Garaget- A second living room

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines the use of a participatory approach to develop a marginalized urban area in the city of Malmö, Sweden. By setting up an innovative, participatory and dialogue oriented meeting place called Garaget, the municipality hopes to strengthen the local community and increase the level of inclusion of the residents into a more sustainable society. Garaget is situated in a place with a history of more than a decade of social projects through the EU URBAN initiative, and has “inherited” the extreme participatory approach of that program. Garaget has also been designed to create a fruitful encounter between the urban social research and the community and as a laboratory for dialogue between community and authorities. Today Garaget functions not only as a community oriented space, but also as a library, café, meeting place and creative workshop, all with the intention to feel as a “second living room”. Although there is no doubt that this living room has been widely used by the local community, especially for holding functions, weddings and other events of social nature, the question whether this participatory approach and dualistic design of public and private space will increase the inclusion of the residents into mainstream society, or if it will just add comfort to the isolation and marginalized position they already inhabit today, is left open and needs further research.