Which urban and landscape qualities make Arctic villages attractive? The Torne River villages in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Throughout history, small village communities in the Arctic have developed several strategies to ensure their survival. Along the Torne River, some fishing communities have produced specific architectures, landscapes, and social strategies to support their communities and survive for centuries. However, depopulation, aging, climate change, and the expansion of the extraction industry are threatening these villages. The hypothesis is that traditional fishing villages situated alongside rivers possess architectural, urban, and social attributes that can enhance outdoor activities linked to water and green spaces and enable the long-term social sustainability of Arctic villages. The innovative approach of the paper involves combining a mapping methodology of green and blue infrastructure with the architectural, urban, social and historical values of a place to identify design strategies for improving attractiveness demonstrating its efficacy, particularly in small, local-scale villages. The paper investigates the villages of Kukkola and Korpikylä taken as emblematic examples and explores the architectural and landscape value in relation to the green–blue infrastructure.

KEYWORDS:

• Green–blue infrastructure
• Arctic towns
• attractivity
• outdoor recreation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Editor and the two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments which helped to considerably improve the quality of the paper. The chapter 1. Introduction: literature review is to be attributed to A. Rizzo, the chapter 2. Methodology is to be attributed to J. Ma and chapter 3. Case study: the fishing communities along the Torne River; chapter 4. GBI qualitative assessment model: results; chapter 5. Discussions, proposal to promote attractivity; chapter 6. Conclusions are to be attributed to S. Tornieri. A final acknowledgment goes to Silvia Colombo from Norrbotten Museum, Arch. Piercarlo Tesi for the use of the drone, and to Viola Tesi for the interviews and technical support during the site surveys.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work presented in this article was supported by the Lerici Foundation Research Grant (S. Tornieri) and the Arctic Five Chair in Architecture and Planning funded by the Arctic Five (A. Rizzo).