Research Seminars

The seminars are held on Wednesdays in a seminar room at Umeå School of Architecture. They consist in a short presentation based on work in progress or a research publication, followed by a collective discussion.  
 
For further information on UMA Research Seminars on Architecture please contact Elena Vazquez Peña and Ebba Högström.

 

 UMA Research Seminars – Spring 2025 

January 15 — Alejandro Haiek : The Landscape is [not] a Machine: Geo.decoding Altered Landscapes. 

Time and location: 15-17, Seminar Room 3 

Alejandro Haiek will present research from his PhD dissertation, conducted at the University of Genova.  

January 22 — James Brown  

Time and location: 15-17, Seminar Room 3 
 
Title: Draft funding application “The future and development of forests and the forest sector in a global context” 
  
James and the UMA Architecture and Wood research group invite colleagues to join to discuss a draft application to the Formas call that is due 2025-02-04. 
 
The proposed project will involve UMA, UMU’s Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, ArkDes, and the Institute of Architecture and Design at Riga Technical University. 
 
You are asked to review two documents in advance: 
  
The call (± 2,500 words) https://formas.se/en/start-page/apply-for-funding/all-calls/calls/2024-10-10-the-future-and-development-of-forests-and-the-forest-sector-in-a-global-context.html 
  
Strategy for Formas’ role for forest-related research and innovation (July 2024) (± 5,000 words) https://formas.se/en/start-page/apply-for-funding/all-calls/calls/2024-10-10-the-future-and-development-of-forests-and-the-forest-sector-in-a-global-context.html 

February 5 — EURAU 26 LATITUDES. Situated reflections on architectural research, hosted by Maria Luna Nobile and Carla Collevecchio

Time and location: 13-15, Seminar Room 3 
 
The research seminar aims at presenting and discussing the first outline of the EURAU 2026 European Research in Architecture and Urbanism Symposium that will be hosted by UMA in June 2026 on the topic: LATITUDES. Situated reflections on architectural research.  
 
This theme is grounded on scientific and theoretical bases explored from specific perspectives within the discipline of architecture. More specifically the theme is explored at UMA within studios, courses and research groups, producing an expanded vision of situated research at different latitudes. 

February 19 — Andrea Gimeno Sánchez

Time and location: 14-16, Seminar Room 3 
 
Title: From the Margins to the Core: Histories of environmentalism, sustainability, and planning, 1970s-2000 
 
Andrea Gimeno Sánchez is a PhD Student at the Swedish School of Planning, Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), Karlskrona, Sweden. Her research is focused in the shifting paradigms on collective housing from the 70’s to the 90’s and the neoliberal turn. Her research is funded by the UrbanHist H2020 Research Program. 

March 19  — Julio Diarte and Ebba Högström

Time and location: 14-16, Seminar Room 3

On March 19th, we will have a Research seminar in two parts, where Julio Diarte and Ebba Högström will share their ongoing research.  
 
Julio Diarte will present his research titled “Exploring new material and process formulation of 3D printed biobased composites for future building materials”.  

Biobased materials have emerged as an environmentally viable alternative to produce bio composites and potentially replace contaminating materials in the building industry. The project explores material formulations with different type of biomasses for production of building materials derived from Swedish manufacturers leftovers. These biomasses include sawdust from forestry industry, flex fibers from automobile industry, cellulose fiber from packaging waste, and biochar from the energy industry. The goal is to impulse a new value chain for bio-based waste by developing new building material workflows integrating 3d printing for flexible and responsive production. The seminar will present preliminary work developed at the BioForm Lab in collaboration with researchers from building physics and material science. 
 
Dr. Julio Diarte is an assistant professor at UMA and leads the BioForm Lab. He holds a PhD in Architecture from Penn State University (2020) and his research focuses on repurposing biobased waste materials as resource for sustainable building materials.


Image: BioFormLab, by Julio Diarte

Ebba Högström will present the newly published edited volume Routledge Handbook of Spaces of Mental Health and Wellbeing where she has been part of the international and cross-disciplinary editorial team, editor for the section Institutional and Post-institutional spaces, and together with Chris Philo co-authored the chapter Mental health geography in the cracks: between abolition and reform. 
 
The handbook critically examines spaces of mental health and wellbeing across multiple, often intersecting, domains from green and blue spaces to lived and embodied spaces, creative spaces, work and home spaces, and institutional and post-institutional spaces. It features 45 chapters from leading international scholars who collectively interrogate the spatial dimensions of mental health and wellbeing from conceptual and experiential viewpoints. It has five main sections – (1) green and blue spaces, (2) lived and embodied spaces, (3) creative spaces, (4) work and home spaces, and (5) institutional and post-institutional spaces. The key benefits of this book include a great appreciation of the complex networks and assemblages of mental health and wellbeing, the value of a geographical/spatial approach to thinking about mental health, and the vast array of spaces and places that are implicated in human and posthuman notions of wellbeing. 
 
Ebba will present the process of editing the handbook as well as the content of her section Institutional and Post-institutional spaces and her own chapter contribution. 

April 9 — Sofie Pelsmakers, hosted by James Brown 

Time and location: 14-16, Seminar Room 3 
Title: Sustainable Housing Design at Tampere University

The Sustainable Housing Design research group ASUTUT conducts user-centric and process-oriented research that responds to and anticipates societal challenges in contemporary housing design in a rapidly changing world. Its chair, Professor Sofie Pelsmakers, will visit UMA to talk about the recent research undertaken in the group and highlight strategies for undertaking successful research projects in housing in the Nordic region. 
 
Sofie Pelsmakers is Professor of Sustainable Housing Design at Tampere University in Finland and leader of ASUTUT. From 2018 to 2019, she was at Aarhus University, where she taught on the Emerging Architectures and Sustainability programme and worked in the Emerging Architectures and Sustainability research group. From 2016 to 2018 she was Co-Director of the interdisciplinary MSc Sustainable Architecture Studies and Lecturer in Environmental Design at the University of Sheffield. With UMA Associate Professor James Benedict Brown is the co-editor of the forthcoming book Architectural Thinking in a Climate Emergency (Taylor & Francis, 2025). She is the co-author of Designing for the Climate Emergency: A Guide for Architecture Students (RIBA Publishing, 2022), Energy, People, Buildings: Making Sustainable Architecture Work (RIBA Publishing, 2021) and the author of The Environmental Design Pocketbook (RIBA Publishing, 2019). 


Image: Sofie Pelsmakers

May 14 — Eleanor Carpenter  

Time and location: 14-16, Seminar Room 3 
Title: Nuclear Field work in Australia 
 
Ele Carpenter will present her Nuclear Culture fieldwork from the Northern Territory of Australia and the Joint Research Centre of the European Union, Ispra, Italy, carried out during 2024. This curatorial research into planetary nuclear aesthetics invites us to stay with the trouble of the Nuclear Anthropocene through a decolonial unravelling of the spatial and social aesthetics of nuclear technoscientific practices. The research investigates relationships between nuclear contexts, visual culture and artistic practices, moving between studio visits, field work, undertaking radiation protection surveys, and participating in expert working groups1. Findings are presented in public lectures, written essays and curated exhibitions which define new conceptual frameworks for critical analysis of the visual and material conditions of nuclear art and culture.

Image: Ele Carpenter in the Essor Reactor Control Room, JRC, Ispra, Italy 2024.

Research seminars – Fall 2023

November 15 — Mikael Andersson: The architect’s studio – a rhizomatic space 

Mikael Andersson, doctoral student in Museology at the Department of Culture and Media Studies, critic, and editor, will present his ongoing PhD project “The architect’s studio – a rhizomatic space”. 
 
Location: 
15 November 2023 15.30 – 17.00 
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 3 

Abstract: 
In this UMA research seminar Mikael will present his ongoing PhD project “The architect’s studio – a rhizomatic space”. The aim with the project is to investigate how the preserved architect studio functions, is perceived, experienced and interpreted as an exhibition space. How can the non-hierarchical structures that these spaces represent, and the certain kind of material feeling, or perhaps knowledge, that is derived from the sensuous and emotional experiences that these spaces generate (both in the immediate spatial situation, through our memories, and as representations) be conceptualized? An implicit goal with this aim is to formulate a critique towards how architectural and design practices in most (modern) museum contexts have been reduced to a visual sphere. The seminar will focus on the aesthetic-ideological background of the study; musealization processes; how to read space; and the idea of ‘writing as method’. 

December 6 — Julio Diarte and Elena Vazquez: Design Computation + Materials

Julio Diarte, assistant professor at Umeå School of Architecture, and Elena Vazquez, associate professor at Umeå School of Architecture, discuss the potential of critical making for materials research in architectural design education. 
 
Location: 
6 December 2023 15.30-17.00 
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 3 

Abstract:  
This UMA research seminar presents the work done by Julio Diarte and Elena Vazquez on the application of computational design tools for materials research in architectural design and construction. Their work is based on the idea of critical making—a practice that engages with nature and technology, according to Ratto, 2016—as a way of deliberately intervening the physical world while designing and learning with materials. By using both craft and/or digital based tools, they develop and formalize methods and devices to work with different materials including waste or brand-new corrugated cardboard, wood, and using techniques such as creasing, laminating, folding, kirigami, and others. The presentation will illustrate different case studies linking research and education at both undergraduate and graduate levels. 

December 13 — James Benedict Brown: Collaborating in Architecture's Afterlife 

James Benedict Brown, associate professor at Umeå School of Architecture, and Maria Roth, professor at the Department of Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, present cutting-edge EU-funded international research in architectural education. 
 
Location: 
13 December 2023 15.30-17.00 
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 3 

 

Abstract: 
The definition of what is architecture and what it means to be an architect often falls outside traditional understandings of the profession such as, simply, ‘the design of buildings’. Between June 2021 and April 2022, the research project Architecture’s Afterlife solicited the participation of 3636 architecture graduates across Europe. 38% of respondents were working exclusively or partially in sectors other than architecture, yet when asked whether and when they had left architecture, only a small percentage of this 38% believed that they had indeed ‘left’ architecture. This percentage is understood as practitioners whose work is complementary, even instrumental to architecture. 
 
The multi-sector impact of an architectural qualification explores the relationships between the disciplinarity of architecture and its interdisciplinarity as a way to adapt architecture to societal changes, thus responding to systemic crises. Architecture’s Afterlife offers an alternative to this binary view, turning it into a relationship of complementarity. The interdisciplinarity of architecture is a necessary means through which architecture constantly redefines itself and adapts to resilient futures. Architecture’s Afterlife demonstrates that what is commonly understood as ‘other than architecture’ defines a necessary space of inquiry and adaptation for architecture to respond to contemporary shared challenges, thus making architecture current. 

January 10 — Maria Luna Nobile: Reading the contemporary city. Architectural experiments on the As found  

Maria Luna Nobile, associate professor at Umeå School of Architecture, together with  Elke Couchez  Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Hasselt   and  Leeke  Reinders,  anthropologist at the Chair of Urban Architecture TU Delft,  present the work in progress of the paper “ Writing over a marked canvas” following the discussion and exchange during the  As found conference. 

Location: 
10 January 2024 15.30 – 17.00
Umeå School of Architecture:  Seminar room  3 

Abstract: 
Looking at the contemporary city, understanding the complexity and relationship between architecture and its inhabitants is to be considered a first and important moment of the design process. This attitude is defined as the capacity of ‘reading’ the context, especially when it relates to the constructed environment.  
This reflection states a fundamental aspect of the research in architecture and urban design in contemporary times and opens up new questions for the future. On one side the research on the design of the contemporary city and its multiple transformations and on the other side the education of future architects able to deal with this complexity. The reflection initiated at the conference in Hasselt has been further developed in the paper proposal “Writing over a marked canvas”. The paper explores the notion of  “reading" as a method for urban reuse in research and education by applying two lenses: a historical one following the path of ILAUD and other theories and a contemporary lens based on the reflection on the experiments conducted in education and illustrated through the experience of a cycle of four years in the architectural design studio, starting from "Unlayering Umeå” up to the current “The City as a Laboratory”.                 
This UMA research seminar presents the reflections on the investigation conducted by the research group "Designing the contemporary city” shared during and after the  As found colloquium on Adaptive reuse, held in Hasselt in September 2023 and on the development of a contribution for the special issue of the magazine Future Anterior “Experimental Preservation as a Social Practice”.  
 

Research Seminars – Spring 2023

February 22 — Ele Carpenter: Nuclear Decoloniality

Ele Carpenter, Professor of Interdisciplinary Art and Culture at Umeå School of Architecture, will give a talk about her curatorial research on Nuclear Decoloniality with respondents: Kristina Sehlin MacNeil, Deputy Director of Vardduo, and Annika Egan-Sjolander, Professor Culture and Media Studies at Umeå University.
 
Location:
22 February 2023 10:00-11:30 CET
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 4

Caption: Miamia, Sickness Country. 
 
Abstract:
This UMA research seminar will introduce Ele Carpenter’s curatorial research on nuclear decoloniality, with a specific focus on the deep time intergenerational knowledge transfer of radiation protection within aboriginal communities in Gunbalanya in the Northern Territory of Australia. 
 
Artists Alex Ressel and Kerri Meehan have been working in the region for over five years, collaborating with artists at the Injalak Arts Centre. They have produced a body of work investigating and recording the nuclear culture of the region which provides new insights into the European Radioactive Waste Management approach to the preservation of ‘Records, Knowledge and Memory’ (RK&M) of geologic repositories for high level radioactive waste.  
 
Whilst the artistic projects and practices are established, there is a need to clarify the curatorial research methodology in relation to the new round of European discourses in the field. The aim is to find ways for aboriginal knowledge to make a major contribution to the EGAP process, transforming the debate from one of localized technical solutions into a more geopolitical and decolonial discourse of responsibility. 
 
In this seminar Ele Carpenter has invited experts in decolonial discourses in Australia, and nuclear waste management in Sweden to give feedback on her curatorial approach and help to identify new research partnerships and funding opportunities.

March 8 — Luis Berríos-Negrón: Of nurseries, and other possible forms of phenomenotechnical geoengineering

Luis Berríos-Negrón, Postdoctoral fellow at Umeå School of Architecture, presents the research statement of his work at UmArts.
 
Location:
8 March 2023 15:30-17:00 CET
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 4

Caption: Untitled #02 (Pedestal Butterfly Garden) 2022.

Abstract:
Currently geoengineering is limited to scaleless, hemispheric, technological mitigation. During his postdoc, Luis Berríos-Negrón will focus on exploring performative, sculptural, and spatial forms and manners that may critically challenge and shape other possible definitions of this controversial practice. To give way to that prospectus, Luis reviews recent research and teaching work in Puerto Rico, Switzerland and Sweden, presenting some initial views into related traditional and experimental, individual and collective art and science research methodologies. He contrasts these regions practicing different cultural and scientific techniques for observing and remediating colonial/industrial traumas and cataclysms on Caribbean forests, and on Alpine and Nordic riparian zones. Luis associates these materials to his continuing critical survey of the history of ‘greenhouse’ as practice-based research medium through the subset of ‘tree nurseries’. He intuits that expanded notions of ‘nurseries’ may facilitate or even heighten unforeseen sensory, physical, and mythical relations between human and more-than-human species as a potential, affirmative form of phenomenotechnique (i.e. as simultaneous specimen, space, and display structure for observation). These potential, alternative relations may generate proportional forms of geoengineering that recognize colonial memory and climate injustice, while affirming the elusive imperative of biodiversity.

April 5 — Francesco Camilli: Re-valuing urban planning and design in the face of climate change 

Francesco Camilli, postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian Insitute of Science and Technology, presents his research work within the NTNU Smart Sustainable Cities group. 
 
Location: 
5 April 2023 10.30am-12am 
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 3 

Abstract: 
This UMA Research Seminar will introduce Francesco Camilli’s ongoing postdoctoral research on how to make the transition of cities towards climate neutrality attractive, sustainable, and inclusive, according to the principles of the New European Bauhaus initiative.  
The research will contribute to creating and implementing an Impact Model, with a related body of research and guidance, that allows cities to identify essential leverage points for systemic change towards climate neutrality, by including all aspectual layers of sustainability (ecological, infrastructural, social, cultural, economic, aesthetical, legal, etc.). It will function both as a documenting and assessing tool, and a guidance instrument to improve shared understanding and support for cross-cutting decision-making and implementation between stakeholders from different sectors and disciplines. 
The research will be carried out within the Smart Sustainable Cities group at the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology, which is responsible for several research projects in the framework of the New European Bauhaus initiative. It will particularly focus on the role of public space and its design in the transition to climate neutrality. It will analyse case studies selected among stakeholders involved in the various projects of the Smart Sustainable Cities group. 

April 19 — Katrin Holmqvist-Sten: Three kulturhus in the North

Katrin Holmqvist-Sten, Associate professor at Umeå School of Architecture, presents a work-in-progress paper.
 
Location:
19 April 2023 10:00-11.30 CET
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 4

Caption:
Kulturens hus, Luleå. Photo: Katrin Holmqvist-Sten
 
Abstract:
This UMA research seminar will focus on an article, work-in-progress in Swedish, about three houses of culture along Norrlandskusten. Luleå, Umeå and Skellefteå have all invested in cultural centers in recent decades. In Luleå, Kulturens hus was inaugurated in 2007, in Umeå Väven was completed in 2014, and seven years later, Sara Kulturhus opened in Skellefteå. These are large and multifunctional projects with signs of strategic place making in central locations in each city. The three houses of culture are also claimed to be landmarks, not only because of their size and location, but also through the representative architecture which plays a significant role associating to the local, to the north and/or to tradition, in short, the specific context. In Sweden the spatial infrastructure for culture, today but also historically, is widely neglected in the political goals for culture hence placing it in the hands of other political fields and ambitions. In her article, Katrin investigates the architectural design of these three houses of culture by looking into the tensions between today and history, local and global aspirations, cultural policy, and other policy fields on both a national and regional level, etc.

May 3 — Daniel Movilla Vega: Good housing architecture today

Daniel Movilla Vega, associate professor at Umeå School of Architecture, presents an ongoing research project.
 
Location:
3 May 2023 15:30-17:00 CET
Umeå School of Architecture: Seminar room 3

 

 

Abstract:
‘God bostad i dag’ investigates the impact of Sweden’s contemporary housing architecture on their residents, the environment, and society. It does so by addressing the tools used by the municipalities to evaluate housing projects. In Sweden, these tools are very precise when it comes to the spatial configuration of the projects, but other important aspects such as their environmental impact or their societal scope are just briefly considered. By developing specific parameters to incorporate these aspects into housing assessment at a municipal scale, ‘God bostad i dag’ intends to enrich the evaluation criteria of housing projects and, in so doing, contribute to an improvement of Sweden’s residential architecture.