ABOUT THE RESEARCH
Compassionate Commons (C³N) is a transdisciplinary research initiative led by the University of Bergen investigating how inhabitants experience their neighbourhoods as places of care, and how these experiences influence health, well-being, dignity, and sense of belonging across generations. The project starts from the premise that health is not produced solely within institutions, but emerges through everyday spatial, social, cultural, and sensory relations in the places where people live.
C³N reframes neighbourhoods as commons: shared environments where care is a collective civic and spatial responsibility. Through arts-based and participatory research methods, the project explores how atmosphere, sound, materiality, proximity to nature, social interaction, and cultural participation shape lived experience and well-being. Particular attention is given to intergenerational perspectives and to groups often underrepresented in planning and health-related decision-making, including older adults, children and youth, migrants, and people with physical or psychological functional variations.
Methodologically, C³N combines artistic research, architectural and spatial inquiry, and social sciences and humanities (SSH). Creative labs using drawing, storytelling, sound, and spatial prototyping function as research tools to access embodied and tacit knowledge that conventional methods often overlook. These insights are translated into spatial strategies and policy-relevant recommendations for municipalities, cultural institutions, and care actors.
By relocating and reimagining care within everyday neighbourhoods, C³N contributes to new models for inclusive, multigenerational, and compassionate communities aligned with the values of the New European Bauhaus: sustainability, inclusion, and quality of experience beyond functionality.
CORE TEAM
Jérôme Picard – Design & Architecture
Role: Project manager, Co-researcher; spatial research, neighbourhood strategies, architectural and participatory design. He leads Greymatter and is recognized for his innovative work in designing caring communities, focused on integrating health and aging in our daily life and neighbourhood.
Wolfgang Schmid – Wolfgang Schmid – Music, Care & Participatory Research
Role: Co-researcher; Community-engaged arts based research, public health & the arts, educational research
Eamon O’Kane – Visual Art & Artistic Research
Role: Co-researcher; arts-based methodologies, participatory workshops, art narrative
Thomas de Ridder, Anne-Len Aase Thoresen – Research Advisors
COUNTRIES & EUROPEAN STRATEGY
A comparative North–South and West–East framework links Nordic welfare models with Southern and Eastern European contexts. This European transect captures variations in governance, demographics, climate, and social policy, allowing assessment of how experiences and impacts differ across national and regional systems.
THREE SPATIAL CONTEXTS
The study focuses on urban, peri-urban, and rural/coastal settings. These contrasting environments highlight how density, accessibility, landscape, social infrastructure, and access to cultural and natural resources shape everyday experiences and inequalities at neighbourhood scale.
FOCUS ON OLDER ADULTS FOR AN INTERGENERATIONAL APPROACH
Compassionate Commons focuses on people aged 65+, approached as a diverse demographic rather than a fixed identity. By distinguishing independent and dependent older adults, the project captures social complexity and vulnerability to inform inclusive spatial strategies, care practices, and policy recommendations.
