re-envisioning the community-hub; towards a systemic design framework for participatory governance spaces

Abstract

Humanity finds itself at a complex juncture between two crises: the social and the environmental. Environmentally, the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly evident, while socially, the crisis manifests itself in the rise of contemporary societies undergoing processes of social unrest. Personal experience working with communities in Chile, has revealed that low-income groups are often the most affected by these crises, while at the same time they demonstrate resilience through a great capacity for social cohesion and collective organisation. This collective organisation has in their “sedes-sociales”, or community-hubs, one of its spatial manifestations, being this one the main matter of architectural analysis of this thesis. In this sense, and from the perspective of architecture and planning, this thesis aims to develop a systemic design framework for local participatory governance spaces (community-hubs), oriented by an interest in strengthening social cohesion and urban resilience. The work focuses on Sweden, and is based on the Theory of the architecture project in an organic/systemic logic (Fernández, 2011). This theory enables guidance on how to approach the territorial and the architectural project dimension, in correlation with other systems of analysis such as participatory governance. The method used is primarily research through design, through a 4-stage process. This process involves an initial stage of contextual review (examining case studies of community-hubs, with a historical, contemporary and international focus), inputs which then are used in a second stage to develop the systemic design framework, a third stage of design application, in which the framework is tested, and a final reflective stage of synthesis. The result is a systemic design framework for re-envisioned community-hubs, which is applied through a conceptual design application in the contemporary Swedish built environment of Tynnered, Gothenburg. This outcome will not only provide feedback for the systemic design framework itself, but also inspire potential stakeholders involved in the context of application. Likewise, the thesis allows for further reflections on the concepts of social cohesion and urban resilience, and their relationship with spaces for participatory governance, thus positioning itself as a contribution to a broader setting towards sustainable urban planning and development.