Alexander Craig-Thompson: Inverse Urbanism: Mapping Imaginaries of Stockholm’s Subsurface

Abstract

Significant enhancement of Urban Underground Space (UUS) utilisation is seen as a key strategy in response to a growing urban population and rising density in the built environment. UUS is posited as playing an important role in the resilience of city infrastructure and morphology, improving mass transit efficiency and contributing to energy resilience through geothermal energy or energy storage, for example. However, once transformed, underground space becomes a permanent feature, and cities are gradually acknowledging the subsurface as a valuable, non-renewable resource, emphasising the necessity for long-term, comprehensive, and sustainable planning of its utilisation. Sweden, and particularly the Stockholm region, has favourable geological conditions for building underground facilities and a long tradition of subsurface engineering. Despite this, Stockholm lacks a comprehensive, long-term underground plan or strategy. Although the city subsurface promises high potential to strategically improve urban resilience and sustainability, there is a lack of leadership and vision to drive holistic planning of the subsurface. In this thesis, I respond to a significant gap in UUS research which neglects the socio-political context of urban underground development. Nuanced and critical study of this context is required to augment the technological innovations that render the subsurface visible to urban planners and decision-makers. In particular, I place attention on visions of the future subsurface which are required to promote long-term planning as part of a holistic urban strategy. Stockholm’s urban subsurface is currently absent from the city’s urban imaginary, its use determined by the relocation of infrastructure and facilities that are no longer desirable at the surface. This thesis critiques the relationship between the dominant spatial imaginary of the city at the surface and its instrumental use of the subsurface. To do so, I investigate the intertwining of sociotechnical imaginaries with current subsurface planning praxis to understand the way that cultural norms are impacting the successful integration of the subsurface into wider urban visions and framing expectations of future use. Through a co-design workshop, I also explore the emergence of alternative imaginaries that can help Stockholm shift towards a sustainable and long-term planning of the subsurface. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that the current planning praxis embeds an understanding of the subsurface as conceptual distinct, and void of imagination.  However, they also highlight that attention to its materialities can reveal new ways of engaging with the urban subterranean, shifting from final frontier to urban commons.