Vandra med andra

Cities are growing rapidly, and such growth requires that decision-makers and managers make wise decisions about, for example, land use, transport systems, and spatial layout. As cities expand and are rebuilt, it becomes equally important to minimize negative environmental impacts and to ensure good living conditions and equality for people in the city. This type of challenging requirement cannot be handled by municipalities alone within their internal organization. The participation of stakeholders and citizens in decision-making and the improvement of the design and delivery of public services becomes necessary. With increased urbanization, more and more city councils are engaging in sustainable development projects aimed at creating urban spaces where well-being is promoted through new forms of governance and greater economic, social, and environmental sustainability. This also applies to the municipality of Kristianstad (region Skane, Sweden), which initiated the project "Klimatsmart Nasby" (Climate Smart Nasby). The project spanned 2 and a half years (from January 1, 2021, to February 28, 2023 ). The project was conducted in a collaborative format between Kristianstad municipality, Krinova Science & Incubator Park, and Kristianstad University. The project was financed by the EU's Regional Development Fund and the three partners. We from HKR, presenting this exhibition, had the role of exploring how citizens can be involved in this type of change work. "Walking with others" became our main design method for including the social aspect from a citizen perspective, based on the specific situation in Nasby and Gamlegarden in Kristianstad - which is also what the exhibition aims t o reflect.

Walking with Others
The core of the design method "walking with others" that we developed in this project was based on meeting real people on site. The method aimed to create dialogues with people who primarily live there and secondarily work there or visit the area. The method builds on a series of different research and design projects we participated in, such as K3H in the Ekostaden project in Malmo's 8001 area in 2004 to Future City LAB during Copenhagen's culture night in 2018. There we worked in various c o -creation processes to investigate the built environment's qualities regarding future opportunities for residents in, for example, a district undergoing major changes.

The Particular
In our choice of perspective, the particular is an important part of the approach, where both understanding and conveying content are strongly related to capturing and conveying emotions. Walking with others was the most central design activity that we created in this project, which aimed to facilitate meetings with citizens during a period with Covid restrictions. In these walks, we have strived to capture the citizens' hopes and fears. Our ambition has been to create a complement to conventional methods that mostly aim to capture the general. This is because our focus here has instead been on capturing the particular, i.e., things that distinguish Nasby and its inhabitants from other places in Sweden. The design activity was based on citizens' own choices of walking paths to initiate a confidential conversation about Nasby. We have walked by their side and shared in their everyday activities, fears, patterns, phenomena, emotions, engagement, hopes, dreams, and motivations. It has been a conscious strategy not to directly address climate issues, to not let all too obvious, expected, and well-known solutions stand in the way. The chosen method tries to capture the messy, interconnected, and sprawling that characterizes the area. The approach offers citizens "handles" that contribute to discussing and working with their future living environment with a focus on climate-smart solutions.