Elina Alatalo is an architect and doctoral researcher in Environmental Policy of Tampere University, Finland. Her recent research has concentrated on new proactive forms of urban activism, getting vacant spaces back into use and developing sustainable urban neighbourhoods. She is specialized in creating experiments with citizens. Currently she coordinates Climate University in Tampere that offers multidisciplinary courses for those who want to make the sustainability transition in the society real. She also teaches landscape architecture in Aalto University and coordinates interaction in CO-CARBON research project that looks on urban nature. Elina was an active member of COST Action called Writing Urban Places that delved with the possibilities of narrative and other creative methods for urban research. She is also a co-founder of Insurgent Spatial Practices -collective that explores the valuable knowledge that alternative cultures develop.
I am a doctoral researcher, project manager, and teacher in the School of Architecture at the Faculty of the Built Environment. My research and teaching activities lie at the intersection of architecture, urban planning, and critical urban studies. Through research, I aim to understand the production of space from below and investigate how these, often radical, spatial practices can help illuminate alternative ways to address the multiple but interrelated social, environmental, and climate crises. As a teacher, I aim to position these practices within the curricula of sustainable architecture and planning to offer a more critical, comprehensive, and inclusive understanding of the built environment and to elucidate alternative paths for future architects and planners to engage with in practice for the construction of more just and sustainable living future.
I’m a researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, and a doctoral researcher in Environmental Policy at the Faculty of Management and Business. I research skateboarding and DIY skatepark building culture, focusing on the themes of everyday political action, learning, and knowledge creation as well as new forms of collaboration in urban governance. I’m broadly interested in urbanism and urban cultures and activism. I’m currently working in Contested Waterfront Transformation project that aims to gain understanding on the transformation and contestation of social inclusion ideals and traditions of waterfront developments in the age of the financialised urban growth machine.
I’m a doctoral candidate in The Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. My research focuses on innovative post-collaborative planning practices, emphasizing citizen agency in socio-ecological transitions and the strategic reuse of vacant and abandoned spaces. In my PhD research, I examine the redevelopment of former industrial sites in Montréal, analyzing the pivotal roles of civil society in these transformation processes and how various stakeholders shape redevelopment efforts toward sustainable development. Additionally, I’m also part of a research group called Observatoire des milieux de vie urbains at The Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).
I’m working as a University Lecturer in Social Policy and as a research coordinator for the Sustainable City specialization area at Tampere University. I’m interested in the transformation of cities between politics and everyday life. I have studied aging in city, participatory urban planning, neighbourhood identities, and urban cultures. Recently, I have focused on the social impacts of urban sustainability transitions.
I work as a university teacher of environmental policy and regional studies in the degree programme of Administrative sciences, Faculty of Management and Business. I am wrapping up my PhD thesis on environmental policy concerning urban community gardening. In the dissertation, I am formulating the concept of operational space of urban gardening by focusing on spatial and social practices and interaction processes within gardening communities and between gardeners and the city. In my research, I am particularly interested in the experience and making of urban space and the coexistence of people and urban nature. My teaching focuses on everyday life and consumption practices, as well as environmental agency of citizens.
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