WoodiSH is supported by the Nordic Group on Biodiversity
(Nordic Council of Ministers' Environment and
Climate Programme)
Circular skills and lifestyle narratives of the historical housing’ inhabitants in Nordic and Baltic countries
About the project
WoodiSH aims to tell the stories of historical wooden houses and their inhabitants, who experience challenges of urbanization and develop specific knowledge, skills and lifestyles to live in and maintain their wooden habitats, which could be considered as circular and biodiversity oriented.
Conceptual Foci
01
Circular knowledge and skills of the residents of wooden habitats - hands-on and how-to knowledge of the residents in preserving, repairing, and changing their wooden houses as well as caring for urban nature around them.
02
Perceived cultural ecosystem services of the wooden habitats - appreciated environmental values and affordances of the wooden houses and their environment.
03
Social resilience of wooden habitats - the ability of the residents to develop and perform skills, knowledge, environmental values and lifestyles during their everyday lives in the wooden houses; connect with existing hubs of knowledge (museums, renovation centers); and face challenges to cultural and biodiversity of their habitats caused by urbanization, gentrification, and neoliberal development tendencies.
Research Design
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Narrative interviews with residents
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Expert interviews with stakeholders
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Walk along techniques
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Visual reflexive ethnography
Residential circular knowledge and skills, perceived CES of the wooden habitats, experienced challenges and disservices are mapped, interpreted, and compared across the Finnish, Lithuanian and Norwegian contexts.
Social Impact
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Public discussions with partners
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Expert webinars
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Photo-exhibitions in museums
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Final project brochure
WoodiSH results disseminated through the wider partners’ network become arguments for advocating the public participation model of heritage preservation and management.
Cases
Perceived cultural ecosystem services of wooden habitats:
Conceptual classification
Knowledge on cultural & biodiversity
The opportunity to learn, deepen knowledge about materiality of the wooden house, surrounding nature cycles, culture-nature interconnection, climate change
Engagement with nature
The opportunity to interact with nature, flora and fauna, creatively shape natural elements (urban gardening), knowledge of natural materials and elements
Aesthetic experience
The opportunity to be inspired by the beauty of surrounding nature, natural materials of the house, the harmonious organization of natural and artificial items of house environment
Rich lifestyle
The possibility of different types of outdoors leisure, multiple tasks in maintaining the house
Community connections
The opportunity to maintain close neighborhood ties, sense of community, community solidarity and mobilization
Engagement with cultural heritage
The possibility to interact with authentic household forms, materials, items of built heritage and historical urban landscape, sense of history, sense of place
Intergenerational connection
The opportunity to interact with nature, flora and fauna, creatively shape natural elements (urban gardening), knowledge of natural materials and elements
Physical well-being
The opportunity to engage in manual labor, spend time in fresh air
Emotional well-being
The opportunity for silence, physiological comfort of being outdoors and in natural environment
Creativity, inspiration
The opportunity for creative activities while maintaining the house, inspiration from traditions of wooden heritage, lifestyles in wooden habitat, contact with nature
Circular Skills of the Wooden Houses’ Residents:
Conceptual Classification
Expert Statements
Visa Immonen
Professor FSA, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen
“Heritagisation has to be seen as something that stems from and affects communities. Earlier literature on wooden heritage focused on large-scale and top-down issues, like legislation and management. More recent scholarship takes a more bottom-up perspective to wooden architecture. It analyses how living in a wooden house is related to the identities of its inhabitants, their views on the cityscape, and the communal aspects of living in wooden houses”.
Meet the Team
Project consortium
University of Turku, Landscape Studies Group, Finland
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
NGO Laimikis.lt (Laboratory
for urban games and research),Lithuania
