The Desired Path

Our team was put together based on friendship and family. One way or another, each of us were familiar or acquainted, either as friends or relatives. Apart from our competence and interests, which played parts in our roles and tasks, the relationship, our way of working and interacting amongst each other and towards others was part of our artistic and design practice. ⤵

“This exciting young team gives new voices to the conversation about societal development in Sweden, and the selection group was enthusiastic to encourage and give recognition to the potential. The team has a broad mix of competence, from art to architecture, urbanism and participation, with methods rarely seen in normal social development-projects. The majority of the team was born in the 90s. If the New European Bauhaus should deliver on its strive to be “not about best practice, but next practice”, it's important to pave the way for the new generation and to show courage in this team as provided a mix of established and new knowledge.

The team is led by and based on the knowledge with Hildegun Nilsson Varhelyi, which expertise in public space and background as a teacher is big. This convinced the evaluation group that the team can deliver on its starting points. The team's poetic description on how social development in northern Sweden needs to handle its heritage of natural resource extraction and its consequences added further to the team's allure.”

⤴ The evaluation-team’s inducement for choosing Fieldstudio as a participating team in their brief for New European Bauhaus in the northern Swedish municipalities. Earlier in the year, Swedish institute for Architecture and Designn, ArkDes, announced the open call together with multiple municipal, industry related and organizational actors, as a part of the EU iniative ⤵

We are now looking for creative and cross-disciplinary teams who can become part of the work with the New European Bauhaus in Sweden. Join us and develop concept sketches for the future's beautiful, sustainable and inclusive living environments in Kiruna, Gällivare, Boden, Luleå, Skellefteå and Umeå. The New European Bauhaus is an initiative that makes it possible to think completely new about what society should be and who should shape it. It is a creative and cross-disciplinary initiative, a meeting place where future ways of living are to be shaped, at the intersection of art, culture, social inclusion, science and technology. Large-scale green industrial investments are now taking place in Norrbotten and Västerbotten. What does this mean for the people, places and culture? What story can this change generate?

⤴ Our project would become divided into three terms, a research heavy phase, a field study and a productive stage. The initial weeks and months after our assignment, we would spend virtually in a mapping software, compiling, discussing and doing individual and group based research. ⤵

⤴ The field study meant five days, together with the other teams assigned the Luleå and Boden municipalities, in which we conducted workshops, held interviews, took digital and physical samples and spent time carving a direction towards a sketch, a formation or a formulated problem description ⤵

⤴ The end phrase, a vision of a cultural microsystem, an equivalence or counterweight to a technological megasystem, and a larger scale formulation applicable to many of the Arctic longitude cities or rural communities faced with the outflux of culture and influx of industry.⤵