Sustainability, Vol. 15, Pages 2864: Opportunities and Challenges for the Creation and Governance of Productive Landscapes in Urban Transformations: The Case of Klosterøya Urban Fruit Forest Park

Sustainability, Vol. 15, Pages 2864: Opportunities and Challenges for the Creation and Governance of Productive Landscapes in Urban Transformations: The Case of Klosterøya Urban Fruit Forest Park

Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su15042864

Authors: Maria Olga Tomprou

Former industrial areas in Europe are being redeveloped into residential and recreational spaces, often including sustainability initiatives. This study explores how the co-governance and management of a productive urban open space contributes to sustainable transformations, and aims to identify the opportunities and challenges that multi-actor design teams face when co-designing sustainable solutions. To achieve this goal, the landscape design process in Klosterøya urban park in Skien municipality, Norway, a privately owned yet publicly regulated park, is used as a case study in co-governance and analysed using the theoretical combined governance and management model developed. Data were collected through the observations of project meetings, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with the multi-actor design team. The results indicated that the working method, through co-creation, produced opportunities for sustainable urban agriculture, enhanced biodiversity, testbeds and water and resource circularities in the landscape, while ensuring a learning process and users’ involvement. Willingness to invest due to the lack of technical knowledge and soil contamination are revealed as key challenges. Conclusions emphasise the significance of co-creative landscape practices for productive urban open spaces and sustainable urban transformations, providing insights for an informed analysis of co-governance cases through the combined governance and management model.