre, smaller companies, and a server space for computers. There is a clear potential for denser housing to maximize the use of the existing buildings and infrastructure by reactivating these and using them as a complement to additional housing.

Hammarö is a neighbouring municipality to the local hub Karlstad, a city with 62 000 inhabitants. Although Hammarö has some local indus- try, it depends heavily on Karlstad. The constantly growing municipality lies on a beautiful peninsula that reaches out into the largest lake in Sweden, Vänern. The area has untouched forests, farmlands and a scenic lake archipelago. Today most people here live in single family detached houses. The municipality owns little land and wants to find an alternative to the surface consuming suburban sprawl. The municipality owns a former nursing home for mentally disabled. It is a number of brick buildings in a serene patch of land. The nursing home and the land around it provide a unique opportunity for the municipality to pursue an alternative to commonplace suburbia. Hammarö municipality has excellent living conditions. The project site is no exception. As one would expect most people here move by car which is why Hammarö is trying to improve public transportation. Today the project site has a bus service, but with more residents this bus connection could be improved to conveniently link the area to Karlstad. Within the strategic site is the beautiful Sättersviken, a blue lagoon, with possibilities to place a marina and foot-bridges along the water.