The art of combining proven systems for new solutions
If you’re passionate about systems in synergy. When you love to combine proven systems from different sectors to create completely novel and better solutions. It’s a bit like when one plus one equals three. Well, then it’s no wonder that you might choose to get two university educations and then continue to cross-fertilise various sectors in your professional practice.
Annika Fernlund is a mobility strategist and property developer at Hub Park, a role that gives her the opportunity to pursue her passion for new solutions. And although getting two degrees wasn’t a conscious strategy when she began studying Civil Engineering for Roads and Waterways and later continued her education at the School of Architecture. Her two lines of study instilled her with ideas and thought processes that synergise when she strives to find solutions and systems that did not exist before.
Annika’s master’s thesis at Lund University’s School of Architecture was a good indication of her future professional path. Her project proposed connecting literature and public transport, bringing the Stockholm City Library into the metro and vice versa. It certainly had all the naive idealism of a student thesis, but the intention – to think in new ways about old, established systems – was just the beginning of something more.
“I didn’t get into architecture school the first time I applied, so I initially studied civil engineering for roads and waterways. And in retrospect, that proved to be a fantastic complement to my architectural education,” says Annika as she reflects on how things don’t always turn out the way you planned. But then they often end up even better.
Earlier in her career, Annika spent several years at an architectural firm. After that, she spent a few years as an independent consultant, working largely with property development. But a few years ago, Annika took her craze for synergising systems to the next level when she started working with the mobility buildings of the future at Parkering Malmö. The experience, knowledge and desire to be at the forefront were all there, and Annika was given free rein to develop ideas and mobility solutions for Malmö’s parking companies, their facilities and their service offerings.
“I really enjoyed working at P-Malmö and the projects we developed. But I felt strongly that I wanted to be able to apply my ideas to projects throughout Sweden, and since municipal companies aren’t allowed to invest outside their own municipality, the idea of finding something else began to germinate, explains Annika about how she ended up at Hub Park.
I felt strongly that I wanted to be able to apply my ideas to projects throughout Sweden.
– Annika Fernlund
At Hub Park, Annika works exactly as she wants, focusing on solutions that maximise the good instead of minimising the bad. She strives to run her projects with circular economy and to use them to connect various systems to create a new and better whole. These projects offer Hub Park’s customers (municipalities and real estate companies) both innovative mobility solutions and complete energy solutions for their mobility buildings and the surrounding areas. Because if you like systems in synergy, it’s no wonder that you might connect parking garages in the city with solar parks in the countryside, or with new logistics and charging nodes throughout the urban area. And that approach creates new solutions and offerings.