Small scale interventions as catalysist for radical transformation in Bedsted

During the 2000s different theories and concepts of small-scale interventions have emerged as reactions to unused wasteland sites as well as conventional urban green space design and management that addresses large scale structures of urban forests.
This paper explores this development in the context of the shrinking station town of Bedsted, which is undergoing transformation influenced by the combination of a decline in inhabitants and a national afforestation strategy of doubling the size of forest in Denmark. It takes as its point of departure the novel and double-sided process of demolition of built structure and afforestation adjacent to Bedsted. Rather than approaching the afforestation as detached from the town and the demolished sites as cleared from their former content, we argue for a heightened attention to what is already there: Remnants of former private homes and gardens turned inside out and brought forward as small-scale interventions in the larger afforestation strategy connecting town and countryside in a new public domain between Bedsted and its surroundings. In radical transformation processes like this, small, inexpensive and possibly temporary interventions that communicate human intention, particularly intention to care for the everyday landscape and deep history of a site, offers a powerful vocabulary for design to improve ecological and social quality as well as human appreciation. Furthermore, the current focus on urban biodiversity adds actuality to small-scale interventions as a novel approach to urban green space, as they provide a bridge between intervening and leaving room for natural processes and as such links to the theory of ‘cues to care’. In this way, Bedsted can provide new insights into the potential role of small-scale interventions as catalysts of novel and radical transformation processes rooted in the remnants of urban and natural form.