Spatial realities of 'green' transition narratives
Pia Palo (she/her) is an architect and urban designer, currently working as a PhD researcher at Umeå School of Architecture (UMA). Her interests lie at the intersection between the social and the physical, in understanding lived experiences and realities, and in how experimental and artistic processes can be used to think and talk about how and for whom we build our cities. In addition to research work, she teaches at both BA and MA levels.
Her ongoing PhD research is in critical studies of architecture and urbanism, and focuses on just transitions in the context of northern Sweden. The research explores how spatial practice (and practitioners) can take on a transformative and productive role in imagining radical and inclusive futures beyond growth through theoretical and practical engagements with ideas of care and relationality.
The “green transition” has come to dominate policy response and institutional climate-action narratives, and is driven in Europe primarily by private-sector megaprojects—from battery plants to green steel and hydrogen facilities. Although these narratives claim to address social inequality, their rapid, growth-oriented logic risks sidelining social justice, obscuring entanglements with past extraction, displacement and dispossession. The reliance on private actors and global capital also creates a frailty at the heart of climate change response, linking its success to that of the market.
One case of such frailty is currently unfolding in Skellefteå, northern Sweden, home to what was projected to become Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery factory, Northvolt. What was meant to be a story of re-industrialisation, population growth, and the power of technology to drive change has taken a turn, with Northvolt filing for bankruptcy in March 2025. Delving into this moment of rupture, this project traces the connections between industrial pasts, envisioned futures and present developments. It does so by looking specifically at the spatial consequences and realities of green transition narratives (think of a barrack village, deforestation to make land available for industrial development, or the community spaces where inhabitants gather to collectively deal with uncertainty), using a multimedia mapping methodology.
Thinking with spatial consequences means thinking with them as active agents, not static effects, as tools to destabilise dominant narratives, support critical perspectives and spark alternative imaginaries. Through this conceptual lens, the work reflects on how spatial consequences might work as the starting point for broader, collective and care-driven conversations around climate and urban futures.