Future North ― The Changing Arctic Landscapes

The changing Arctic is of broad political concern and is being studied across many fields. This book investigates ongoing changes in the Arctic from a landscape perspective. It examines settlements and territories of the Barents Sea Coast, Northern Norway, the Russian Kola Peninsula, Svalbard and Greenland from an interdisciplinary, design-based and future-oriented perspective.

The Future North project has travelled Arctic regions since 2012, mapped landscapes and settlements, documented stories and practices, and discussed possible futures with local actors. Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of the project, the authors in this book look at political and economic strategies, urban development, land use strategies and local initiatives in specific locations that are subject to different forces of change.

This book explores current material conditions in the Arctic as effects of industrial and political agency and social initiatives. It provides a combined view on the built environment and urbanism, as well as the cultural and material landscapes of the Arctic. The chapters move beyond single-disciplinary perspectives on the Arctic, and engage with futures, cultural landscapes and communities in ways that build on both architectural and ethnographic participatory methods.

Janike Kampevold Larsen is Associate Professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway. With a background in literature and philosophy, she specializes in landscape theory and particularly the configuration and conceptualization of contemporary landscapes. She is project leader of the Future North project and the Landscape Journeys project before that. She is one of the article editors for the Journal of Landscape Architecture (JoLA).

Peter Hemmersam is Associate Professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway. He is an architect and received his PhD from the Aarhus School of Architecture in 2008. His main research deals with urban design and urban policy and focusses on liveability, enabling technologies, sustainability, community engagement and the public realm. He directs the Oslo Centre for Urban and Landscape Studies at AHO, and is a senior researcher in the Future North project.