Reframing landscapes of care

Large institutional care terrains across Europe are undergoing complex transformations driven by shifting care models, housing pressures, and climate challenges. In conditions of uncertainty, these sites are increasingly approached as open and adaptive landscapes of care, where spatial, social, and institutional changes intersect. This paper examines how future-oriented approaches can support such transformations. Using the concept of landscapes of care, the study adopts a design-based scenario approach at Landpark Assisië in the Netherlands, engaging a diverse range of stakeholders. Through participatory workshops and an interactive, card-based tool, four contrasting scenarios were developed: a cooperative commons, an integrated park city, an innovation-driven campus, and an ecologically structured landscape. The results show that these scenarios help to surface competing priorities and interdependencies between i.e. care, housing development, ecology, and innovation. The process enabled stakeholders to articulate values, explore trade-offs, and identify areas of alignment, particularly regarding the continued centrality of care within broader spatial development. The study demonstrates how scenario-based approaches can support more reflexive and collective forms of engagement with uncertain futures. We conclude that such approaches can strengthen the capacity to navigate complexity and inform more adaptive and inclusive transformations of care landscapes.