"Buildings as a social process" was the title when UMA teacher Toms Kokins lectured April 15th in a packed seminar room. Toms who is born and raised in Latvia shared his path from student and urban activist to the position of designing and completing a project in a small town near Riga according to his longtime dedication of developing public spaces away from wasteful traffic dominated solutions.
The development, planning and execution of buildings are hot topics in the sustainability debate and wood as a construction material has gained a lot of attention therein. Wood is a material with a rich history in Västerbotten and still of great importance in the local industry. This was also the point of departure when Umeå School of Architecture on April 12th invited to a full day dedicated to wood.
For first year students', the academic year at UMA concludes with a collective production of pavilions in scale 1x1. The pavilions are thereafter exhibited in the School's End of Year / Summer Exhibition in the beginning of June. The project comences trough students' sketching and modelling individual proposals for the pavilions. Between April 1st and 5th, these proposals where themselves exhibited for students, staff and the general public in the Balcony located by the staircase in the entrance of Umeå School of Architecture.
March 19th the Civitella Ranieri Foundation announced the winners of its WOJR/Civitella Ranieri Architecture Prize competition. One of them was UMA lecturer Alejandro Hajek who will be given $15,000 to design and build a temporary architectural installation on a castle ground in Umbria, Italy during a six-week time frame this summer.
March 13 the board of Umeå School of Architecture's Student Magazine UMAN released their new issue during an event and debate at Scharinska Villan in Umeå.
Swedish Television show Västerbottensnytt noticed the release of student magazine UMAN:s new issue themed "BEAUTY", and their debate on the subject at Scharinska Villan.
In the March Issue of the Swedish magazine Arkitekten, two students from Umeå School of Architecture - Stellan Gulde and Tove Brunberg - where interviewed about the relaunch of the Student' Magazine UMAN and their upcoming issue themed "BEAUTY".
On February 15th, the annual Arkipelago Fair was held at Umeå School of Architecture.
During the academic year 2018/2019 students in Year 4:s studio 11 are working with questions on sustainable urban development and the relations between urban and rural trough a site located along the Europa road 4 (E4) trough the areas of Teg, Umeå. Friday February 8th an exhibition along with students presenting their work was held to interact with neighbors in the area at Tegs Church.
In January 2019 students from Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå School of Design and Umeå School of Fine Arts joined to collobarate in the interdisciplinary workshop themed "Intermediate Objects | In-between scales".
During the summer 2018 Umeå School of Architecture had a summer course with workshops in cooperation with actors in various cities. One of these took place in Træna. The project is exhibitied the coming month at DOGA in Oslo.
In November 2018, Umeå School of Architecture invited the public to four Wednesday Open Lectures with architects Josefin Wangel, Rocío Pina, Javier Sánchez Merina and Art Historian Halldóra Arnardóttir. In his lecture Javier Sánchez Merina talked about therapeutic architecture.
How will future architecture look? What's the point of view of young architects? At the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, recent graduates from the Swedish Architecture Schools - Umeå, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund - show their work in Hall Mitt and Hall Öst.
Between November 12th and 23rd of 2018, UMA1 students, teachers and technicians engaged in a two week workshop called VOIDS - Spaces from Within', where technology and synthesis course intertwine and merge completely, in order to explore new materials and construction techniques to understand the space from the configuration of a negative space. Casting techniques where used as a tool for the design process.
In November 2018, Umeå School of Architecture invited the public to four Wednesday Open Lectures with architects Josefin Wangel, Rocío Pina, Javier Sánchez Merina and Art Historian Halldóra Arnardóttir.
UnFashion Show 2018 - Body as shelter, investigates abstract projections of the body into space allowing the visualization of an imaginary shelter for the body, as a temporary place, a physical space that materializes from the movement and interaction between two bodies.
UMA alumni Gaia Crocella's Master Thesis Project "INTERDINE: Investigating the moral role of architecture in an era of mass migration" has been published by KooZA/rch.
KooZA/rch showcases specially choosen projects that explore and challange the role of architectural sketching and design in contemporary praxis.
In November 2018, Umeå School of Architecture invited the public to four Wednesday Open Lectures with architects Josefin Wangel, Rocío Pina, Javier Sánchez Merina and Art Historian Halldóra Arnardóttir. The lecture held by Josefin Wangel was an interrogation of the sustainable city, with the aim of identifying key shortcomings and silences which need to be addressed for urban sustainability to materialise.
Ana Betancour lectured on "The Right to the City and the Right to Housing"
During Thursday lunch time Umeå University regularly organizes "Science lunches" at centraly located Café Station. The purpose is to invite UmU-based researchers to present their research in a popular scientific manner. The frame for this semester is "Democracy" On October 18th Umeå School of Architecture rector Ana Betancour spoke on the theme "The Right to the City & The Right to Housing".
During the first two weeks of the fall semester, all students and staff at Umeå School of Architecture has been engaged in a workshop titled "Alternative Futures". The results of research, discussions and imagination have been compiled in the format of fanzines - do-it-yourself magazines.
The workshop in Træna gathered students from New York and Scandinavia to work together on concrete design issues between the urban and the "un-urban." It was a collaboration between the School of Visual Arts (New York), Umeå School of Architecture (Sweden), the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (Norway), the Norwegian Centre for Design & Architecture, the Municipality of Træna, and the Træna Artist in Residence program.
During the workshop held in Umeå the students worked together to develop a new catalogue of social-public furniture; defined as Urban Entities. Engaged as an "act-tank" group, the students proposed solutions of immediate implementation and assemblage, using recyclable materials deployed with minimum impact construction methods.
The workshop held in Palermo gathered international students in Architecture, Art and the Humanities during one week in Palermo, Sicily. The students, artists, local citizens and migrants created collective works by investigating how art and culture can influence the uses and the social relationships that produce the landscape of the city.
During the London workshop 'School of Civic Action' students from across Europe gathered to collaborate, co-produce and co-create together with local citizens from London. The two week summer school was a partnership between Umeå School of Architecture, public works, Tate Exchange, Roskilde Festival and Curry Stone Design Honourees.
The workshop Exploring the Fence-world was held in Barcelona and gathered students from Umeå School of Architecture and visual artists from Barcelona. The students and artists worked together on the design of a socially conscious intervention in public space through the process of design, art and architecture. The workshop was a collaboration between the Umeå School of Architecture, El Centro de Enmedio (Barcelona) and La Virreina Centre de l'Imatge (Barcelona).
Local paper Umeå Tidning wrote an article about the greenhouse and urban gardening community space, built by Master students in collaboration with the Urban farmers in Umeå.
The journal Arkitekten has done a interview with Ario Racho who is currently a student at Umeå School of Architecture after fleeing the war in Aleppo, Syria.
Each academic year at Umeå School of Architecture is concluded with an open to the public exhibition of the work from students in year 1-5. For the 2018 Summer Exhibition, students in UMA1 collaborated in the creation of a series of scale 1x1 pavillions under the theme "[so:ma] From Body to Landscape".
Each academic year at Umeå School of Architecture is concluded by an Open to the public Exhibition with students' work from all years 1-5. The local daily Västerbottens-Kuriren has written about the 2018 Summer Exhibition in a article titled "Architects with a social responsibility".
The lecture by professor Peter Lang addressed the participation of Superstudio, Archizoom, and 9999 in the architectural competition for the new University of Florence campus in 1970 - 1971.
By revisiting two decades of architectural and planning practice-research, a journey was defined through different latitudes and time-zones. The lecture supplied observations and analyses of the adaptation and integration of new concepts from a socio-cultural perspective and mentioned projects from for example Caracas, New York and Shanghai.
Ario Racho started studying architecture at University of Aleppo in 2010. In 2012, due to the war, he was forced to abandon his studies. In 2017 he continued his studies at Umeå School of Architecture where he is currently at the Bachelor program.The lecture shared on a personal level the crucial moments of the Syrian war and specifically on student's daily life, navigating through their concerns and dreams, plans and hopes in contrast to before and after the war.
The lecture by Susanne Ramel described the methodology of the office Marge through some of their most recognized projects - a nursing home in Örebro, a bench for a museum and a kiosk viewing the Royal Palace.
Aspiranten wrote an article before the public lecture Becoming Architect in Aleppo by Ario Racho on April 25th.
The winning contribution of UMA students Tobias Jansson and Oscar Forsman in the competition Nya ögon på plast [New Eyes on Plastic] has been built in the entry hall of the Nordbygg fair. Arkitekten writes about what it felt like for the students to stand inside the pavilion which they previously only seen in drawings.
In her lecture, Torange Khonsari touched on theoretical ideas of ethics related to architects. She outlined the causes for the decline in trust in the professional as the revered keeper of expert knowledge and highlighted the lack of innovation in forms of architecture practice that can expand the discipline and the role of the architect within an ethical and critical design practice.
UMA in the media: Birch Bark as a New Building Material?
There is an ongoing project with birch bark at Umeå University with the intention to contribute in the development of new materials in architecture, design and construction. One of the students at UMA, Frida Bergner, is involved in the project where they experiment with molding of birch bark and believe that it, amongst other things, could be used as wall panels and space dividers.
The living situation for young refugees was discussed at Umeå School of Architecture when a seminar with the theme Democracy and Architecture was organized with the organization Arezo on March 28. The initiative came from the bachelor project of architect student Gabriella Magnusson and the seminar was arranged and implemented together with the department leadership and staff at Umeå School of Architecture.
Following the #metoo movement, women in the Swedish building sector has gathered under the hashtag #sistaspikenikistan where they have shared their experiences of sexual harassment, abuse and violence. Umeå School of Architecture held a panel discussion on March 7 with the theme Gender-related Power Structures within the Building Sector, with a focus on Architecture and Urban Design.
The moderator for the talk was Umeå School of Architecture's alumni Cajsa Winge, one of the initiators behind #sistaspikenikistan. The panel consisted of Ana Betancour, professor in architecture and rector at Umeå School of Architecture, Anna Lundberg, office manager at Sweco in Umeå, Anna-Carin Dahlberg, office manager at White in Umeå, and Linda Gustafsson, gender equality officer at Umeå Municipality.
Tobias Jansson and Oscar Forsman, students at Umeå School of Architecture, has won first prize in the architecture competition "Nya ögon på plast" ("New eyes on plastic") held by Stockholmsmässan/Nordbygg, Svenska Teknik & Designföretagen, IKEM and Architects Sweden. Their winning proposal is called Paviljong (pavilion) and is rewarded with 20 000 SEK.
The UMA alumni Sofia Musatti has been published on KooZA/rch with her master project The Size of Personal Space - Adaptation of vacant commercial spaces in potential homes through the involvement of Airbnb. KooZA/rch publishes selected projects that explore and challenge the role of the architectural drawing in contemporary practice.
Ana Betancour, rektor at Umeå School of Architecture, held the lecture One's Own Place in conjunction to Do Ho Suh's exhibition Passages at Bildmuseet. The lecture gave an introduction to alternative modes of working and their impact on and challenge to the social production of space and architecture.
In his lecture Matthew Butcher presented both speculative and built projects.
Byggkeramikrådet and Architects Sweden held a competition for architecture students for the seventh year in a row. This years theme was "A floating space for bath culture" (Ett flytande rum för badkultur) and the winner was rewarded with 20 000 SEK. One of the two honorable mentions handed out was received by the students André Backlund and Sofia Elldin Mårtensson at Umeå School of Architecture for their contribution "The Public Bathroom" (Publika badrummet).
The artist Do Ho Suh visited Umeå School of Architecture for a lecture in connection to the vernissage of his exhibition at Bildmuseet.
Master student Maïté Biechy at UMA has been published on KooZA/rch with her project about the unsustainable situation on the Baltic Sea. The site publishes selected projects that explore and challenge the role of the architectural drawing in contemporary practice.
Students from two of our Masters programmes took part in a joint workshop with Umeå Business School. This one day workshop was about inter-disciplinary exchange, learning from other courses and sharing new techniques. The theme of the workshop was 'Creating a Sustainable Venture'.
Body Shelter/Un-Fashion Show is the result of a one week workshop with our first year students. They have built structural shelters in scale 1:1 to explore temporary and static relations between body and space. This body shelter represent the body's intimate space for simple movements and fundamental relations to other bodies and spaces.
The workshop Hunters and Gatherers was an introduction to the UMA Year 2 & 3 studio 1 theme and terrain in a wider context. The main tool of mapping during this workshop was by collecting food. The students headed out into the built and natural environment of Umeå with the aim to collect enough food for a common studio lunch at the end of the week.
Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic and the author of ten best-selling novels. She is currently Head of School at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been an on-going contributor to discourses around identity, race, African urbanism and the speculative nature of African architectural space and practice for over twenty-five years.
She visited Umeå School of Architecture to hold her lecture Maropeng Acts I & II.
Every academic year at UMA starts with a vertical workshop that engages all students and staff. This year, the theme was Urban Networks and the idea was to investigate urban space from within. To find their paths of investigation, the students threw cooked spaghettis randomly on a map of Umeå. The task was to explore social-, cultural-, ecological-, economic-, initiatives/structures/networks within that path, created by the spaghetti. By moving in this unconventional way, the students had to challenge their preconceived notions and a broader understanding of the path could take place.
The employee Journal of Umeå University Aktum published an article on the 3rd of July 2017 about what it is like to work and study at Umeå School of Architecture. The described atmosphere is calm and respectful with hard working students and staff during the last weeks before the end of the Spring term.
The Stories & Projects section is a space for brief updates about the activities at Umeå School of Architecture: notes from on-going projects, links to articles in media, summaries from public lectures, reports on different collaborations. Click on the titles to see each full story.