Several concurrent urban transformations enabled the experiment: the first is the physical expansion of the city: over time, infrastructure that previous planners had deliberately placed in the Hinterland has become centrally located. The second is summed up neatly in the call for this issue: there is a need to introduce a thinking about cities as ecosystems, made up of a multitude of co-dependent stakeholders, some human, some not.¹ The third is that a great deal of twentieth century-urban infrastructure now needs both repair and reconceptualization. These transformations present a distinct set of challenges and opportunities in terms of to develop the city of the future.

The experiment site is adjacent to a twentieth century wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Varberg, Sweden. The plant is slated to be reconceptualized as a resource plant, and the experiment site will be integrated into the treatment plant and the city, where it will function as a public space of an as-yet undetermined nature. In other words, the expansion of the resource plant is juxtaposed with a placemaking project. We wanted to explore: What could this space become? What kind of resource might the land itself offer in relation to an expanded notion of what constitutes a stakeholder? How are different species and things entangled with humans and each other on this site?

We believe these questions to be fundamental for the architectural discipline as it adapts to a world in rapid transformation where many of the presumed “givens” in the architectural design process must be rethought. Kate Orff noted that: “Design for the next century is deeply rooted in social life and designing conversations, fostering interaction and encouraging interdependence,” and these words are very suited to the project presented here.² The experiment described is very much an attempt to design a conversation and to test how the design of the conversation affects the architectural design.

The experiment has two principal stages: first, “reading the site,” an experiment in formulating different kinds of design briefs conducted by a team of researchers in 2024–25; and second, the “speculative exploration” conducted by a studio of master’s students in architecture for two weeks in the autumn of 2025. The reading involved different ways of making visible different imaginaries related to what the site could become, for whom could the land become a resource, and which interests become incompossible when put in relation to one another.³ The reading was designed with two parts: one “control group” using a more conventional survey common in participatory design, where we asked human inhabitants about their visions for the space; and one experimental and art-based, where we sought to give voices to stakeholders present on or around the site who had no voice. These two readings produced two different design briefs that in turn formed the starting point for the second stage, the speculative exploration. The master’s student cohort was split into two groups and, after a visit to the site, asked to – very rapidly – produce vision imagery for their design brief. 

Two central questions are explored.

First, “In whose interest is public space designed,” and: “How do various interests influence the design?” Planning and architecture must work with a broader range of interests and stakeholders than the human.⁴ The follow-up questions guiding the speculative exploration are: “How do we determine these interests?” and: “How do we design for the ‘fundamentally entangled fates of humans and non-humans?’” Here, the aim was to see how students’ designs and imagery differed depending on the brief. The experiment contributes to existing knowledge in several ways. First, by making two readings, including one control group, we can compare and discuss the structure and results of these readings in a way previously not seen in art-based research. The second is that we take those readings and use them as design briefs for architectural design and can thereby analyse how the differences observed in the readings affect the imaginary of the place, again allowing comparative analysis. While not all results are transferable, the comparison between methods and the outcome analysis indicate how art-based methods can produce useful results in the planning process.

Our work builds on the work of others; researchers and architects whom we wish to acknowledge and enter into dialogue with, and we aim to contribute to ongoing discussions in architecture as well as wastewater management. Perhaps the most important set of references for our experiment are the initiatives setting out to create formats for more inclusive democracy by using art-based research methods: Organismendemokratie by Club Real (Berlin), Interspecies Assembly by Superflex (Copenhagen), Parlement de Loire by Polau (France) and The Parliament of Species by Cecilie Sachs Olsen (Oslo).⁵ Our approach builds on and leans on these previous experiences and events. We also want to acknowledge ongoing discussions in different fields that have informed the work presented here. The first of these concerns is the concept of the “resource plant.” While the re-use of resources in wastewater has a longer history, the re-imagination into a resource plant on which we build draws extensively on the work of Cindy Wallis-Lage and colleagues, who acknowledged that there is a paradigm shift taking place.⁶ While this and the related works focus primarily on what can be extracted from the processes within the plant, here, we seek to extend the concept of the resource plant to include the land on which it stands and how this is situated in the city.

We also draw on work by planning theorists who have outlined the dire need to expand planning practices to involve other stakeholders, partially through art-based practices. We want to mention the work of Jonathan Metzger, who has passionately articulated the stakes of and the ethical foundations for including more-than-humans and other unheard voices in planning in a series of articles.⁷ In a related field, increasingly more researchers in landscape architecture have been developing a discussion on representation of more-than-humans in landscape design.⁸ Other scholars have also set the stage for this line of thinking; Donna Haraway’s groundbreaking “Situated Knowledge” comes to mind, as do works by Bruno Latour, not least We Have Never Been Modern.⁹ Both these texts very clearly outline that we, as humans, are but one part of a more complex world of organisms and things that we can only ever understand in fragments and they are important in the emerging and sprawling research field of more-than-human studies.¹⁰ Our experiment enters into these discussions aiming to test out art-based research methods.

The article opens by introducing the site and the ongoing transformations underway locally and more broadly. This brief section also introduces the principal theoretical framework employed. This is followed by an account of the two parts: reading the situation and speculatively exploring the situation; this constitutes the main part of the article. Finally, a discussion brings the previous parts together and sketches out some tentative conclusions that may be drawn from the experiment. While the article builds on theory, the principal content is the empirical experiment and its different stages.

There are two plots on the Varberg site: the existing WWTP, which is a typical urban exclusion, designed to be unseen and overlooked, and an irregular plot measuring approximately 120x250 m [394x820 ft.]. Today, this second plot is a temporary deposit for varied non-toxic waste (e.g., organic debris from park maintenance, sludge from the existing WWTP) to be transported elsewhere for recycling. The site was originally part of a landfill, and the soil there is polluted. The town’s comprehensive plan shows the site as centrally positioned in the expanded Varberg; it will be the main entry point when entering from the north, and it will form a key part of the new mixed-use urban area Västerport arising west of the railway tracks in the industrial harbor. From a planning perspective, the site – especially the second plot – become visible and emblematic for the new development. The plot will contain cleaning pools for the resource plant, and modern technology will permit these to be covered. Their olfactory presence will be less pronounced than in past generations. The initial plan is to integrate these pools with a recreational area with a space for public use.

In his tentative first steps to a more-than-human planning practice, Metzger notes that it is “crucial to proceed from a starting point where it is not automatically taken for granted that the wills and desires of human beings should automatically be privileged over any- and everyone else.” ¹⁵ His second point, which is central to the approach in the research, is the need to “sensitize those humans involved in planning endeavors to the messy business of living together in irrevocable intertwinement and partial co-dependence with things that are considered other-than-ourselves.” ¹⁶ He goes on, “without taking for granted what would be a good way to define the cared-for ‘us’ and the excluded ‘them’.” We could add that such a transformed practice invariably means challenging and developing the formal and informal frameworks connected with architectural design, not least the design brief, as the document that stipulates the architect’s task. In the following, we propose design briefs that emerge from reading what is and what could be on site from a perspective that includes other stakeholders than humans and institutions.

The first reading of what the space could become was based on a straightforward survey. The survey’s aim was to identify collectives and users who could potentially become future stakeholders in the site. This model is closely related to existing models of citizen participation in planning processes.²⁴ Our investigation sought to gather input from different segments of the community regarding the development of the new area in order to ensure that the planning process was based on a broad foundation and incorporated perspectives from both individuals and organizations. In research terms, the survey was the “control group,” the business-as-usual approach in participation. This would be measured against the other reading in order to highlight differences. Hence, the output from the survey is presented more summarily than otherwise would be justified.

The survey was sent and collected digitally, using Microsoft forms, as well as physically to increase response frequency and ensure participation from individuals of different ages, backgrounds, and social groups. This method combination was also chosen to minimize selection bias, as certain groups have different possibilities to participate depending on access to digital tools. The digital surveys were primarily sent to interest organizations that might have an interest in the area (ornithological clubs, lobby organizations for retired people, sports clubs, etc.). Extensive work was carried out to identify and involve organizations that represent specific groups (e.g., immigrant associations, natural associations, people with disabilities, schools and dog owners) to ensure that their voices were also heard through the survey.

To obtain a broad sample, the physical surveys were gathered at the main library. A combination of digital and physical distribution methods was chosen to avoid so-called mode effects (i.e., differences in responses depending on the collection method) and to reduce coverage and nonresponse errors. In total, the digital survey was sent to forty participants, and the physical survey was handed to twenty-one participants. While the response frequency to the digital form was only fifteen percent (six out of forty), the response frequency of the physical survey was about eighty percent (seventeen out of twenty-one). The survey contained four questions, three open and one closed. The open questions gave respondents the opportunity to express their desires for the site’s future, for whom it could become useful, and what it must not become. In addition, a specific question was formulated to identify potential aspects that should be avoided in the area; this closed question was focused on the frequency with which the participant visits the area today.

As could be expected, responses to the survey focused on human stakeholders. Respondents focused on recreational facilities and a general “green area.” In response to the first question “What could this area become? How could this place be useful to you? What is missing?” some respondents included more general sustainability-oriented components: “biodiversity,” “natural areas” and “blue-green corridors.” However, the majority of respondents focused on leisure activities and social spaces (food trucks, art exhibitions, concerts, etc.). The second question was: “Who else do you think would benefit most from such a public space? Why?” The question was formulated to open up for thinking beyond human use, but respondents nevertheless focused on humans and their needs. Respondents listed children, elderly, tourists, and, tellingly, dog owners (rather than dogs). In response to the final question, “Is there anything the area should absolutely not become? Why?” respondents mainly mentioned car traffic-oriented uses, industry and retail.

The twenty participants were recruited from the research team’s personal networks in age spans from thirteen to around seventy. Their professional backgrounds were in ornithology, law enforcement, teaching, water management, psychiatry, engineering, and art, and some were students. Most participants had no direct connection to the studied area, a deliberate methodological decision aimed at encouraging exploration and avoiding preconceptions. The reading began with a short introduction to the area, its surroundings and its history. The participants were divided into groups of two or three, and each group was given thirty minutes to explore the site and identify a stakeholder to represent. They were invited to choose something from the area as a token of the entity they represented.³³

During the Parliament, participants gathered in a pre-arranged circle of chairs on the site; this formed the stage of the Parliament. Following the script of Sachs Olsen’s Parliament of Species,³⁴ one participant from each group sat on a chair and acted as a spokesperson while the rest of the group stood behind and remained silent. Similar to in Sachs Olsen’s experiment, we allowed that the standing participants could tap the shoulder of the spokesperson in front of them at any point during the session if they should wish to replace them and take an active role. After the Parliament concluded, participants and the research team shared lunch, which provided an opportunity for further discussion. The system with spokespersons for more-than-human interests was tested in a limited setting here, and while the ability to imagine the needs and desires of specific interests varied, most participants noted that the session had transformed how they understood the site.

The outcome of the Parliament session was far more heterogeneous than that of the survey, with a deeper focus on cohabitation in various forms. The participants chose to be spokespersons for a wide range of stakeholders including concrete blocks, the sea, rabbits, “Nature,” invasive species, small children, insects, future generations, dogs, and a small, polluted ditch that runs through the site. As the spokespersons advocated their stakeholders’ interests, conflict lines emerged – concrete and the sea were momentarily pitted against one another; dogs, rabbits and small children failed to see eye to eye, invasive species and “Nature” had differing visions of how the future of the site would evolve (although it should be mentioned here that the spokesperson for “Nature” perhaps had a rigid view of the concept). The session produced more questions than answers, but it also laid bare how interests intersect and collide. As a design brief, the parliamentary session presented multiple ways of working with the site, all entailing political choices that prioritize stakeholders, or the “taking-into-account of the exclusions made in the process.” ³⁵ They thus render politics visible.

The second stage of the experiment entailed passing on the readings to a cohort of architecture students as unconventional design briefs to see how they would interpret them into visual imagery during a two-week workshop led by members of the research team. Concretely: The students’ input for the workshop was limited to a site visit in Varberg, where the city planning office and the water company, Vivab, presented their imaginaries for the new urban area plus one of two readings. The presentations framed the site rather than prescribing how or for whom it should be designed. The summaries of the two readings were then adopted in their fragmentary states as the design briefs for the students without any adaptation or coordination. The survey and the parliament readings were both transcribed and summarized as accurately as possible in separate documents. No attempt was made to construct any semblance of coherence. Students worked in eleven small groups of two or three. Five groups based their work on the survey reading while six departed from the parliament reading. 

In order to keep the task straightforward, we required that students produce one vision image, a photomontage of 600 x 600 mm [2 ft. x 2 ft.], to be submitted and discussed – as an image and as a vision in relation to the brief – during the final crit. The workshop included one supervision session focused on the image production, not on steering how the students interpreted their briefs. Below is a selection of the different groups’ output, analyzed in terms of their differences and how they relate to their respective design brief.

The output from the five student groups who used the survey as their design brief followed a conventional architectural approach in its imagery. The images proposed a bright future. As could be expected, most of the propositions focused on the human perspective; this is evident in the images themselves, where the perspective suggests a human eye-level. It is also visible with a simple content analysis: the number of humans and human-oriented activities visible dominate the images.³⁸ As noted above, the survey material resembled a menu without visible conflicts, and this can also be observed in the images: most groups selected items from the design brief (e.g., art exhibition, Fig. 8), educational center (Fig. 7), play space, a space for all ages (Fig. 9) and put them together into a seemingly compatible whole. In the supervision session, it was quite clear that these students approached the task as an architectural project – they worked with more conventional tools such as the site plan, which was only later converted into an image, rather than start from the image itself. The output also resembles more conventional architectural vision imagery in terms of focus on human stakeholders (those seen enjoying the space), ambience (positive and bright), perspective (seen through human eyes), propositional character and content. Simply put, the speculation in this case follows the pre-established patterns and cultures of architectural visioning rather than exploring alternative approaches.

The differences between the two sets of imagery put the spotlight on the taken-for-granted or ingrained practices of architectural projects. It is very easy as an architect to depart from oneself; architects are habitually trained in seeing and designing for the human scale. Shifting this is not necessarily easy but the images in the second set constitute one attempt to move beyond it and to re-imagine infrastructural space for more-than-humans as well, and to move out of our comfort zones as architects or architectural students. At the same time, we can also see the limits of knowledge and critical capacity – it is clear here that students have limited knowledge of how rabbits behave underground, what birds do when they are alone, etc. This is not only the architectural students’ knowledge but also that of the spokespeople at the parliament session. Shifting perspective is not necessarily easy. This is visible in other ways as well – for instance, the path for humans still cuts through the land designed for rabbits rather than the rabbits’ path cutting through the humans’ space.