One of several marked projects in Europe was the BoO1 Tango Housing in Malmo, Sweden, by the American firm Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners. In 2001 he was commissioned to design this city block of 27 housing units in the Boplasten. This housing design was sponsored in co-op by the Swedish government and private developers. Their goal was to present a building that would be progressive in sustainability, lifestyle patterns, and integration of new technology, and that would give each unit a distinct expression.

This city block in a residential and office district was built on a brownfield site. It is the term applied to abandoned, usually polluted former industrial lands. Brownfield redevelopment often deploys barrier, venting and cleaning technologies to deal with soil and water contaminants, site instability and subterranean gas buildups. In this case, major soil was removed, and the landscape was replanted with species that extract pollutants, which dominated by heavy metals, from the soil, and others that immobilize them.

Through carefully managed landscaping, biology and sustainability were combined to extract pollutants from the soil. Moore Ruble Yudell designed a flexible system for articulating the perimeter’s exterior elevations. The Tango Houses’ exterior facade has a super-order grid composed of ribbed precast panels. These horizontal and vertical panels regulate the visual chaos of the randomly placed windows and respond to the existing urban fabric. Internally, all units are linked by a core “intelligent wall” that supports mechanical and technical equipment toward the exterior walls of the block.

A contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional board and batten construction, the louvered texture of the concrete panels captures and reflects the precious northern lights while providing a discreet street presence. This exterior treatment contrasts with the vibrant architectural expression of the interior court. The U-shaped design encloses an island wetland, part of the vibrant interior court that used as a shared social space. Undulating and twisting glazed towers vary from two to four floors dance around a west-facing garden.

The floor-to-ceiling windows of the courtyard-facing units are suitable for brightening a room during a gloomy Swedish day, also a potential energy sink during winter nights. Triple-layered glass windows, with layer of inert argon gas between the two outermost panes keep the heat in, provide insulation and complete the specification of an environmentally responsible and ecological building. The units were tightly built, with wall-mounted ventilators to draw in fresh air and keep the rooms from getting stale or stuffy.

The roof is covered with grass, restoring oxygen to the atmosphere, which also provides a layer of overhead insulation and slows flooding during heavy rains. There are solar panels that cater amply for the block’s energy needs. It converts sunlight into heat for the units, while a nearby wind turbine, meanwhile, supplies electricity. Individual foot-bridges link the residential cores to the island above an expansive of marshy land reminiscent of the geography and flora of the nearby Oresund Sound.

The marsh vegetation is fed by recycled rainwater through man-made streams and a pond made of regular-cut stones and concrete, and provides an ever-changing palette of color and texture through Malmo’s diverse seasons and light conditions. The island is divided into an ‘uncultivated’ landscape of reeds and grasses, and a contrasting timber deck. With distant views of the Oresund at the upper levels, the living room of each Tango House unit occupies part of a tower, projecting inward to ‘borrow’ space from the garden while making the interior units feel more spacious.

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