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Radical Domesticities. The Lives of Others

Home is frequently envisioned by architects as a static backdrop for human existence, yet it is, in fact, a changing ecosystem where microorganisms, robots, animals, and other visible and invisible agents coexist and interact. This raises a fundamental question: who truly holds agency in the architecture of domestic space? In response to this query, the studio widens the horizon of Swedish domestic space to advance into less-charted territories —specifically, the meanings of domestic space in relation to other more-than-human worlds. Our first displacement of the domestic will involve extending agency beyond the normative dweller, paying attention to other humans that remain hidden behind cultural narratives of class, gender, body conformity, ableism, sexuality, race, or age. In a second displacement, the studio will extend agency beyond humans, recognizing the roles of other agents —such as objects, animals, rooms, technologies, or regulations— as active participants in the construction of the Swedish home. The studio will follow the mundane actions of these others (other humans and other things), as politically charged agents subject to domestication. The goal is to disrupt the status quo of the Swedish home to unhinge some of the rigidities and limitations of today’s housing market.

Context of Investigation
The studio investigation will focus on the operational dynamics of three key administrative bodies in Sweden: Boverket (the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building, and Planning), the regional authorities, and the municipalities. These entities work in tandem to regulate and deliver quality housing —a task made increasingly complex by Sweden's acute housing shortage. The sharp decline in residential construction over the past year and ongoing population growth in Swedish municipalities have put additional pressure on housing production. This strain disproportionately affects people in vulnerable economic or health conditions and impacts tenant stability, employers’ ability to recruit, or the viability of condominiums within municipalities. By understanding the distribution of roles and responsibilities in the co-production of domestic space across national, regional, and municipal scales, the students are expected to generate precise design insights that inform sustainable and inclusive pathways for the future of Swedish housing.

Studio Agenda and Methodology
Radical Domesticities is a research-based design studio that explores housing architecture and domestic space as two facets of a single, yet complex phenomenon: the Swedish home. Its mission is to address the most critical challenges facing housing today by generating new insights into the present and future of the Swedish home. The students will analyze how and by whom dwellings are being built in Sweden; investigate the spatial, tectonic, and social components of housing projects; and speculate on the conceptualization, design, construction, and representation of Swedish domestic space. During the autumn semester, the studio initiates a research phase with three architectural experiments, where students design a domestic room, a residential cluster, and a dwelling unit. In the spring, students develop a single project focused on domestic space as a larger architectural experiment, engaging with the agents, methods, and tectonics that shape it.

Studio teachers
Daniel Movilla Vega (studio responsible), Mette Harder, Oskar H. Germann. Guest teachers: Lluis J. Liñán, Esperanza Campaña Barquero.

Latest update: 2024-09-02