Matters of Care: Regenerative practices in neglected spaces

Caring for the existing building stock is vitally important yet undervalued in our society. While maintaining and extending the lives of existing buildings is considered essential for lowering the environmental impacts of the built environment, such practices struggle against dominant techno-economic paradigms in urban development. This paper examines regenerative practices of maintaining, adapting, repairing, and reusing neglected spaces through a care perspective. By reviewing care in feminist, STS, and spatial research, we develop a framework to analyze values, knowledge, power, relationships, and work across different components of care. Using this framework, we analyze qualitative, semi-structured interviews with practitioners and elucidate what care means in the context of regenerative practices in neglected spaces. We argue that highlighting such aspects of spatial practices is highly important for shifting our thinking beyond dominant paradigms and motivating alternatives for demolition and new construction.