Research group Designing Cycles at 64° - Interior Landscapes and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus works towards turning buildings and their inhabitants from being consumers to becoming producers. The aim is to turn our ecological footprint into a positive one given the specific conditions of the subarctic climate zone with its very short growing season and extreme winters further challenged by the impacts and uncertainties of climate change.
At 64° latitude, interior landscapes offer interesting possibilities to extend growing seasons and diversify crops, to reduce energy consumption while providing hybrid living spaces between inside and outside. By exploring greenhouse extensions and building envelopes as local passive architectural solutions, this project sets out to build productive interfaces between the private and public sector, academia involving the disciplines of architecture and urban planning, building technology, urban water management and plant physiology and vertical gardening as well as the general public in a living lab format.
Retrofitting the existing building stock, repurposing vacancies, and expanding our building performance may accumulatively have a systemic impact both in terms of reducing water and energy consumption, as well as food miles, while buffering existing infrastructure networks and enabling local food production on site. Expanding on Bengt Warne’s Naturhus (1974) and following examples, we anticipate new multifunctional architectural models applicable in various contexts and scales. Climate change demands a recalibration of our built environment to become more resilient.
This research takes a multi-scalar approach addressing individual building typologies and, exemplarily for the climate adaptation of northern climate zones, the region of Umeå with its diverse urban and rural fabric. The active involvement of all stakeholders in the planning and future use of buildings and open spaces becomes key. How to create spaces that contribute to community building and social interaction while integrating a maximum of ecosystemic services is therefore a central question that demands for implementable methods, tools, processes, and design solutions. The research group focuses on (but is not limited to) three of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities; 12, Responsible Consumption and Production; 13, Climate Action.
Following the UMA lab principle, this research group also explores productive formats of linking architectural education with ongoing research activities.
Carlos Arias, Aquatic Biology, senior researcher, Aarhus University
Rosario Garcia Gíl, Plant physiology, Sveriges Landsbruksuniveritet
Umeå Municipality
Vidden Bostad AB
Kollektivhus Umeå
