Assembling welfare landscapes of Danish post-war social housing: A relational account on materiality and welfare production

Asbjørn Jessen

Publikation: Bog/antologi/afhandling/rapportPh.d.-afhandlingForskning

Abstract

i In the aftermath of the Second World War social housing estates were built in the thousands across Europe in an effort to materialise the emerging European welfare societies. Crucial in the many new social housing estates were designed landscapes intended to provide social welfare and individual well-being for the inhabitants. These designed landscapes have for long remained under-investigated but new research, to which this PhD thesis adds, seeks to reappreciate them as the welfare landscapes of social housing, attending to such landscapes’ historical welfare legacies. This PhD thesis explores dynamic relationships between the materiality and welfare production in Danish post-war social housing welfare landscapes for a relational un- derstanding of these landscapes’ spatial qualities. Specifically, the thesis focus on how welfare landscapes’ materiality was initially constituted, and how it has changed over time and provided welfare in various changing ways. The thesis contributes a novel theoretical and methodological approach by theorising social housing welfare landscapes' materiality in relational ways as dynamic socio-material assemblages of people and ‘non-human things’. Doing so a particular focus is placed on the role of 'non-human things' in social housing welfare landscapes' continuous materialisation processes. Importantly the prototyping of experimental drawings is used as a means of empirical enquiry to conceptualise, visualise and inves- tigate dynamic relationships over time between the materiality and welfare production in social housing welfare landscapes. The study takes a strong empirical starting point through a case study of iconic Danish social housing welfare landscapes Bellahøj, Albertslund Syd and Farum Midtpunkt, exploring the processes around their initial development and materiali- sation, relying on actor-network theory to theorise and assemble these three welfare landscapes as multiscalar socio-material assemblages. Further, the thesis through another case study investigates the ongoing incremental material change and welfare produc- tion in the Farum Midtpunkt welfare landscape. Here the case study draws on the- ory from the archaeological subfields of contemporary and symmetrical archaeology to theorise and re-assemble the current material condition of the Farum Midtpunkt welfare landscape as a surface assemblage of material pasts. Finally, the thesis includes a minor design project, unfolding the past, present, and possible future materialisation of a site in the Farum Midtpunkt welfare landscape. Abstract ii The empirical, theoretical, and methodological works of this thesis shed light on welfare landscapes as in a continuous process of material becoming shaped through complex relational interchanges of heterogenous sets of human and non-human entities. First and foremost, the thesis contributes with ways to use drawing as an experimental method to operationalise relational theory and as an investigative means to assemble and visualise welfare landscapes' materiality and welfare production of the past and present. Drawings developed as part of the thesis contribute with complex and sprawling visual accounts, highlighting the relational and composite qualities of welfare landscapes – pointing to new prospective opportunities for using drawing as a research tool. The thesis contributes with insights on social housing welfare landscapes as multiscalar and intricately interwoven spatial compositions of both private, common, and public spaces. Spaces that in the past and present serve(d) as commonly shared spaces for particular communities. Further, the thesis brings attention to social housing welfare landscapes’ materiality and welfare production as formed through sometimes frictious processes arising from the already existing materiality. The findings of this thesis provide new insights for current debates, transfor- mation practices, and future developments of social housing welfare landscapes. The thesis illustrates how the future of welfare landscapes is not solely modelled through interventions by design professionals but shaped through various factors, hereunder also maintenance practices and technologies. Also, the thesis brings attention to so- cial housing welfare landscapes as common space rather than potential future public space – an important point of attention in these landscapes' future transformation. The thesis recommends finding ways to nurture and care for social housing welfare landscapes rather than finding ways to (re)design them, which might allow for fruitful and unforeseen future materialisations of these landscapes to provide welfare in new ways for both people and their non-humans kins.

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