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From non-place to place in post-suburbia: city-edge office parks as loci for nature-based micro-interventions

Lookup NU author(s): Daniel MalloORCiD, Dr Abigail Schoneboom, Armelle Tardiveau, Professor Geoff Vigar

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This is the of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Routledge, 2020.

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Abstract

© 2020 Newcastle University.City-edge office parks are a significant, and under-researched, urban phenomenon. Indeed the transformation of these environments to better address social and environmental sustainability criteria has been described as ‘the big project for this century’. While top-down ‘retrofitting’ is the dominant approach to such transformation, in this paper we highlight the limitations of such an approach and argue for the potential of more bottom-up and creative methods. We report on experiments with office park employees to address the ‘placelessness’ of such environments, aimed at improving ecological sustainability and individuals’ health and wellbeing. We make three significant conclusions: a wealth of hidden ecological and social assets exist to be exploited in such environments; creative methods to envision more sustainable futures have a great deal of potential to break existing path dependencies; and, respecting participation constraints among employee-participants is vital for future research and action.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Mallo D, Schoneboom A, Tardiveau A, Vigar G

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

Year: 2020

Volume: 63

Issue: 13

Pages: 2446-2463

Online publication date: 30/07/2020

Acceptance date: 04/06/2020

Date deposited: 05/06/2020

ISSN (print): 0964-0568

ISSN (electronic): 1360-0559

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2020.1779675

DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2020.1779675

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