This study examines the subsurface infrastructure in the Swedish city of Norrköping from an urban mining perspective. Urban mining is a broadly defined term for different strategies that regard the built environment as a resource base for materials. In this study, the focus is on three base metals that exist in large quantities in infrastructure parts: iron, copper and aluminium. A special focus is given to the parts of Norrköping’s infrastructure that are not in-use and thus constitute a ”hibernating stock” that contains recyclable metals. The main results of this study are twofold. First, a quantitative assessment of the hibernating stocks of urban infrastructure gives answers to how large the stocks are and where in Norrköping they are located. This was performed using a spatially informed Material Flow Analysis to arrive at a recycling potential in terms of weight and spatial concentration. Second, a qualitative assessment was made regarding how these hibernating stocks of urban infrastructure come into existence. An infrastructure studies perspective was used to outline three patterns with their own sets of ”hibernation” logics. These logics give rise to different prerequisites for the implementation of urban mining in practice. A main argument of this study’s cover essay is that both of the above outlined kinds of knowledge are needed to engage in urban mining with confidence. Thus, the main focus of the cover essay text is to describe how the two different perspectives of Material Flow Analysis and infrastructure studies were combined into a coherent research approach.

This paper introduces the topic of Cohousing as a solution to the chronic housing crisis and examines how it can be supported by digital platforms, and what form they should take. The theoretical concept of platforms and infrastructure is examined in general and specifically for communities along with other co-operative practices. The methodology of Research through Design (RtD) paired with recognised design methods of interviews, surveys and participatory design including workshops and co-design, employing a design process blending ideation and prototyping with each of these methods. The resulting design is a platform serving the dual functionality of marketing the Cohousing practice to wider society coupled with aggregating the infrastructural and communication needs of a cohousing group. The design works to support a highly interpersonal community-based activity through the face-to-face interaction of groups and demonstrates how the studies of platforms and infrastructure combined with research through design can support such practices.

This master thesis in media and communication studies explores the concept of the smart home, which by various industries within communication, information and energy business alongside property developers is expected to be the model for future living, housing and infrastructure development. Departing from a theoretical framework highlighting media and infrastructure as temporal and spatial phenomena, the analysis shows how the smart home arranges and manages both means of time and space due to its saturation of information technologies in the form of sensors, applications and data visualizations. The result of the study suggests that the smart home could be understood as a logistical medium, although the temporal bias present in the expectations on future living suggests that the purpose of the smart home is to sustain a flow of logistics and capital both over space and over time; the latter in terms of sustainability.