Dynamic Port-City Scapes: From Liminal "Non-Places" to Imaginative and Synergistic Adaptive Ecosystems

• Main Author: Höller, Lukas (author)
• Other Authors: Hooimeijer, F.L. (mentor), Hein, C.M. (graduation committee), Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Port-City; Synergistic Adaptive Ecosystem; Paradoxsynergy; Kirkenes; Arctic Norway; design fiction; Arctic; Bjørnevatn; Norway; Sydvaranger; Sør-Varanger; barents region; Northern Sea Route; Sea ice; Sydvaranger Mine; Varanger
• Online Access: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5bd2f042-74d1-4dc1-903d-dbe2d49f9f79

This research investigates the case of Kirkenes, Norway. The region with its 10.000 inhabitants is located around 400 km above the Arctic Circle within the municipality of Sør-Varanger, Finmark, and is known as the capital of the Barents Region and the gateway to the east. Located around 15km away from the Norwegian-Russian border, Kirkenes has strategic importance, being one of the main areas expected to change due to increased navigability as well as new reachability of resources benefited by a changing climate and melting Arctic sea-ice extent. The region is foreseen to become Europe’s gate and new logistic node towards the soon-to-be ice-free Northern Sea-Route, creating a 40% faster trading-route between Asia and Europe. Founded in 1905 as a harbor-town for the trans-shipment of iron ore extracted from the Sydvaranger Mine, around 8 km inland in Bjørnevatn, new port development is planned, serving as a potential strategic part for China´s “Polar Silk Road” Initiative. Despite the efforts for reinventing Kirkenes and changing its face from industrial development towards a future-proof, sustainable, and resilient Capital of the Barents Region, mining, as well as manufacturing and industrial development, never stopped being an essential factor. The municipality envisions a new and massive extra-urban port development along the neighbouring Tømmerneset Peninsula, transforming the small port into one of Scandinavia´s biggest container ports, equivalent to the current capacity of the Port of Gothenburg. The thesis focuses on the need for rethinking, adapting, and complementing current approaches on port-cities, thus spatial planning, and design as a holistic and interdisciplinary profession can gain operative power to become a mediator between the different institutional and non-institutional actors and their values to emerge a new port-city paradigm within Kirkenes. The complexity and diversity of the project-area depict the necessity to shift the perception of the port-city relationship away from a static, ...