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- Orrù, Anna Maria, 1976
(författare)
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Wild Poethics - Exploring relational and embodied practices in urban-making
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Nature is not something separated from the city. With this in mind, this research emerges from the act of urban gardening, staging space for naturecultures that reinforce a direct relation to an urban nature. Alternate agencies can motivate ecological mindsets in urban approaches, bypass the hegemonic and paralysing attitude of the Anthropocene and render a more profound relation with the spatial environment. This catalyses a potential in embodied methodologies to generate vibrant materialist relations in urban-making. The research is positioned with a two-fold challenge; urban-making and naturecultures. The aim is to reorientate methodologies in urban-making to approach relational space matters, and promote ecological poethics relevant for practice, research and education. Three thresholds of engagement structure the exploration: the embodied, the relational and the situated. Alongside explorative practices are built up cartographies of theoretical neighbourhoods that provide alternate knowledge generation on individual, shared and collective levels. Experimental embodied interventions are grounded in artistic research through choreographical approaches using Butoh, Body Weather and swarm-behaviour practices. These approaches are set in a voyage-metaphor to a fictional Island of Encounters reaching four destinations. Each encounter unravels a particular perspective into relational and embodied practice: Alba (body/curiosity), Agora (fiction/performance), Clinamen (atmosphere/imagination), and Plūris (metaphor/swarming). A methodological choreography which corresponds with the theoretical cartographies, reveals and opens up for an urban-making founded in situated knowledges to generate a corporeal poethics – poetic, politic, and ethical. As the activated practice unfolds, interventions are supported by their theoretical neighbourhoods nested in feminist spatial practice, vibrant relationscapes, worlding, affective atmospheres, imagination, spatial-temporal in-betweeness and assemblage-thinking. Accompanying each destination are five film essay(s), each pertaining to the particular artistic interventions in the research.Using corporeal imagination and re-enactment modes of enquiry such as thinking with paper modelled texts, creating fictocriticisms with clouds, using dynamic biomimesis, and mimicking swarms, generates an enlivened relation with naturecultures that gestures the body into becoming a reflective and profound membrane with space. By encountering and immersing the body in a space/time construct, a critical materiality practice emerges that can infuse urban-making, render the body a more refined medium and reactivate architectural thinking and making.
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| 2. |
- Driesse, Moniek, 1983
(författare)
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Leaving dry land: Water, heritage and imaginary agency
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral dissertation explores the interplay between water, heritage and the agency of the imagination. Instead of seeking how to map subjects or heritage, the research focuses on the ways in which mapping and the cartographic gaze have produced subjects in specific categories. It seeks to create moments of orientation and reorientation to experience the effects, affects and possibilities to imagine ways beyond these fixed geocodes and the taken for granted. As such, this dissertation contributes to broader discussions regarding critical design practices alongside critical heritage studies, while channelling design’s ability to shape the world and to explore potential approaches that foster collective imagination and planetary care. Two iterations of a fluid methodology were conducted in Mexico City and Gothenburg, foregrounding precarious issues in heritagisation processes and exploring aquatic agency. The methodology provides a tool for bridging different epistemologies, disciplines and perspectives, fostering transdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge permeation. By engaging with water as a subject and employing imaginative techniques, the research aims to actively (re)imagine the past, present and future of urban environments, enabling diverse infrastructures, ecologies and cosmologies to emerge. Heritage is reconceptualised as a navigational system that traces diverse relations in the world. In this sense, the research challenges modern heritage paradigms by acknowledging the ephemerality of water.
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| 3. |
- Ibrahim, Muna
(författare)
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Effects of Art and Design on Orientation in Healthcare Architecture : A study of wayfinding and wayshowing in a Swedish hospital setting
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates the role of interior design elements, especially artwork, in way-searchers’ wayfinding and orientation in hospital environments. The thesis considers the way-searcher’s background and the impact of cultural belonging, occupation, memories, aesthetic preferences, and language, and the influence that such factors might have on the perception of the hospital environment and its guiding elements. The aim is to increase the knowledge about the role of art objects and how they relate to design processes by studying how art and design appear to users at three different sites at the hospital SUS Malmö, and also to gain insight into decisions made about the design and the placement of public art in a health-care environment.The thesis consists of four studies developed to complement each other. They include three different experiencing perspectives: the visitor’s perspective, the designer’s perspective, and the observing researcher’s perspective. This mix of perspectives helps to obtain a broad understanding of the complex experience and effectiveness of wayshowing design in a health-care environment and of the intentions behind making, choosing, and installing art for and in hospitals. A mixed-methods approach is used that mainly relies on qualitative studies, but that also has some quantitative elements. The techniques used for collecting information are: questionnaire, on-site interviews, semi-structured interviews, walking interviews, observation, and photographic documentation. This mixed-methodological approach is used to attain a successively deeper understanding and acquire more diverse knowledge of the role that interior design and artwork have for wayfinding, and by that also pointing to the development of wayfinding theory, especially as it refers to notions like orientation, wayfinding, legibility, affordance, and familiarity. These theoretical concepts are used here in analyses and descriptions of way-searchers’, especially newcomers’, experiences and perceptions of the interior health-care environment.The four studies of this thesis point out different areas of interest for analyzing wayfinding in hospitals, thus also indicating how they could be considered to guide the design of wayshowing in hospital environments. The areas of interest can be listed as: spatial heterogeneity (about the making of contrasts between spaces); evoked familiarity (about elements in the hospital space that may bring back memories); overfamiliarity (about places taken for granted due to frequent use); broad participation (about consulting a range of users in all stages of the realization of a hospital environment); users’ background (about considering ethnicity, cultural knowledge, occupation, and previous experiences of art), and time- and duration effects (about acknowledging that perception might change during visits or in stays of a longer duration).
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| 4. |
- Wänström Lindh, Ulrika
(författare)
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Light shapes spaces : experience of distribution of light and visual spatial boundaries
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Light enables us to experience space. The distribution of light is vital for spatial experience but has not been the main focus of previous research on lighting. The lighting designer’s professional knowledge is to a great extent experience-based and tacit. With design practice as the point of departure, this thesis aims to explore spatiality and enclosure in relation to the distribution of light – with the intention of increasing subjects’ understanding of what can be regarded as a space, and to show how spaces can be shaped by the distribution of light. By focusing on users’ experiences and interpretations, relationships between the distribution of light and perceived spatial dimensions and experienced spatial atmosphere have been investigated. The main contribution of this thesis is to widen the base of knowledge that lighting designers, architects and customers can use as a common reference. This thesis is based on three studies: the Scale Model Study, the Auditorium Study and the Church Park Study. The thesis includes concept- and method development. The mixed methodologies comprise a range from introspective phenomenological observations to deep interviews and questionnaires. The experimental setups have also shifted from scale models to real-life interior and exterior settings. Consequently, a quantitative approach has complemented the mainly qualitative approach. Through artistically based research, patterns and relationships are dealt with in complex real spaces. The findings of these studies lead to a discussion of when, why and how patterns of brightness and darkness influence spatial perceptions of dimensions. The findings also show that brightness not only contributes to our experiencing a space as more spacious than it really is, but in certain situations brightness can actually have the reverse effect. Furthermore, darkness can contribute to a spacious impression, which has hardly been discussed in previous research. What subjects regard as a space may shift between the clearly defined physical space and the perceived space, which include light zones. Light zones can create a sense of inclusion or exclusion for subjects, which affects their sense of community and their feeling of safety. Light topography, e.g. the height of luminaire positions, as well as light direction influence the way we experience the private and the public. Enclosure can, if related to visible spatial boundaries, facilitate reassurance and safety.
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| 5. |
- Högström, Ebba, 1961-
(författare)
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Kalejdoskopiska rum : Diskurs, materialitet och praktik i den decentraliserade psykiatriska vården
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the period 1967-1995, Swedish mental healthcare underwent a complete re-organisation, starting with county councils taking over responsibility for mental healthcare from the state. Asylums were then phased out and mental health care moved closer to patients. The Mental Health Reform of 1995 completed this decentralisation and put the emphasis on an independent and integrated life as a citizen in society and the idea of a dwelling of one’s own. This thesis describes and analyses spatial aspects of decentralised mental healthcare in Sweden, focusing on the decentralisation discourse regarding organisation, localisation, patient care and working methods behind decentralisation and its spatial performance. A case study of decentralised mental healthcare in Nacka, a Stockholm suburb, between 1958-1999 examines in particular the emerging decentralisation discourse 1958-1973, The Nacka Project 1974-1980 (one of the first examples of community care in Sweden), psychiatry in Nacka 1980-1994 and the official report Welfare and Freedom of Choice from 1995. The methods used include studies of documents, interviews, visual and architectural drawing analysis. The theoretical point of departure for the analysis is a post-structural heterogeneous concept of space where spatial materiality and discursiveness are looked upon as intertwined. The result shows that the re-organisation of mental healthcare brought about a substantial spatial transformation. Normalisation of patients’ lives involved integration into society and support for independent living. The local environment was the main trope for the early stage of decentralised mental healthcare, but the notion of a dwelling of one’s own became the important trajectory to an independent life after 1995. The idea of the patient is challenged by the independence discourse, which could be said to contain an idea of the ‘non-patient’. Overall, it can be concluded that spatial organisations of the built environment are never value-free or neutral. They reflect, enable and constrain power relations in a society and material space can contribute to the power of one group at the expense of another. Furthermore, the results of the spatialities, or the meanings, cannot be predicted. It is therefore crucial to distinguish power in all its configurations and scales and to keep negotiations alive, especially within the field of mental healthcare, but also in the care sector as a whole and in other societal institutions where policies buildings and built environment interact with user practices. This kaleidoscopic perspective can be used for examining complexities in the past and present and for encouraging future potentialities in the process of making/enacting spatial relations.
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| 6. |
- Morichetto, Hanna, 1973
(författare)
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Bostadens arkitektur och berikad miljö
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Residential Architecture and Enriched Environments The importance of the physical environment to human health is a subject of growing interest and research. One way to understand this link is through the concept of enriched environments. The concept has long served as a model for studying the positive effects the environment can have on mental health by effecting structure and function of the brain through stimulation. Enriched environments are characterized by offering a higher degree of multi-sensory stimulation through a combination of sensorimotor or cognitive stimulation and socialization. The scientific evidence for enriched environments from animal models is clear. However, there is still limited evidence and scientific definitions needed for a corresponding model for humans. They are to an even larger degree lacking in the context of the home. The thesis addresses the issue how residential architecture can constitute an enriched environment through multisensory stimulation. The aim has been to formulate a series of studiable concepts that all touch on aspects of residential architecture, primarily focusing on architectural attributes in relation to cognitive stimulation and stress reduction, acknowledging that enriched environments can contribute to the development and enhancement of cognitive performance or to counteract the negative effects of various stressors also for healthy individuals. The research approach is based on five separate studies that have informed one another in a successive development of knowledge in which theory and empirical material are interwoven and interpreted using the following methods: mapping review, semantic concept analysis, architectural analyses through figurative empirics and in-depth interviews with residents, and with architects. The findings show three main areas with associated subgroupings of concepts and architectural attributes of the home: Spatial extension, Movement, and Materials and detailing. A. Spatial extension Spatial extension comprises diverging and converging views, variation and events in views, horizontal and vertical views, and the interface where the interior and exterior of the home meet. Views in multiple directions can create a feeling of spaciousness. Contrast and variation in the character of the views provides stimulation and a complexity of experience, but also a feeling of spaciousness. The design of the interface between the home and its surroundings, and the link between that interface and the interior rooms of the home, create the conditions for a feeling of security and control. B. Movement Movement refers to the importance of variation, rhythm, and the passage between the home and its surroundings in the design. The various aspects of movement are important to different experiences such as variation and complexity as well as freedom, spaciousness, and stimulation. C. Materials and detailing Materials and detailing refers to Abstract touch and Association. Of importance is care in the selection of materials, the execution of the construction, and the way different materials come together and details are designed. But also how different materials, surfaces, and even forms work together through various sensory impressions to create a total experience. Association addresses how we can be positively impacted by materials or art when they connect us with meaningful aspects of, for example, nature. The formulated concepts can be studied further through a multidisciplinary approach using both qualitative and quantitative methods focusing on factors such as stress reduction, control and motivation.
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| 7. |
- Ag-ukrikul, Chotima, 1973
(författare)
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Let's Eat Together: Methods and Tools for Inclusive City Design Practice
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies how the practice of eating together impacts on liveable city making. In this thesis, the practice of eating together is called commensality, which is a collective action that creates shared environments. Through time these environments are turned into recognized meeting places where locals gather. They are called eatscapes in this thesis. People who use eatscapes develop urban rituals and collective experiences that later become urban vernaculars in their localities. These eatscapes and urban vernaculars are essential material agents for turning a locality into a liveable city. Thus, this thesis studies the relationships between the practice of commensality, the urban vernacular and liveable city making. The studies were done through case-based explorations of existing food entrepreneurs in real-life contexts to understand how eatscapes are structured and shaped by commensality or vice versa. Exploring the relationship between the practice of commensality (social) and the built environment (spatial) in a real-life context requires researching design in real life. Consequently, the explorative and experience-based methods and tools of eatscape typology, checklist, catalytic act and matrix were developed in this thesis. These designerly methods and tools are not only based on the specific skills that are traditionally used in the practice of architecture and urban design, but also on experience-based methods that involve interaction with subjects in real life for learning, reflecting and knowing. The results from the explorations show that designers can learn a lot from food entrepreneurs, who have insights on the urban vernacular and the production of eatscapes that have an impact on liveable city making. Furthermore, the concepts of eatscape and commensality are much more than room-shapers for liveable cities; more importantly, they are instruments for building community and making city design more inclusive. This thesis is not a how-to guide for designing eatscapes or for inclusive city design, but rather a reflection of designers’ explorations. This way of approaching city design1 is an opportunity for architects and urban designers to engage and embed social sustainability into the design practice by establishing design ritual. Ultimately, this thesis calls for designers to shift the focus of their design practice from primarily visual-based to a more explorative and experience-based approach.
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| 8. |
- Babapour Chafi, Maral, 1983
(författare)
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The Quest for the Room of Requirement - Why Some Activity-based Flexible Offices Work While Others Do Not
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overarching purpose of this thesis is to develop further knowledge of the consequences of relocating to Activity-based Flexible Offices (AFOs). As workspace design innovations, AFOs are increasingly implemented in organisations. AFOs comprise a variety of workspaces for employees to choose from depending on their preferences or activities. Workspaces in AFOs are shared, instead of every employee having their own desk. Research results are inconsistent regarding employee satisfaction with AFOs, and research into employees’ appropriation of AFOs and organisations’ processes of adopting AFOs is sparse. In response to these knowledge gaps, the thesis aims to explain why some AFOs work while others do not. The thesis builds on five case studies: (i) three cases with recently implemented AFOs, and (ii) two cases with AFOs implemented at least two years prior to the study. Data collection in all the case studies involved semi-structured interviews with employees and facility managers, observations and collection of secondary data such as process overviews, and layout drawings. For data collection and analysis, a theoretical framework was developed and used consisting of Activity Theory, artefact ecology, as well as theories of innovation adoption and appropriation. The findings show that individuals’ usage of AFOs varies considerably due to personal circumstances and work-related preconditions. Drawing on Activity Theory, three types of matches/mismatches were identified in employees’ activity systems: Employee ↔ AFO, Activity ↔ AFO, and Employee ↔ Activity. Furthermore, individuals’ usage preferences and non-preferences highlighted sub-optimal design features in the AFOs: (a) ambiguity and insufficient communication of rules; (b) undesirable ambient features; (c) exposure to stimuli; (d) difficult to interpret workspaces; and (e) dysfunctionality and insufficiency of the collective instruments. In summary, AFOs work in the absence of mismatches related to individuals’ personal and work-related preconditions and sub-optimal design features. The employees’ processes of appropriating AFOs involved first encounters, exploration, and stable phases, during which various types of adaptations occurred: (i) on an individual level: acquired insights, and behavioural, social and hedonic adaptations, as well as (ii) in the AFO solutions: rule-related, spatial and instrument adaptations. Furthermore, the AFO adoption process in organisations varied considerably. Procedural shortcomings during the planning process led to a limited understanding of AFO users and thus the sub-optimal AFO designs, while shortcomings during the routinising stage involved restrictions on making post-relocation improvements in AFOs and inadequate Occupational Health & Safety management. To conclude, AFOs work provided (i) they match individuals’ personal circumstances and work-related preconditions; (ii) they facilitate flexibility and shared use of spaces through well-designed rules, workspaces and instruments; (iii) individuals’ appropriation processes reach a stable phase where mismatches are resolved and fruitful symbiosis is achieved in their activity systems; and (iv) the organisations’ process of adopting AFOs is successful both during the planning and the post-relocation routinising stages, leading to a collective sense of ownership among employees.
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| 9. |
- Braide, Anna, 1964
(författare)
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Dwelling in time: Studies on life course spatial adaptability
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The ongoing demographic transformation entails profound changes in population structures and implies constantly renewed needs and requests for different apartment space configurations. This challenges the field of design and calls for more adequate apartment solutions for a sustainable urban future. However, current design does not meet this challenge. Rather it imposes a conventional attitude as furthermore the housing market, dominated by a commercialized lifestyle focus, appears to ignore the question of long-term resilience. This dictates conditions for residential quality of life, in particular regarding issues of social sustainability, as households often lack the possibility to adapt their homes according to every day needs and long-term life project aspirations. The situation calls for an urgent future realization of a more resilient housing stock. The thesis addresses the issue of adaptable apartment space and how this can respond to the household’s changing spatial needs within an extended life course frame. The aim has been to investigate social dimensions of housing conditions and how adaptability can contribute to enhanced sustainability. The methodological approach consists of a qualitative research using a mix of methods, with empirical studies of living situations combined with research by design in the master studio MPARC Housing Invention. The empirical studies consist of enquiries and observations on consecutive dwelling situations effectuated throughout extensive interviews and floor plan registrations. The master studio design work has provided investigations of adaptable apartment design projects of multi-family residential buildings. The research has been part of the transdisciplinary knowledge platform Positive Footprint Housinginitiated by Riksbyggen EF, where in parallel the experimental housing project brf Viva has been unfolded, enabling a full-scale research on solutions of adaptable apartments. The research findings show that adaptable space can provide vital support in family life course processes. It enables people to remain in their neighbourhood and to preserve valuable social qualities. It can also increase the possibilities to exercise power over the planning and future transformation of a household’s living situation. Spatial adaptability is thus found to be a neglected but most relevant factor for the future design of sustainable apartments.
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| 10. |
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