Urban planning
The form of traditional street networks was displaced by the new architectural establishment that spearheaded the new urban planning. New living areas were built, lighting was prioritized in the apartments, and recreation areas were located near the buildings. The complexes were built near public communications and shopping centers. The modernist visions of Functionalism (architecture) "Functionalism (architecture)") referring to the construction of the kind and functional city were developed on a large scale.[10] The million project zones were also characterized by the intense and strict development of a plan (SCAFT|SCAFT-plan) for traffic separation, the objective of which was to separate vehicle traffic from pedestrians. Pedestrian paths completely free of vehicle traffic, sky bridges and pedestrian tunnels, wide highways and large-scale parking lots were located in the vicinity of the buildings.
Tram traffic was displaced from urban centers to their surroundings. As suburban centers grew, it also became necessary to expand Stockholm's underground transport network and Gothenburg's tram network. These expansions caused certain surrounding municipalities, which had had equivalent ambitions, to decide to build housing centers instead; for example in Vårby gård in the municipality of Huddinge south of Stockholm and in Angered in Gothenburg, which was then its own municipality.
The housing complexes built within the million-dollar project were planned to have social and commercial services, places of recreation, jobs and schools. Services of all kinds were available in central buildings with schools up to ninth grade. They were planned with the idea that they would be used in the afternoons and weekends for courses, dances and association meetings. A group of neighborhoods formed a city, for example Skärholmen together with Bredäng, Sätra and Vårberg. In the neighborhoods there were smaller-scale shopping centers with businesses mainly for food while in the larger center of Skärholmen there were a larger number of businesses in other sectors.
According to the same idea, other suburban housing centers were built, such as in the Gothenburg area, for example Angered and also in the slightly smaller municipality of Sundsvall[11] such as Nacksta. The urban planning of Nacksta was drawn up in the spring of 1963. The area was projected in a single round, built in stages and was ready in 1974. In total, 1,600 new homes were built, both high-rise buildings and buildings with only 3 floors. The floor plan resolution of the apartments was of good quality and spacious. The problems were in the sterility of the exteriors. Visually, the suburbs were seen as a unit thanks to the single color of the facades of the houses except for that of the thin central building. In the middle of the complex was a center with a medical clinic, dentist and schools.[12] In West Germany, East Germany, France, Finland and the Soviet Union, urban centers were built in the same way but not according to a political programmatic declaration as in Sweden.
House construction
The increase in automobiles, strong planning, architectural functionalism and the enormous desire to abandon the small stone city were trends of those times that, together with a tight economic framework, influenced the shape and construction of the small houses in the project. A little more than half of them are small, both independent houses and semi-detached houses or in larger housing units. The rest are apartment buildings, both tall and block, as well as towers. Only a quarter of buildings are six stories or more.
Only towards the end of the project were prefabricated reinforced concrete elements used. Until then, plastered facades had been preferred. During the record years of apartment building manufacturing, plastering was the most used form, especially in the Stockholm department. During those years brick was also used as a façade material but not as a construction material for basic structures. It was not uncommon to use prefabricated reinforced concrete elements with an outer layer of brick.[13].
Construction during the project was characterized by high effectiveness and rationalized economy. Before the government decree for the million homes, the Östberga housing unit had already been built south of the center of Stockholm. This was the first to be built with prefabricated reinforced concrete elements. The construction method required the installation of a temporary factory in the vicinity of the area. The elements were placed in place with the help of cranes. As time went by, the manufacturing of the elements was centralized in permanent facilities and the transfer to the different construction areas began. This method industrialized, made effective and shortened the time of the largest living areas of the project. The method is used to this day although in a modified form. The cranes used in the assembly of prefabricated parts were installed on rails, thus facilitating construction even more. The reach of the cranes thus defined the distance between the different groups of houses. The installation of rails requires flatness, therefore the area had to be drilled and the vegetation extracted. Planning included the planting of new vegetation once the construction of the buildings was completed unlike in the 1950s when the construction of suburbs aimed to preserve the existing vegetation as much as possible.
In any case, it is not correct to think that the project constructions are "concrete suburbs" whose buildings and houses are seen as too tall, gray and rigid. For example, if you drive in the direction of Tensta on the northern side on the E 18, you may get that impression. On the other hand, if we approach Tensta, Hjulsta and Rinkeby from the south, we find, on the contrary, buildings of extensive size but of low height with a predominance of plastered and brick facades. The tall buildings made of prefabricated sheets on the E18 respect the original idea of the urban planners, that is, they function as "protective walls" for the rest of the buildings in the area.[14] In any case, not everything was made as tall buildings with reinforced concrete facades. A significant part of the project's housing units per million (about 30%) consisted of small houses such as those in in the northeast of Stockholm. There are buildings with plastered facades, made of wood and brick, and most of the original vegetation was preserved. Kälvesta could be called "the horizontal project zone" with around 2,000 single-family housing units. The urban planning project for the area was done in conjunction with the architectural office who specialized in semi-detached and chain houses. The first houses began to be built in 1966 and construction work continued until the 1970s. Most of the houses were built as semi-detached houses with 4 bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. is counted as one of the last suburbs of basement houses that were built since the 1930s.[16].