ABC for Meaningful Meetings – to reduce loneliness and increase well-being in the local environment

The project ABC for Meaningful Encounters works with models for how physical meeting places can best contribute to increasing social interaction and strengthening community, thereby helping to reduce loneliness. The project, which spanned four years, was supported by Vinnova within the call Social Sustainability in the Built Environment, and was carried out in collaboration between Uppsala University, Linnaeus University, the property company Sankt Kors, and the non-profit organization Ecubuntu, which works to communicate knowledge about sustainable development through experiences and educational tools.

Interacting with others, in the big and in the small, can lead to social support and create communities that improve well-being and strengthen our ability to handle various types of stress. However, what actually creates meaningful encounters and effective meeting places is a largely neglected area. At the same time, municipalities, property developers, and other actors invest substantial resources into developing local environments with various types of meeting spaces. These initiatives often stop at physical design alone.

Using design-oriented methods, this project has studied the importance of involving local populations, those who live, work, or even just temporarily visit an area, to create encounters and activate meeting places in ways that foster meaningful social interaction.

The project has developed and studied various types of interventions, including a local sustainability festival, co-creation workshops to discover shared interests and promote local circular economies, and interactive sculptures aimed at encouraging everyday encounters. In parallel, the MING-LE observation protocol was developed to measure and compare levels of engagement and the meaningfulness of interactions.

In the project, ABC had at least three meanings:

First, Act, Belong, Commit – The project was inspired by an evidence-based method for mental health, where ABC stands for doing something active, doing something together, and doing something meaningful. The project explored how these principles could be embedded into the physical environment—into the local setting—so that protective factors for mental health become part of daily life.

Second, ABC as a Guide or Handbook – The concept was also used in its everyday Swedish sense, like an A-to-Z guide or a checklist. This took the form of practical handbooks intended for place developers, who can use them to develop the spaces they are responsible for.

See the ABC Handbook for Meaningful Encounters (in Swedish)

Third, Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence – In psychology, ABC is also a framework for analyzing behavior from cause to effect. This interpretation formed the basis for the MING-LE observation protocol for meaningful engagement.

Read more about the MING-LE Protocol

The project was carried out in Ebbepark, a newly developed area in Linköping that is evolving into a vibrant inner-city environment with housing, businesses, schools, and various forms of public services. The entire area serves as a full-scale testbed, where organizations can test ideas and innovations in a real-life context.