Supervisor:
Tine Hegli & Janike Kampevold Larsen
The project explores how local and tacit knowledge can become part of early-stage spatial planning and decision-making, to help shape future strategies for sustainable rural development and care for our common heritage landscapes. Highlighting how architects and planners can better understand how the interconnected social, ecological and cultural systems shape a place before proposing interventions or new development.
‘Seterbruk’ can be defined as ‘the practice of seasonally residing in an outlying uncultivated pasture with dwellings for animals and people’. It is in other words not merely about the buildings and their immediate surroundings.
The seter-landscape is more than a collection of historic buildings. It is a living network of practices, relationships and ecological processes. It is about the landscape at large, and how buildings, landscape and environment weave together. Allowing us to see this as an opportunity to explore landscapes of heritage, where natural and societal values are not divided, but seen as deeply interconnected.
Some of the rational in this project builds on the concept of interdisciplinary ecology, questioning the dualist divide between culture and nature, human and non-human, building and landscape. This architectural project aims to extend beyond the object itself and into the relationships, practices, and systems that sustain both landscapes and communities over time.
This theoretical framework is anchored in the concept of 'setring' as a practice unfolding within buildings and landscapes, material and intangible environments, throughout rural Norway.
The project seeks to expand on these questions:
How can ‘setring’ as a practice perform a service of care for heritage landscapes, addressing both natural and societal resilience?
And how may tacit knowledge on these landscape practices inform planning strategies for rural areas in Norway?
With basis in the authors own experienced knowledge, and information gathered through workshops and conversations with active and former seter practitioners, a large part of the project have been to develop methods for documenting and communicating some of the tacit knowledge. Taking form as diagrams, handdrawings, mapmaking, writing and other forms of creative expression.
Inner Gammelsetra in Grøvudalen
Wedged into ‘Dovre and Sunndalsfjella national park’, we find the valley in a Landscape Protected Area. The valley has provided basis for livelihood all the way back to hunter-gather-societies. Also, in more recent history settlements have contributed to shaping the valley floor, as can be seen by the correlation between former settlements, setre and open seminatural grasslands. Some of the valued nature types consist of important grazing typologies, displaying here why the valley is so relevant for the practice of setring.
Throughout the landscape, traces of a long history from human activity and grazing animals are ever present. Today sheep, heifers and cows maintain some of these biodiversity rich landscapes. The large cattle stay in the valley floor, while sheep also move further up in the terrain. But we are not alone. Wild grazers like the Muskox and Reindeer are co-inhabitants of these spaces. Meaning we need to critically consider our presence, and the seasonal rhythms of other actors or stakeholders.
Today’s seter-practice in the valley operates within the seasonal span from June to August, with the capacity of 10 cows, accompanied by approximately 3-4 practitioners per week. All of the milk are processed at the seter before either being sold there or brought down to the local grocery store. The daily cycle consists of overlapping processes from milking, to making cheese, to welcoming visitors.
Encroaching vegetation poses increasing issues, with consequences for both domesticated and wild grazers, and we see that the grazing pressure is not high enough to maintain the valuable nature types. This results in dominant species (such as the northern wolfsbane and junipers) taking over the valley floor, casting shadows over lower herbs and grass species. Leading to both loss of biodiversity and loss of feasible grazing areas for both wild and domesticated animals.
With higher grazing pressure in certain areas, and a variety of animals, more of these shrub vegetation typologies can be held back.
Grøvudalen exhibits a type of abundance of information. This creates a foundation for developing, defining and communicating strategies. Both those that are in use and ones that might complement the existing practices and objectives.
Storesetra in Hornindal
Thorugh conversations with a former budeie in Hornindal, and through written down local history, one gets insight into area that has had a multitude of active setre, but now has none. Most of these setre were located close to the farms, meaning that the practitioners could move between the farm and the seter, creating a very different practice compared to Inner Gammelsetra. Resulting in a tradition more focused on milk being transported to the farm as the main product.
Storesetra consisted of several setrer in a cluster, where individual farms had their seter practice, their own cowshed and a separate seasonal residency. Every second day, the milk was gathered and transported down to the village. Based on this shared ownership of the cultural environment the site provides an interesting case for re-activation. Today the seter is an important common place for local society. Mainly for recreational purposes, but also as a meeting place.
However, cultural and natural environments are facing increasing pressure by change of land-use, with subsequent fragmentation, primarily caused by recreational purposes like ski resort and cabin establishment. Analysis of aerial photographs also shows that the issue of encroaching vegetation is prominent.
The landscape here as well contains valuable nature types. Here categorised as seminatural grassland surrounding the immediate seter localities, and seminatural bogs that we also know have been used as grazing areas.
By introducing milking cows to the landscape, we could apply the principle of protection through use. Addressing prominent contemporary issues concerning wetland preservation, biodiversity protection and avoiding fragmentation of habitats.
Learning from former and contemporary practices it is possible to visualise how a seter-practice could operate here today. This could provide a framework that could carry the living cultural memory that right now is at the brink of being lost.
Hornindal shows low but highly qualitative access to knowledge. The case gives insight into the generational shift, and the amount of knowledge that is on the verge of being lost.
To pass the knowledge about setring into the future, activating one of the many setrer in Hornindal creates and revives community, and opens a common space for knowledge sharing. This would be an important measure for passing the tacit knowledge into the future, and to sustain these heritage landscape practices.
Historical island-setring at Sør-Smøla
Sources tells a story about cows being rowed between islands, and the cows swimming routes. An ambitious fields study was planned, to follow the cows old routes, to examine the differentiation between structures and locations connected to fishing and seter practices.
This story ends here, for now.
Without tacit knowledge, there is often no way to know how cultural practices have been formed. Setring at Smøla offers an interesting perspective on this, with its obvious lack of living memory and available information. It becomes impossible to map the site specific seter practices when there are no relevant sources/stakeholders accessible.
In this case it would be premature to proceed with strategic suggestions, therefore Smøla gives a picture of how complicated it is to start these processes from scratch. However, it may be possible to project experience from other locations with similar pratices and combine them with knowledge from written sources to establish an experimental seter-practice.
Findings
By using grazing animals to limit vegetation encroachment, the practice of setring works with local resources and seasonal rhythms to support vulnerable biodiversity threatened by climate and land-use change. Differentiated grazing helps maintain shared, multi-use landscapes for both domesticated and wild animals, preserving food resources and strengthening ecosystem resilience.
Deeper knowledge on seter activities shows a more diverse perspective on local variations, the significance of territorial proportions, types of landscapes and climatic zones, kind of livestock, amount of production, kinds of production methods, seasonal variations, and more.
‘Setring’ as a practice offers a perspective on integrated interdisciplinary ecology. This way of viewing heritage as connected, and not strictly distanced and object oriented, provides an embodied and empathic aspect into the discussion on protection and resilience.
Contact
Sonja Holmøy-Wang
sonja-hw@outlook.com / +47 472 77 595 / LinkedIn