Hovinbyen - Circular Oslo

28/01/2022

What is HSO?

Hovinbyen - circular Oslo, is a public-private cooperation which promotes new knowledge, new solutions and new jobs within circular economy - especially in construction and production. The project is part of the Innovations District Strategy "Campus Oslo". One main goal is to combine city-, knowledge- and businessdevelopment and connect these closer together. The Project aims to deliver on the UN's sustainability goals, the Paris Agreement, and EU's Green Deal, as well as the Municipality's climate and environmental goals. HSO is based in the areas of Økern, Ulven and Haraldrud.

(Source: Pådriv)

The preliminary project

From August 2021 to january 2022 the Climate Anthropologist worked on the preliminary project for the Innovation District in Hovinbyen in cooperation with Kybri, DoPurpose and Sverre Landmark (Probiz).

I held the main responsibility for collecting and analysing the perspectives, challenges, needs and suggestions from key stakeholders in HSO, and assist transforming these into key research questions for further exploration.

Method and output

I used semi-structured group interviews as my main method to map out needs and suggestions, and conducted interviews and workshops with a.o. representatives from OBOS, Kuben Vocational Arena, REG, BYM, NTNU, Sintef, NHO, LO, OSC, Verdane, Modulize, OsloMet, Norsk gjenvinning, Franzefoss, Fortum, Construction City, and Økern Centre.

Gathered data was analysed in a content analyses (see illustrations of this process below) in cooperation with Kybri and communicated to the board of HSO in a report and a presentation by Sverre Landmark.

Challenges and learning points

The biggest challenge in this project was the sheer scope and complexity of the topic. It is a challenge in and of itself to gain a clear picture of which needs key stakeholders might have of something as abstract as an Innovation District and gain clarity as to which research questions were to be prioritized moving forward with this project.

Cooperation within the team was vital to solving these challenges. The combination of our different backgrounds and areas of expertise was a prerequisite to be able to work with this complex material in a nuanced and meaningfull way.

"In the pre-project for Hovinbyen Circular Oslo, Tessa contributed with valuable skills in process and methods, carrying out a structured interview process with a large number of key stakeholders. She contributed in a confident, clear and competent manner, and we who don't share her professional background learned a lot from our cooperation."