SearchThe Botildenborg Foundation in Malmö runs a farm and meeting place, combining urban gardening with social activities. Since the spring of 2024, SLU Urban Futures has been part of the project SOIL - a Social Innovation Living Lab,…
Urban Living Labs
Nina Vogel
Researcher Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, SLU
Lena Friblick
Founder and operations manager of Xenofilia and Stiftelsen Botildenborg
From basement to kitchen – a proud identity
“I have to get going… it’s almost 5 p.m. I need to get some herbs from the yard farm and swing by basement 49 to pick up some ruccola salad before we go to our neighbours Ingrid and Ahmed’s to make dinner! I really look forward to these evenings, they are wonderful, relaxing and interesting, […]
Read the story!What are urban living labs?
Living labs refer to real-world, real-time, society-science interfaces that represent arenas for learning and knowledge co-creation. A critical living lab approach mobilizes these science-society collaborations as means to experiment with novel processes, actor-constellations and practices otherwise often very difficult to set up in typical urban settings. The value of a critical living lab approach lies the opportunities it creates for real change, by revealing and critiquing underlying operational mechanisms, thereby challenging the status quo.
Do you have questions and ideas?
Urban experimentation has an important role to play in advancing sustainable urban transformation. As a future-oriented urban research platform we support an urban living lab approach in research and practice.
If you have ideas and questions, please get in touch!
Write to: urbanfutures@slu.se
CONEXUS
The Conexus project is working with life-labs in seven European and Latin American cities to implement nature-based solutions. These focal cities share common challenges of sustainable urbanisation and are united by their extensive experience, transdisciplinary approach and vision…
REGREEN - Nature-based solutions
The EU-funded REGREEN project will investigate NBS to restore, improve, enhance and conserve natural capital and biodiversity. It will help build climate resilience in cities, improve liveability, and contribute to building inclusive communities, in line with urban priorities.…
The Campus as a Living Lab - How Utrecht University is co-producing targeted sustainability solutions
Society faces a multitude of complex sustainability challenges, which require new ways of thinking and doing. Universities, with their assets and knowledge, play an influential role in facilitating such change by collaborating across disciplines and sectors.
How can Living Labs contribute to sustainable urban transformation?
A short clip where some of the speakers at the conference Getting our Cities Right #2 in Alnarp reflect on Living Laboratories as a methodology to create more sustainable urban landscapes.
Investigating the approach of campus as a landscape oriented Living Lab
Campus Alnarp has a long tradition of using the outdoors for testbeds, trial areas and landscape laboratories. In 2022, a PhD project and unique collaboration started, involving Akademiska Hus, SLU Think Tank Movium, SLU Urban Futures and the…
Getting our Cities Right #2 - From Living Laboratories to urban healthscapes
In October 2022 the second conference of SLU Urban Futures’ series Getting Our Cities Right took place at SLU Campus Alnarp. The focus was on Living Laboratories as new formats for research, teaching, and societal interaction. Read the…
Alnarp's Living Lab Landscape
Alnarp can be seen as an agricultural and forest island in the highly urbanized region of Malmö, in the south of Sweden. The dynamic campus landscape constitutes a valuable resource for transdisciplinary research, teaching and collaboration.
Projects granted seed funding in the call for critical living labs
SLU Urban Futures granted funding to three interdisciplinary projects in 2023. The projects explore living labs or take a critical living lab approach to research.