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WWOOF farm Flatberget explores the possibilities of reactivating an abandoned farm in Dalarna through farming and traditional log building techniques. This subject is explored through a 1:1 investigation into traditional Swedish and Finnish log construction, as well as through an architectural plan for a volunteer program as a part of the international network WWOOF (world wide opportunities on organic farms).  Flatberget (the flat mountain) is an old abandoned farm founded by finnish migrants in the 1700s and is considered an important part of the cultural heritage of Dalarna. The area is slowly being depopulated and jobs have disappeared. To investigate ways of “reviving” the area, the project proposes a volunteer farm where the purpose is teaching farming and traditional log building to people from all over the world.  An important part of the project’s methodology is physically testing traditional log construction on the site from cutting down trees to building fieldstone foundations and cutting joints in the logs using traditional tools.  To preserve the cultural identity of the site the spaces proposed are reusing old farm buildings on site and constructing with the environmentally friendly log building technique as well as reused materials.  The outcome of the project is an architectural plan for this one farm, as well as a proposition of a program for farming and log building workshops that could be implemented on several similar sites, once again making farms like these places of work, collaboration and learning.

Färgaren archives is a portrait of a house, a call for a temporal and adaptive architecture, as well as an exploration of a methodology for working with existing contexts and buildings. The project explores preservation and transformation as architectural interventions of built heritage. Through a case study of a partially vacant cultural heritage building called Färgaren 1, located in the centre of Umeå, the experience of built heritage is explored through experimental spatial interventions.

Urban stress is causing a silent global pandemic and the transmitters are the buildings we occupy. We are stuck in a vicious cycle fueled by the needs of a rapidly growing urban population. The criteria of a livable city are being overshadowed by the urgency to pack people in.   Jane Jacobs, Jan Gehl, and David Sims are some who believe that the modern movement extracted the human perspective from its environment and continued to develop the habitat intended for it.  Mass production, Standardisation, and Specialisation came a long way in creating more housing. However, the over-rationalized functionality has become the human’s dysfunctional reality.  In the reoccurring environment of the Million Program in Sweden, The project aims to rework the current disadvantages of Student housing at Hisoriegränd in Umeå.    The methodology and process are driven by a deep dive into the workings of the human mind,  how different spaces affect us, and what can be done to improve the inhabitants’ mental health.  followed by a detailed investigation of the building’s components and its structural limitations. By proposing a strategy of minimal interventions and adding elements, the structural approach can easily be met if built today.  The project aims to rejuvenate the buildings by incorporating programs that offer different scales of common spaces, a variety between shared uses, common spaces, and commercial activity. The focus of human connection and social interaction is prioritized in reshaping, while still keeping the essence of privacy.    By reusing, readapting, and reshaping what we already have we can enrich our built environment to provide for a healthier and more sustainable future.

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Departing from an interest in understanding the life of materials, recognizing that in order to question the current reality of a society of consumption we need to reconnect to places extending beyond the one of use, the project asks the following questions: What happens to things, to buildings, after we have finished using them? What does neglect and decay do to the self-image of a place? And to the people inhabiting it? How can the extraction and re-use of building materials be meaningful? The project is situated in the peripheral community of Jörn. Located along the northern railroad mainline Jörn is tightly connected to the history of the industrialization of northern Sweden. As the railroad was rolled out it brought with it power relations between center and periphery, places of use and of extraction, that still live on, power relations that are evident in a place like Jörn. Jörn is not really a village, neither is it a city, but something in between. The word in Swedish is centralort, a town aspiring to be the city, a place that used to hold ideas about the future. A place that has been left behind as work has been rationalized and attention turned entirely towards the big cities along the coast.  The project starts with an imagined invitation to artists, builders, and architects. Materials will be mined from unused buildings in the immediate context as well as from other places along the railroad, with the old railroad hotel working as a platform or bank of materials both exploring the potential uses for repurposed building materials and the histories attached to them. The project proposes a methodology where making is seen as a tool for discussion, an action to gather around and share. Makers that take part in the project will be accommodated in the renovated hotel that also provides spaces for the local community, enabling the exchange of stories, knowledge of the place and its materials. In a time where knowledge can no longer be produced within disciplinary boundaries, this testbed is designed with interdisciplinary collaboration in mind, with the architect as a collector and a facilitator.

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Rödviksvägen Co-housing in a rural community Beatrice Malmberg South from Umeå in northern Sweden, one finds a municipality called Nordmaling. Nordmaling city, is located next to the Bothnian Sea and Nordmaling Fjärden. After gaining an understanding of this rural so- ciety in Studio 2, the bachelor project Rödviksvägen co-housing evolved. Interested in housing, I started by contacting the chairman of the mu- nicipality and a man involved in the area. I was told about the current housing issue of many rural societies, described as a catch 22 - situation, where the rural housing market is unstable, as the market value is less than the production costs of new housing. In addition, there is a lack of small apartments for young adults, lack of housing with less mainte- nance for elderly and lack of available houses for young families to buy as elderly won’t sell. Hence, also asking where housing could be built, I was introduced to this plot along Rödviksvägen in Nordmaling. The research was narrowed down to three points of departure, first being the housing market described. Secondly, the trend among young adults to live in smaller cities close to nature and thirdly, the high num- ber of single households in Sweden. From the points given, my goal has been to create a co-housing with main focus on the small household, that either lives in- or arrives to Nordmaling. Nature will also play an im- portant role, as being one of the driving forces for living in a rural envi- ronment. By looking to a variety of co-housing, Rödviksvägen came to be a co-operative tenancy association in which the work of the association themselves is key to affordability, build-up, daily maintenance and co- hesion. Thanks to this form of housing, the apartments are not sold and therefore do not change in value. Various design choices, such as a CLT construction, also allows the association to grow in the future, whilst providing central common spaces with courtyards and active corridors. Equally as important, however, is privacy provided through balconies in the thirteen apartments. Suitable for both elderly, families or young adults, this advocates a vision; a prototype of future rural housing.

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