Housing shortage is an issue many young adults have to face when moving to Umeå as students, as well as the never ending queues to rent a below average apartment or dorm in the outskirts of the city. Anyone who moves to Umeå to study, should be able to find a safe and adequate place to live in proximity to the university and city center; not only because students in themselves are a diverse and valuable part of the population and the city’s growth, but because housing is a basic necessity that needs to be fulfilled. How can architecture improve students’ lives in Umeå? This project is located at Hamrinsberget, an underused hill that functions as a powerful tool for students to gain restitution as they rise above the city. The nature surrounding the apartment building provides a peaceful and calm environment for studying. As this young population is put in a vulnerable social position when moving to a new city, possibly all by their lonesome, a strong community has been prioritized during the design process. Shared spaces consisting of study areas on each floor have been implemented, as well as central social areas where parties and dinners can take place. This was intended to make the residents not only feel welcome and safe, but to learn and develop under ideal conditions. This is how the future way of living as a student is introduced.

This study analyses the impact emerging platforms for housing allocation might have on the Swedish housing market, through an analysis of allocation platforms and housing queues. The study utilises Fields and Rogers’ (2021) typology of operational and data platforms in order to define and analyse the practices of municipal housing agencies, marketplaces for rental housing, and assistants for managing housing queues, as allocation platforms. Characteristic of allocation platforms, defined within the framework of platform real estate (PRE), is engagement in data collection and valuation. Combining housing applicants’ ‘übercapital’ (Fourcade & Healy, 2017) with queue times creates what I term queue capital. This queue capital serves as a dual process of data-valuation, that allows for valuation of rental housing according to queue time, but also enables housing seekers to access rental housing. Furthermore, housing queues are categorised as strict or indicative based on the rental policies of housing companies: strict queues, commonly used by municipal housing agencies, prioritise the first eligible applicant, whereas indicative queues, prevalent in marketplaces, organise applicants without strictly adhering to queue order.