ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the transformation of the Nørresundby waterfront as a paradigmatic case for examining urban sustainability through a situated, reflexive, and experimental lens. Drawing on the conceptual framework of the Sustainability in the Making Compass from Chapter 1, the analysis focuses on a set of key interventions – including Lindholm Strandpark, DAC, the Danish Crown, Nordhavnen, and Stigsborg – to highlight how design practices, planning instruments, and climate-sensitive infrastructures have contributed to the reconfiguration of a post-industrial urban space.
The study demonstrates that environmental remediation, heritage reuse, and participatory governance have been operationalised through adaptive and iterative planning, positioning Nørresundby not merely as a site of regeneration but as an institutional testing ground where public and private actors co-produce future scenarios under conditions of socio-environmental uncertainty.
The chapter adopts a multidimensional theoretical approach, integrating perspectives from Urban Political Ecology, Just Sustainability, hybrid governance, and Phronetic Planning to investigate how logics of urgency, legitimation, implementation, and experimentation shape urban transition processes.
The findings suggest that sustainability does not emerge from top-down planning but rather through reflexive and contested processes grounded in situated judgement and co-production. Nørresundby thus becomes a testing ground for adaptive urbanism, with the emblematic case of the Stigsborg district being an example of long-term strategies consolidating past knowledge while simultaneously extending sustainability governance towards new frontiers.
