This research rethinks spatial development in shrinking urban-rural regions through the lens of post-growth. Departing from conventional planning logics grounded in expansion and densification, the paper explores how theoretical concepts—such as Zwischenstadt, Stadtlandschaft, and the Horizontal Metropolis—can be reinterpreted within a degrowth paradigm. By critically contrasting growth-oriented and sufficiency-driven models of the circular economy, it highlights the need to shift from technocratic efficiency to communal, localised practices of care, maintenance and material reuse. These insights are synthesised into a spatial design framework, culminating in a territorial network model where urban and rural nodes are reconnected through soft infrastructure, shared institutions, and bioregional cycles. This network, situated between the logics of the urban and the rural, challenges hierarchical spatial planning and offers an alternative vision of territorial resilience, interdependence, and sufficiency in post-growth contexts.

The design project applies the design framework in the context of the small German town of Stadtroda. It emphasises the necessity for the maintenance and repair of regions like this, specifically by implementing a circular design strategy to foster a communal environment centred around repair and maintenance.