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Homes for aging ; adaptive living and community connection
Full text linkThis diploma first and foremost considers the essence of home, studying relations between people and homes and whether the feeling of home can be translated into something tangible.
The lived lives can appear as traces in a home, especially within the elderly population where their whole life often relates to one specific home. The challenges that come with an aging body makes the time spent in the home even greater, and that is also often when they are not fit for living there anymore. The options are limited if they want to move especially for elderly in the more rural parts of Norway. The option is either a normal apartment that is not fitted for ageing, or the other option is an elderly home or nursing home that they still might be too healthy for. Both options express temporality, and not the needed feeling of connection and belonging to a home.
The Healthcare politics argue for measures that make elderly live at home as long as possible, and the aid center support renovation and necessary equipment. My personal experience is that there are still two main challenges that remain unsolved. The first is these foreign objects of equipment being installed in your home constantly reminding you of your worsen condition, and second it doesn’t solve the fact of isolation elderly experience living with far distances to the center and mobility difficulties. Therefore, there is this group in the middle, too healthy for a nursing home, and not healthy enough to take care of a big house. This project aims to create a space for ageing in a meaningful way, where this group is seen more as a resource and not a problem in the society. A place that encourages activity through daily tasks, and where connection seems casual and easy. A place for the local community as much as for the residents. A bridge between the elderly and the local community. In retrospect, the processes can be structured into two key phases: an initial exploration of the essence of home, followed by a subsequent phase centred on project development.submittedVersio
Lindåstunet: the adaptation of an obsolete health institution
No full textLindåstunet is an obsolete health institution in Alver Municipality. It was originally designed as a tuberculosis home by the architect Lilla Hansen, known as the first practicing female architect in Norway. Lilla Hansen burnt her own archive before she died, leaving much of her work and legacy fragmented and shrouded in mystery. Lindåstunet remains as a rare example of her work and is possibly emblematic for our understanding of her contribution to the development in health care architecture.
Building on its legacy as a health institution, the project repurposes the building as a municipal care unit, to alleviate pressure on centralized hospitals, to bring healthcare closer to patients’ home districts, and to propose a dissent to the conventional views on the architecture of care.
The abandoned building stands today as a testament to the evolution of healthcare architecture, where modernization, advances in medical technology, and an increasing focus on efficiency have driven changes in hospital design. This shift has culminated in the centralization of healthcare facilities and the abandonment and demolition of historic health institutions. This development poses a threat to patient safety, as corridor patients have become more common, travel distances for treatment have increased, and the pressure for efficiency is leading to rapid patient discharges.
The project explores the potential of adapting the building for a new health program, critically evaluating how its existing architectural features—such as natural light, surrounding environment, interior colors, and spatial organization—can be preserved and enhanced, while addressing deficiencies like restroom facilities, circulation, and access to outdoor spaces. It also considers the needs and comfort of the people who will use the space, taking into regard the need for accessibility, ergonomic layouts, and spaces that foster social interaction, while examining how light, color, and spatial arrangement can cultivate a sense of safety and tranquility. Exploring the topic of the individual and the relation between the private vs the exposed, the project proposes an alternative view on the arrangement of spaces in health care buildings, creating a health facility with spaces for privacy and comfort that does not exclude the need for social encounters.
In 2014, the nursing home was abruptly closed, forcing residents to relocate with less than six weeks’ notice. This hasty eviction resulted in a chaotic scene of personal belongings, furniture, and equipment that are still left behind. The remaining inventory in the building conveys a sense of homeliness, providing a contrast to the institutional atmospheres of modern hospitals. The project seeks to preserve these domestic qualities by examining the use of materials that blend the softness of light and fabric with harder, more hygienic elements. It also examines the use of curtains as a room-dividing element that provides flexibility and self-determination, creating private spaces, filtering light, and emphasizing the thresholds between private and common areas.
The different buildings on the site is treated as separate units, each serving a specific purpose: the main house as the care unit, the sun terrace extension as a treatment space, and the training pool as an individual elongated extension serving its own specific program - a continuation of the logic and hierarchy of the tuberculosis home’s sun terraces, seen as individual objects in relation to the main building. The training pool extension is placed to emphasize the surrounding landscape’s diverse qualities, making the garden and forest areas accessible to patients, visitors, and residents.submittedVersio
Integrated Life Journey of Birds - Recrossing A New Nature within Oslo Urban Region
No full textThe diploma topic starts from the observation of birds (occupants of the landscape pattern), aiming to explore a new composition of land by admiring the natural creatures birds as independent living entity and looking for their settlements in the tamed wildness and urbanized grounds.
The project aims to create a “natural pattern” in urban context, which is more ideal for birds to reside and take as the stopover in their migratory routes. The wetland is a complex in natural forms and taken as an inspirational model to study its composition, its layering, and its ecosystem.
With the understanding of the natural composition, back to the site Hovindammen, water plays the priority and its substrate in varied forms negotiate varied scales, surfaces, and spaces. The project starts to propose a stream which mimics the natural flows from upstream to downstream, the flowing water rate progressively decreases when passing by varied patches( patterns), generating within different proportions different micro land forms.
The form is the revealer of a new relationship, a new nature, and a new aesthetic. The encountered journey unfolds on the shared land between birds and people. This project is an exaggeration of the moments, when birds reside here, and their beautiful life journey happens partly here, when the artificial water spaces are re-written by the natural narrative
Reassembling the Rejected: Adaptive Reuse of Paleet Car Park
No full textREASSEMBLING THE REJECTED aims to search for qualities in unwanted spaces, by working with adaptive reuse of Paleet Car Park as case—a multi-storey parking and office structure located in the centre of Oslo, Kvadraturen, about to be demolished in favor of a new office building later this year.
It has been an exploratory study in models and drawing to see if a building dimentioned for cars can become a space of comfort and joy.
Allowing history to interact with new concepts isn’t just about sustainable reuse; it’s also a way to preserve historical uniqueness of our cities and making sure our collective stories are not lost. But we live in a time where what is valued is mainly whats old, though we’re not in a position to selectively choose which historical aspects to embrace.
It is important that we take these unwanted buildings seriously and take the time to search for a human scale that may have gotten a bit lost in these 80s structures. By letting this car park’s original character persist, new and unexpected spaces is allowed; this project is looking at possibilities to prepare the existing building for whatever the occupants may want to do with it. In this case I chose to look for possibilities for residential use in combination with other more social programmes, as these building typologies offers an opportunity for dwellings that provide an alternative to typical pre-determined apartments.
The focus on residential repurposing together with offices, studios and communal spaces seeks to align with Oslo municipality’s vision of enhancing Kvadraturen’s urban vitality and sense of neighbourhood.
Through discovering architectural potentials within Paleet Car Park, this diploma seeks to experiment with new possibilities for this building, and many buildings like it, to outlive their initial purpose.submittedVersio
Dojo Architecture for Ritualistic Movement
No full textThere are 180 different martial art styles in the world. Some more known than others, a large variety of style forms can be found practiced in Norway. The diversity resulting in a multitude of smaller clubs with specific requirements. As many have little means to invest in proper venues, they turn to unsuitable spaces for practice. Martial arts are deeply embedded in rituals, that unfortunately are losing their meaning through the use of ill-adapted dojos. It is therefore a great need for dedicated spaces for martial arts, where
the significance of the rituals are kept through adapted architecture.submittedVersio
Between Citizenships
No full textBetween Citizenships is a diploma in three variations, each exploring citizenship from different perspectives.
Citizenship is so foundational to how we organize the world that we tend to take it for granted. But precisely because it is so ordinary, reimagining it can lead to significant societal transformations—transformations that are necessary amid the intersecting social and environmental challenges we face today.
Using design, I rethink citizenship at the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. The result is a set of proposals to help us construct alternative identities, relationships, and structures for a more just and resilient world.
On an individual level, citizenship shapes how we understand our place in the world. The first variation of my project is manifested as a creative autoethnography that traces my own relationship with citizenship and reveals my subjectivity as a designer intervening in the topic.
On an interpersonal level, citizenship defines community and belonging. Together with the Interactivity Foundation, an American nonprofit, I developed a facilitation plan that invites people historically excluded from full citizenship to imagine what they want the future of it to be like. The tools that emerge from this project help cultivate an intersectional and inclusive civic identity.
On an institutional level, citizenship structures democracy and governance. My third and final variation engages with the legal dimensions of citizenship through an alternative NOU, a policy contribution for Norway. By incorporating design into policy, I present ideas to open up the existing legislative process. By synthesizing critique and possibility into a speculative public document, I model what broader institutional transformations could look like.
Together, the three parts of this diploma work towards a new sociopolitical imaginary—one that is borderless, radically democratic, plural, and just.submittedVersio
Fish scales and ganite tales
Full text linkCarving the coastal narrative of Bømlo
How can Bømlo’s industrial fishing harbor that detaches from other parts of the community, be utilized to integrate tourism, community, and industry? As a landscape architect, I want to play a role in this massive development by creating spaces for locals and tourists, allowing people to participate in this transformation, not just the large-scale fishing and industry.
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The project focuses on the development of a large industrial fishing harbor in Bømlo, which significantly alters the island’s unique geological landscape by creating leveled surfaces and reclaimed land in the sea.
Traditionally, Bømlo’s fishing industry and geology have been vital, but the shift to larger vessels impacts the natural terrain and detaches the community from its historical roots. The project aims to integrate tourism, the local community, and the fishing industry, using surplus stone from the construction for new social spaces that blend cultural and historical elements. Proposed interventions include creating communal areas, bathing spots, fishing locations, and recreational zones, promoting interaction between residents and the maritime environment.
Parts of my project focuses on facilitating various interactions by strategically utilizing the surplus stone masses left after blasting. Significant portions of the project are designed to incorporate these stones as both construction foundations and surface materials.
After large parts of the natural landscape have been blasted away, I aim to restore some areas along the waterfront. Heather, particularly Bømlo’s proud species, thrives in the sparse soil along the coast. This restoration will help reintroduce elements of the natural landscape that were destroyed.
Proposed interventions include the creation of social spaces intertwined with cultural and historical elements, providing opportunities for engagement, reflection, and communal gatherings. Interactions between people and water - bathing areas, fishing spots.
Inspired by the aesthetics of English romantic parks, the project’s design features fishing boats, trailers, and factory buildings as modern counterparts to traditional follies. The sightlines are meticulously curated, drawing attention to the majestic mountains and glaciers on the horizon.
This project, while relatively small in scale compared to broader development initiatives, serves as a gateway to explore Bømlo’s captivating history, geology, and landscape firsthand. Visitors can immerse themselves in the experience by physically interacting with the rocks, swimming in the sea, strolling along the imposing wall, and observing local production activities.submittedVersio
The Architecture of the Ordinary: Redefining protection and the role of communities in the future of Brutalist heritage
Full text link‘All the [houses]
I have lived in sit in my ribcage
with faces like beggars
I dream my postmortem
Unzip my skin & ask each [house], what
are you: a mother, a sculptor, a motionless meadow?
(From ‘Yard’ by Caleb Femi published in ‘Poor’ (2020)
This thesis is about Brutalist housing and its heritage as place and community. Notably, considering how they are perceived and managed through terms such as ‘significance and heritage values’ and how this might be developed as part of sustaining them as places to live (English Heritage 2008). Its application is through post-war housing, variously described as Brutalist or Structuralist, considering their qualities as ‘place’ and the roles played by their communities in sustaining them. The study seeks to gain a better understanding of their heritage significance, care and management, which also has wider application for the heritage of other places and communities. Seeing these places as ‘evolving’, forms the basis for reappraisal of ideas around their conservation addressing them as ‘living heritage’, rather than something resigned to the point at which they were completed as architectural works. This requires a reconsideration of contemporary conservation practice and the role played by legislation and legislative protection as much as everyday conservation management and planning. This is developed through examination of the history of conservation to unlock issues in contemporary debate, as well as reviewing the hot topics of Brutalism and community engagement in the Post-war period.
The study comprises three resident-led projects – Alexandra Road and Highgate New Town in Camden, London and Vestli in Stovner, East Oslo, all examples of post-war housing. These provide studies for the post-construction histories of these places, the roles played by residents, workers, and visitors and how these communities are situated within their respective built environments. The intention being to illustrate at case study level how heritage as a story reflects collective memories and recollections, informing on identity, culture and the physical environment. Considered together with background research this hopefully informs how to manage that as an evolving resource which is drawn together in the conclusions of the study. At the bottom of which lies an idea of heritage as a living legacy, something which fulfils a societal need to recognise and understand ourselves in terms of community and place. In turn this reaffirms the mandate for conservation, but only so long as conservation continues to provide for that need (English Heritage 2008, Ashford 2011, Tauschek 2015, Farha 2018, Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage 2018, IEMA 2021 etc.).
Post-war housing offers something unique in its complex relationship between place and people in flux and also because these projects were ostensibly ‘designed for community’. This is key to considering the ‘Brutalist’ aesthetic/ethic, with notions such as image, honesty, continuity and community discussed in the design of post-war housing. These buildings and places have been lived in and tested by their communities and have futures which are to some degree dependent on the engagement of those communities. Two explicit decisions were made at the outset of the study. The first being not to work with communities under severe threat, but rather focus on the ‘everyday’ of three post-war housing examples. The second concerns a problematic attempt to characterise the overall narrative of the stories from the communities in the case studies and not to record individual stories in detail. The aim being not to subjugate community to conservation but to understand how conservation can better serve those communities by drawing the focus onto narratives of them as living places. The study concludes with direct recommendations for post-war housing and its communities and a critique of current practice and methods, by which we might better our approach to conservation.
It seeks to,
• Explore, analyse and make recommendations (to improve practice) about communal heritage values in conservation and with that the use of legislation and designation, drawing specifically on the post-war heritage of the case-studies,
• Characterise Brutalism as a movement in terms of the case studies and develop an understanding from that which can be used in its conservation,
• Present the case studies as a resource for further study, casework and the development of participatory method.acceptedVersio
HEDGEHUGS: An Alternative Future for Loallmenningen
No full textHEDGEHUGS: An Alternative Future for Loallmenningen explores public space through the ‘dead hedge’. The aim of the thesis is to increase urban biodiversity, facilitate human and other-than-human coexistence, and suggest an alternative solution to the current development plan of Loallmenningen.
Dead Hedge Experiments
Dead hedges are the antithesis to decorative hedges. They are not quite hedgerows; not quite compost piles; not quite land art. And that’s the beauty of them. Dead structures informed by the typology are developed as catalysts for urban publics to emerge. These are made of excess materials from two existing waste streams in Oslo: cuttings from tree maintenance and used timber formwork from local building sites.
Catalysts
The design proposal tests a selection of the dead structures in Loallmenningen. Six acts are suggested: mining the site, material bank, making a garden, shared shelter, a place to sit, and the service wall.
Embracing the Mess
A public place of maintenance, care, and being together is continued.submittedVersio
GymBuddy
No full textFor people living a busy lifestyle, finding time for self-care can be challenging. However, health, longevity and a number of chronic-pains require to maintain regular physical activity. According to World Health Organisation adults ranging from 18-64 years are recommended to be in physical activity for 150-300 minutes each week. Adults who are in higher levels of physical activity reduces the risk of cancer, cardio-vascular diseases, obesitiy and depression.
However excecuting some movements with the wrong technique can also worsen pre-existing conditions, create new injuries and be overall detrimental to people’s physical and mental health. When in pain, finding motivation to exercise can be all the more challenging.
With GymBuddy the user will be in charge of healing critters; little animal-like creatures that have been injured. In order to heal them, they will need to follow a personal exercise plan. Once the workout is finished, the user can pet their critter back into health, and welcomes them in their digital “Garden”. By repeating exercises and diversifying them, the user gets to heal and collect more and more critters, filling up their garden.
This project relies on the belief that humans are empathetic and enjoy taking care of others, sometimes more than themselves. The critters as such are an externalization of the user’s injury: by healing them, the user heals themselves.
The user can track their symptoms during their journey to gain a better understanding of their condition and potentially prevent getting new injuries. If the user reports experiencing new symptoms which last for a certain amount of time, the companion will recommend contacting a health professional or change the exercise routine accordingly.submittedVersio