KulturVerkSted: Culture-based solutions to climate adaptation

Edible green commoning: urban farming at Losæter, Oslo

Losæter lies on municipal land in Bjørvika, between the Opera House, the Munch Museum, and Deichmanske Library. It is classified as a nærmiljøhage, a multifunctional community garden weaving together allotments, collective cultivation, composting, shared cooking, and open gathering. Oslo municipality maintains a map of urban agriculture sites across the city, of which Losæter is among the largest and most established.

Losæter began in 2011 not as a planning initiative but as an art project, specifically Flatbread Society, an initiative by the international art collective Futurefarmers, commissioned by Bjørvika Utvikling as part of their public art programme. In 2015, farmers from over 50 Norwegian farms carried soil through the city to Bjørvika, where a Declaration of Land Use was signed, establishing the site as a commons. Today it is home to a collective of artists, local residents, refugees, and visitors who plant, harvest, and cook together, with a city farmer, a public bakehouse, and nine varieties of ancient grain growing in the heritage field.

"In the Culture-based Solutions project, Losæter is understood as a model of what design scholar John Thackara calls bioregional reconnection, where a bioregion "re-connects us with living systems, and each other, through the places where we live," acknowledging that we live among watersheds, foodsheds, and food systems rather than just in cities (Thackara 2019). Art has been the engine of that reconnection here, drawing farmers, soil scientists, city officials, school groups, and newcomers into a shared practice of land care in ways that conventional approaches can struggle to achieve. Its living soils and vegetation also absorb rainfall during heavy precipitation events, reducing pressure on Oslo's drainage infrastructure and protecting water quality in the Oslofjord, while the site serves as a biodiversity stepping stone for pollinators and birds amid the dense development of Bjørvika."

The case is led by AHO's Systems Oriented Design unit, under Assistant Professor Abel Crawford, in close collaboration with NORCE. Working with core stakeholders from the wider Losæter social ecosystem, the project aims to understand what makes the site work and how to articulate its value in ways that support more edible green commoning in Oslo and beyond. A particular focus will be the role of art in establishing and sustaining such spaces, and the tension between structure and openness that appears central to their vitality: enough organisation to ensure continuity and institutional legibility, while leaving room for the creativity and experimentation that allow such places to move from functioning to flourishing.

https://loseter.no/matjord/

Berry picking in Salten – Case description

In Salten in Nordland, berry picking is a seasonal activity that has had great historical significance and is still important to many. Picking berries, and their further use, contributes to the acquisition and transfer of knowledge, the continuation of traditions, the establishment or strengthening of social relationships, and to maintaining cultural practices and close relationships with the landscape. In addition, the area's food resources are utilized and berry picking thus contributes to increased food security in a preparedness context.

Can activities related to berry picking teach us something about knowledge and values ​​that make us better able to maintain landscapes under pressure? We believe the answer is yes, and in collaboration with a number of different actors, including Nordlandsmuseet, Salten Naturlag and Salten Mat, we will investigate this further. In our work, we will use participation, interviews, workshops and various art-based methods to cover both diversity and depth in the importance of berry picking for people's relationship with the landscape and thoughts about future landscape management.

Camillas profile page: Camilla Risvoll | Utforsk forskningen – Bli inspirert nå — Nordlandsforskning 

Stines profile page: Ansattinformasjon - NINA

Mountain farms as an important cultural heritage and culture-based solution

In Norway, we have long had practices that have been based on the management of landscapes in symbiosis with our animals, and the practice can be traced back to prehistoric times. Various forms of outfield grazing practices have been used all over the world to be able to operate. Having a grazing area in the countryside has been essential for many people's livelihoods, also in the industrial cities over the years. There were then several types of mountain farms; home seats, intermediate seats, mountain seats also called remote seats or long-distance seats. In the 1800s, there were up to 50,000 active beersin Norway. Nowmost of these are gone. In 2020, there were only 781 summer farms in operation left, while some summer farms are alsoused for leisure purposes.

In 2024, Norwegian and Swedish mountain farming ended up on UNESCO's list of the world's intangible cultural heritage, which includes the traditional knowledge and practices associated with outfield grazing and food traditions. This is an important recognition that helps the mountain farm knowledge to endure for future generations. But even though this is a practice that is still important in some areas of the country, there is also a large amount of farms that stand unused and dilapidated today. The areas that have been used and can be used further are under pressure for other developments, such as green restructuring projects, cabin and road development. At the same time, we see that climate change creates new problems for mountain farming; such as changes in seasons, more precipitation or changes in catchments and waterways, overgrowth, new species and more drought. This affects the everyday life of those who operate the mountain farms. Tourists move more in the yard, the grazing areas are reduced dramatically, and it is tough to make ends meet financially. Culture-based solutions must be seen in the context of these developments.

Today, there are several who advocate revitalizing mountain farming in Norway to support the local economy, biodiversity, management of cultural landscapes, food and food security. Traditional practices that deal with grazing, food, path building and building techniques can also teach us something about climate adaptation. Historically, mountain farming has been important for adapting to and exploiting the resources in the mountains and has thus contributed to strengthening the resilience of small farms. Cultural landscapes that are well managed also often store more carbon if they do not overgrow, and they are important for the preservation of biodiversity in our local areas.

In particular, it is important to highlight the in-depth knowledge of landscapes and animals of the farmers, and this knowledge of tradition comes in handy when preparing for a wilder and wetter climate. Farmers have always had to adapt to major changes in both climate and to major weather events, but also in response to changing conditions for operations. This resilience and ability to adapt is something we should take care of and learn from.

In this project, we build on the knowledge that has been held over generations, and through the knowledge that other research projects have already built, such as the NIBIO project Past-Adapt, The Directorate for Cultural Heritage and others. We will conduct interviews, participant observation, document analysis and workshops together with promoters for the preservation of the mountain farm culture in two regions that have different conditions for operation and revitalization, Sogn and Valdres.

Case leads: Alexandra Meyer og Mari Hanssen Korsbrekke

In the reference group: Aurland kommune, Valdresmuseene og Norsk Seterkultur

Kilder: Norsk Seterkultur, Store Norske Leksikon

Heather burning is a tradition that dates back 6000 years along most of the Norwegian coast. The practice has ceased over the last century, in line with the restructuring of agriculture and a changed view of man's role in nature. Over the years, burning has maintained a whole landscape that traditional livestock breeds could benefit from, such as Norwegian Wild Sheep and western Westland Fjord Cattle. Today's intensified production utilizes livestock breeds that are adapted to inland and concentrates, and thus outlying land has fallen out of use. The result is overgrowth of nature and increased fire risk, as well as other challenges such as loss of carbon stocks, loss of cultural heritage and knowledge, and reduced food security. Coastal heathland is today a critically endangered habitat type, and is a habitat for several critically endangered species. Several major fires in recent decades have meant that more people now see the value of burning coastal heathland.

This part of the project addresses heather burning as a culture-based solution to sustainable climate adaptation. How do heather burners contribute to safeguarding the landscape and the community along the coast? What motivates heather burners, how is the practice organized and planned, and what resources do they need to get more people to take up the practice again?

The researchers learn about heather burning by participating in burning throughout winter and spring, and in other land stewardship activities the rest of the year.

Responsible:

Siri Veland (Norce)

Scott Bremer (UiB)

In the reference group: Lyngheisenteret, Vestland Fylkeskommune

Systems Oriented Design (SOD) is a methodology that combines systems thinking with design practice to help researchers, planners, and organisations work with complex, interconnected problems. A defining feature of SOD is its multi-centric approach: rather than placing human users at the centre, it works simultaneously across multiple agendas, including those of non-human actors such as ecosystems, species, and landscapes. This makes it particularly well suited to a project concerned with the relationships between people, culture, and land.

In this project, SOD provides the conceptual and analytic scaffolding that connects the four case studies and supports the research team in working across disciplines. Its central tool, Gigamapping, allows actors, relationships, knowledge, and land-care practices to be gathered, visualised, and interpreted across the whole system, helping partners build shared understanding and work across institutional and disciplinary silos. SOD also plays an integrating role between the project's methodological approaches, supporting the connection between ethnographic fieldwork, arts-based research methods, and the synthesis of findings into common deliverables. This includes supporting the preparation, facilitation, and processing of the KulturverkSted workshops, and translating field observations and stakeholder input into visual frameworks that feed directly into the intervention guide for policy and decision-makers.

SOD is led by the Systems Oriented Design unit at AHO, under Assistant Professor Abel Crawford, with support from Professor Jonathan Romm.