Malmö Voices, dialogue with Christer Larsson

Question KED: The Fourth Space.
The UN Climate Conferance is underway a cross the bridge in three months from now, it is tempting to start this intervju with questions on your strategic and hands-on thinking related to these challenges. But – on the telephone you put forward a concept on public spaces called The Fourth Space, which I understood as a kind of new strategic and practical guideline organising Malmö urban spaces. Can you open up some of your thoughts on this?

Answer, Christer Larsson: Of course I will, The Fourth City space is related to attractiveness and the changes in workplaces and lifestyles. Speaking about sustainability as I consider, it´s necessary to always speak about social, economic and ecologic issues at the same time. As a background for this is the attractivity of the city connected to workplaces and the global competition between regions and cities. So we have sustainability and attractiveness as one driver in the process another is the knowledge based economy with the change of workplaces, lifestyles, urban and social capital. We have a triangular connection between; Attractivity, Florida, creative class, public spaces etc.Innovation, innovative structures for new lifestyles and work, innovative methods in planning and social issues. Culture/social capital, how people act together to strengthen relations, innovations and growth. So that means that if we with spacial planning should meet all this its necessary to have an idea about the structure and the relation between buildings and public spaces. This relation are we addressing as the 4th city space.Spaces where you live is the 1st, work is the 2nd, public spaces is the 3rd and the interaction is the 4th. My idea is that the 4th should promote new lifestyles and the new workplaces. Where you work 24 hours a day in meeting places, cafes, libraries etc – the 4th space.There is a lot more to say about this, and I add some ppts as well. This is also an ongoing discussion in the NordicCityNetwork.Finaly, the sustainable city is always dense and mixed. It consume less transports, land and energy. Remember that 80% of energy consumption is related to buildings and structures for transportation. God luck with the work and come back with some new tricky questions.