Rethinking urban planning and transformation in co-creation-Towards a framework for a calculation of habitat value for an equitable, resource efficient, and circular built living environment

Research Project, 2025 – 2029

The project contributes with knowledge and a methodology on how to better utilize, broaden, and develop existing socio-economic calculations in detailed planning. The project explores how municipalities can improve the design and care of cities’ living environment. Our starting point is that habitat value, existing qualities of a place, cannot be bought or sold but only managed and
refined in cocreation with inhabitants. The long-term goal is to enable structural changes in land use economy within municipal spatial planning to support the transition from a linear to a circular
built environment and to shift from new construction to transformation and renovation. The project adopts a practice-based, transdisciplinary approach, bringing together academia, the public sector, and a collaborative arena. It applies the New European Bauhaus principles sustainable, beautiful, and together. The framework is iteratively developed and 4 cases in Gothenburg cover various circularity perspectives of the built environment ensuring robustness and scalability. The cases regard Resilience of buildings (offices to residential use), Agricultural ecosystems (urban farming), Co-creation of cultural values (industrial site into art/culture hub),
and Education and circular systems (reuse of material for school). By challenging current practices, a process towards a shift in management of the circular economy in the public sector is initiated.