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Profile photo of Mattias Kärrholm

Mattias Kärrholm

Researcher

Profile photo of Mattias Kärrholm

Blue-Green Solutions and Everyday Ethicalities : Affordances and Matters of Concern in Augustenborg, Malmö

Author

  • Misagh Mottaghi
  • Mattias Kärrholm
  • Catharina Sternudd

Summary, in English

This article aims to understand how the introduction of blue-green solutions affects ethical concerns and expectations of an urban environment. Blue-green solutions are complementary technical solutions, introduced into urban water management, in order to deal with the impact of urbanisation and climate change. These kinds of solutions establish new affordances that have an impact on everyday life in the urban environment. This article describes how blue-green solutions become part of urban settings and how they influence the inhabitant’s perceptions, desires and matters of care concerning these settings. The article examines the interplay between blue-green technologies and the social, material and cultural context in the Augustenborg district in Malmö, Sweden. The study is based on the analysis of free-text answers to a questionnaire aimed to collect information about the interaction between blue-green solutions and everyday life in public spaces. By exploring the inhabitants’ point of view, the article then seeks to recognise the meanings and thoughts entangled with place concerning different types of blue-green solutions. We summarise the main concerns raised by the inhabitants and discuss how the implementation of blue-green solutions relates to the transformation of everyday ethicalities and matters of concern relating to the neighbourhood. We conclude that blue-green infrastructure seems to come with a new kind of sensitivity, as well as with an intensification of concerns, in an existing urban environment. This has important social repercussions, which also makes it important to study the social role and implications of blue-green technologies further.

Department/s

  • Department of Architecture and Built Environment

Publishing year

2020

Language

English

Pages

132-142

Publication/Series

Urban Planning

Volume

5

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Cogitatio

Topic

  • Human Geography

Keywords

  • affordance
  • ethic
  • urban design
  • blue-green solutions
  • public space
  • everyday life
  • water management
  • Urban Infrastructure

Status

Published

Project

  • Sustainable Urban Flood Management
  • Urban design and everyday life choices: On the built environment as a co-producer

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2183-7635