BEDSTED THY SKOVBY – BEDSTED, THY, FOREST TOWN

In the project Bedsted Thy Skovby (Bedsted, Thy, Forest Town), an integral part of UTOPIA THY, we examine whether the potential of partially depopulated towns and buildings in rural districts that are no longer in use are compatible with new forest landscapes and the ambition of doubling Denmark’s forested area in the 21st century.

The station town of Bedsted, Thy, came into being at the end of the 19th century as one of the new towns of the industrial era; towns in which the boundary between town and country was blurred by the railway. Today, Bedsted, Thy, like many other towns in rural areas, faces challenges of migration away from the area and partial depopulation. A development that seems likely to continue in the future. In the project Bedsted Thy Skovby, we combine the creation of new forest landscapes and a landscape-based approach to depopulation and the demolition of abandoned buildings with the ambition of developing new knowledge about tomorrow’s forest landscapes in rural areas. The decrease in the town’s population and the demolitions this has led to are seen as part of a major transformation of Bedsted, Thy, that goes beyond the individual plots and buildings; a transformation which, in conjunction with establishing much larger forest areas in and around the town, contributes to creating coherent forest landscapes in the Thy area.

The project investigates new ways and methods of creating new forest landscapes that combine urban development and dismantlement with radical transformation and preservation of a local and a cultural heritage of everyday-life that is often overlooked. This means close cooperation with the local population plays a significant role in the project. All of this, together, points towards the future, towards new forest landscapes in which buildings, what is cultivated, and the wild merge into a coherent everyday landscape for the benefit of both humans and new nature.

Could a partial depopulation of rural areas contribute to the development of new types of land use? Can a station town spearhead the creation of new forest landscapes and the rewilding of land that used to be urban and agricultural? Could mixing the aesthetics of gardens, towns, and the forests help create a stronger connection with the landscapes that surround us?

The focal point of the project is a series of experimental forests in and around Bedsted, Thy. Here controlled remains of former private homes and gardens are turned inside out and introduced as public clearings, or open areas, in a forest that is larger, brighter and wilder.

The diverse culture-nature of the gardens will help spread the seeds and will, in time, spread into the experimental forests and create different, as yet unknown and potentially more diverse and spontaneous, manifestations of forests than what we usually see in public afforestation projects.
The first stage of the project was the transformation of several gardens and buildings in the southern part of the town. The next step involves establishing experimental forests in connection with Rønhede Plantation south of the city, allowing the new forest to merge with the area around the station and contributing to Bedsted, Thy, being experienced as a forested station on the Thy Line railroad (In Danish: Thybanen). In clearings, controlled remnants of demolished properties, abandoned gardens, and curated landscape interventions, built using materials harvested from local demolition projects, are going to emerge as new rural geologies that are more than just different habitats for plants and animals. They will also form ruinous stone structures, containing fragments of and narratives about the distinctive urban history of Bedsted, Thy – one of several new towns to come into being in Denmark the 20th century.

The project will involve collaborations between local residents, the municipality, museums, and researchers from different academic environments. For all these people Bedsted will be a shared field laboratory for architectural and landscape studies as well as anthropological and archaeological studies that aim to come up with research-based proposals for sustainable and alternative models of urban development and dismantling.

Bedsted Thy Skovby will contribute to the debate about future landscapes being about more than carbon emission quotas, land distribution, and land use. The project should help start a debate in which tangible and aesthetic aspects are equally valid and have the same emphasis.

The project broadens the scope of discussions about how we will be using land in the future by bringing in immaterial aspects that have proven difficult to capture and accommodate in current conservation practices and concepts – or as hard data such as e.g. carbon emission quotas and land distribution.

Facts

• Project title: Bedsted Thy Skovby – Bedsted, Thy, Forest Town
• Project manager (contact): Stefan Darlan Boris
• External partners: Bedsted Thy Byforskønnelse (an organisation for the urban embellishment of Bedsted, Thy), Thisted Municipality, Museum Thy, The National Museum of Denmark, SMK (National Gallery of Denmark), The Danish Architects’ Association, Emergency Architecture & Human Rights (EAHR)
• Researchers from AAA who participate in the project: Mo Stochholm Krag