Where is my village; finding social resilience through adaptive reuse on a neighbourhood scale

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Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Program
Architecture and planning beyond sustainability (MPDSD), MSc
Publicerad
2024
Författare
Jose, Jasmine
Elander, Maria
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Resilience, in a broader context, has been explored in diverse academic fields and contexts. Apart from discussions on ecological and economic resilience, recent debates are also placing emphasis on the concept of social resilience (Larimian et al., 2020). Social resilience engages with questions of social practices and human agency and can be portrayed through three fundamental capacities: coping capacities, which are reactive and absorptive; adaptive capacities, which are proactive; and transformative capacities, which are participative (Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013). To develop social resilience, these fundamental capacities need to be strengthened which requires improving co-existence and collaboration across various societal levels. This thesis has delved into the examination of social resilience on a neighbourhood scale, exploring the interdependencies among the built environment, societal structure, housing forms and neighbourhood planning. In Gothenburg, the current societal challenges that counteract the vision of a socially resilient neighbourhood include loneliness amongst young adults, isolation of the elderly, shortage of affordable housing and increased segregation, especially among the newly arrived. This leads to an undesirable sorting of socio-economic groups within society and the generation of homogenous neighbourhoods. In addition to the insufficiency of affordable housing projects, the current recession has led to a decline in housing starts (Göteborg stad, 2023), leading to a further discrepancy between the need and what is being built. Solutions to the above-mentioned societal challenges have been explored through the adaptive reuse of three institutional buildings in Fjällbo park, which has led to a proposal for alternative housing with sharing-based principles. The decision making for the transformation has been led by weighing the social, environmental and economic impacts against each other. We have worked on three scales; the building, the in-between outdoor spaces and the surrounding neighbourhood, with the aim to facilitate social interaction, which, in turn fosters social cohesion and thus makes way for the building of social resilience. This thesis further discusses the challenges with adaptive reuse to alternative housing within the framework of Swedish building regulations, as well as the opportunity for adaptive reuse to generate affordable housing within the current rental system.
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Social resilience, adaptive reuse, alternative housing
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