Artistic approaches offer new ways to understand Stockholm’s waterscapes

In recent decades, Swedish public and governmental authorities have shown growing interest in bringing artistic competence into urban planning. This marks a shift from earlier approaches that focused on planning for art toward planning with art – an emerging practice that explores how artistic methods can reshape planning processes themselves (Metzger, 2011; Wiberg, 2022).

The article, written by Hanna Erixon Aalto (lead author) and co-author Erik Aalto, examines one such initiative: the MASSA project. Running from 2020 to 2024, the project brought together KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the City of Stockholm, the architecture firm Gaia, and four participating artists including Erik Aalto. It centred on a pressing issue for Stockholm: how to handle the millions of tons of excavated rock generated by the city’s expanding subway system. 

This challenge opened up broader questions about Stockholm’s relationship with water and the need to restore ecological functions lost through centuries of shoreline modification and infilling. The project asked:

• How can we rethink what we mean by “urban” and “public”?
• What new forms of water urbanism can reconnect people with their aquatic environments?
• How might excavated stone become a resource for creating new urban reefs, islands, and public spaces?

Artistic methods as a driver for co-creation

The MASSA process unfolded through a series of workshops involving ecologists, artists, architects, engineers, planners, local stakeholders and others. A wide range of artistic and design-based approaches were used – including situated and performative methods, prototyping and scenario-building, and narrative techniques.

This iterative format enabled projections, ideas, visions, actions and artifacts developed by the group to become central components of the co-creation process.

Advancing cross-sectoral approaches

In the forthcoming paper, the authors explore cross-sectoral working methods for reimagining urban waterscapes. They also outline tentative strategies for strengthening the role of artistic and design-based knowledge in urban planning.

As the challenges facing cities grow increasingly complex, the MASSA project demonstrates how artistic perspectives can help expand both the tools and the imagination needed for sustainable urban futures.

HANNA ERIXON AALTO, Architect, PhD, Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture & Design Theory at SLU, Division of Landscape Architecture Department of Urban and Rural Development.