Nina Vogel is program director at SLU Urban Future and leads the project From basement to kitchen – growing future visions for Sweden's "Million Program" housing areas. The project has a short period: from November 2024 to September 2025. The actors involved in the project are SLU, Form/Design Center, Botildenborg and Malmö municipal housing company MKB.
The project has grown out of Social innovation living lab (SOIL), a collaborative arena with the aim of increasing research and knowledge about the social innovations that are carried out at, among others, the Botildenborg Social Farm in Malmö. This collaboration arena includes Botildenborg, Form/Design Center, SLU, Malmö University, Lund University, Region Skåne, Malmö City, and Svedala Municipality.
Among the project partners is the municipal housing company MKB and it is in their basement in Rosengård that the urban farming of microgreens, such as tomatoes, basil and pak choi and mushrooms will take place e.g. through hydroponic cultivation. The plan is to work with two groups of approximately ten people each. One group will consist of young people around the age of twelve and the other of adults.
Between February and June, participants will farm and hold conversations about their visions and thoughts about the future. In addition to learning practical urban farming from staff from Botildenborg, participants will also have the chance to listen to inspirers and visit relevant places to get input for the visionary work. The goal of the conversations and workshops is for participants to create images that show what they believe the future could look like, and which will become an exhibition at the Form/Design Center in Malmö in the fall of 2025.
– When talking about the future, we often talk in different scenarios, in utopian or dystopian images. We hope to create a language about the future in our project. You have a different picture of the future than I do. We all have different views of the future because of our different starting points, says Nina Vogel.
The project From Basement to Kitchen is part of ShiftSweden, which is an innovation program within Impact Innovation, Sweden's innovation initiative for the 2030s, an initiative taken by the Swedish Energy Agency, Formas and Vinnova.
The project has taken note of various signals and trends in society. Self-sufficiency and emergency supply are part of it. Many people are interested in urban farming, not only for the farming itself but also as a social inclusion and meeting place.
The actors will develop knowledge, which can then be used in other contexts or on a larger scale. The idea is to develop the project further after the project period has ended. The researchers want to create an attractive and resilient area and a new way of working with the existing environment where they want to contribute to creating social meeting places and at the same time increase the degree of self-sufficiency.
– This project cannot solve everything, but the urban farming can function as a supplement and microgreens have a very good nutritional value. It is also not intended that we should only eat that type of food. There is a social value where we create an attractive, safe place that might not otherwise be used. Cultivating microgreens and mushrooms can be done in relatively simple technical systems, which do not cost much and can be managed by the residents. There are other values than money, says Nina Vogel.
Translation from Swedish text written by Beatrice Sundberg
