Large-scale projects and production of new landscapes: from conflict to socio-ecological negotiation

Large-scale transformation projects can trigger conflicts concerning landscape protection and management. However, territorial conflicts can also create a “space” for interaction, allowing for the engagement of opposing stakeholders in the practice of coordination and compromise. Using the trading zone approach, applied to spatial planning, this contribution aims to explore how social movements can influence the quality of these transformations in a proactive rather than obstructive manner, steering them towards new socio-ecological equilibria. We examine two large-scale transformation projects of water landscape – the expansion of the port and airport in the Llobregat Delta valley (Barcelona) and the case of the 2008 Zaragoza Expo – carried out over a span of thirty years. These cases allow us to address a series of crucial social, environmental, and technical-design issues that shape the dynamics of conflict, shifting them towards more proactive forms of negotiation. The analysis allows for an in-depth investigation of the design processes involved in producing new landscapes, which result from a trading zone of transaction between actors, even those in conflict.