2.1 Timeline for the project

2.1. Timeline for The Project

Transect Walk

A transect walk is a systematic walk along a defined path (transect) across the community, project area together with the local people to explore the local conditions by observing, asking, listening, looking and producing a transect diagram (Alcorn, 2000). Our first transect walk took place August 27th and was also our first on-site visit. Kathrine Standal who is the leader of Svartlamo(e)n Boligstiftelse explained the situation in this community for us during this walk. This led to us to create a visual diagram in the studio based on our walk and aided in spearheading our main ideas and solutions.

Document Analysis

As a part of our initial analysis, the group went through the evaluation documents of the Urban Ecological trial area of Svartlamo(e)n provided by the municipality, to know their views and perspective about the area. The group referred to several studies and research that have been conducted on svartlamo(e) n’s working model, culture and significance. Some other studies relating to socially sustainable housing solutions in Trondheim were studied to get a better idea of Svartlamon and its new expansion in Mellomvien 17,19 blocks.

House Visits

The purpose of a house visit is to get a closer look at the living situations of the area and to investigate whether there could be any issues. Understanding these issues is critical to inform our proposal regarding what needs to be the focus addressed. There were multiple attempts to engage with the group members’ personal acquaintances with connections to the area, but none of them wanted or could help with a visit to the area. When conducting the interviews at Svartlamo(e)n, some of the members of our groups were invited to see the communal toilet solution. This was the first invite inside a house in Svartlamo(e)n. Additionally, Martine, one of the main connections for the groups invited some members to her apartment at Mellamon. After introducing our solutions for Mellamon we were also invited to look at the common spaces in Mellomveien 17.

SWOT

A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis is an approach that aids in risk identification for an organization. This strategic approach analyzes the internal factors; strengths and opportunities and the external factors; weakness and threats. This is important for an organization to analyze what is effective and what is not effective. Doug Leigh refers to this by asserting that, “a SWOT simply serves to identify the degree to which various interventions, activities, and practices influence the accomplishment of current As Is results” (Leigh, 2009, p.1093). This depicts the purpose of this analysis as understanding what is working best for an organization internally and externally and what factors need improvement based on their current conditions.

The group utilized SWOT for the Svartlamo(e)n and Mellamon case study areas. The groups began this at the beginning of our planning process and adapted it over time. This is because an effective SWOT is continuous in nature. As we discovered and learned more about the areas, we improved our SWOT in the studio to reflect these new changes. We then used this analysis to identify major risks for the areas in order to prioritize aspects to center our solutions on. This looks like improving areas that are not working for the communities, and strengthening areas that are working for the communities, Svartlamo(e) n and Mellamon.

Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholders are people, groups or organizations who directly or indirectly influence a system (Mayer, 2005). A detailed stakeholder analysis is an important tool for research because of the ever-increasing interconnectivity in the world. (Bryson, 2004). Stakeholder mapping is a method to understand the extent of influence or interest stakeholders can have in a system. The group used the stakeholder mapping technique to look into the possible influence, interest and interrelationship between stakeholders and how it could influence individual interests, and lead to conflicts which help assess the feasibility of the solutions.

Interviews

Our groups 1 and 2 conducted multiple rounds of interviews for data collection purposes. These interviews included formal, nonformal, semi-structured, and unstructured formats as necessary. We found that when communicating with the municipality the easiest way to carry the conversation was utilizing a semi-structured interview. This means that we brought some pointed questions to help lead and guide the conversation. However, when speaking with the residents we found more unstructured formats of interviews to be more beneficial. Most of the residents had participation fatigue and were less willing to talk with us or answer any questions we brought forward. We even encountered a resident who was angry with us for being in the residential area and yelled at us. Although, we found a solution for this block in communication by frequenting Svartlamo(e)n’s local pub. We found that when you offer a resident a drink such as a beer they open up and are more willing to chat and answer our questions freely. These kinds of interviews were very unformal and unstructured which often led to the most truthful and fruitful conversations. These interviews gave us lots of insight into issues, demands, and needs from the residents themselves. We also made lots of strong connections like our relationship with the bar business owner which is gave us further insight into the business view of the case study as well.

Workshop

We intended to do a workshop to gather information on what makes Svartlamo(e)n unique to them in order to identify some of the opportunities and areas that one could continue to work on. The exercises prepared included mapping of favorite places, casual conversation over games and activities, a splotting exercise to identify what makes a good place (see Hagen and Osuldsen, 2021), and an anonymous box for thoughts on Svartlamo(e)n. Three hours were schedule for the meeting and invitations were send out, but the workshop was not executed as no participants showed up.

Game Theory

Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. It has applications in all fields of social science, as well as in logic, systems science, and computer science. Specifically, it is “the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent

rational decision-makers”. (Myerson,1991) Game theory provides analytical tools for examining strategic interactions among two or more participants. Using simple, often numerical models to study complex social relations, game theory can illustrate the potential for, and risks associated with, cooperative behavior among distrustful participants. The theory of game theory is constructive for risk analysis and research on the root of contradictions, which is why this method is used in this article.