Course syllabus
Information about your course
The course is aimed at architecture, landscape architecture and design students, and is a collaboration between HDK-Valand Campus Steneby and College of Built Environments at University of Washington.
The objective is to design and construct a small unit of outdoor space together with the members of a rural community. Through the process, the students will get to understand the process of community participatory design and build.
This year, the course is taking place in Dals Långed, a site of HDK-Valand Steneby campus, under a working title Floating city. It is the third in a series of Design build projects in Dals Långed, where architecture, landscape architecture and design students collaborate with the local population to create public meeting places in Dals Långed and thereby develop the town's living environment. During 2018 and 2019, Långed park was built, with a public sauna, an outdoor kitchen and other amenities. The park was warmly welcomed by locals and tourists, and the sauna has become a successful place for community and social exchange with over 400 bookings per year, and winning several design awards.
The idea of the Floating City is to further connect Dals Långed to water, as the element of water is very essential to the character of the place. It also builds on a legacy of many iconic projects where water enabled materialisation of ideas which were difficult to conceive on land: from Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo to Raumlabor’s Floating Berlin.
Floating city will be a venue for different cultural events, which will attempt to cover a wide range of target audiences, and also a range of preferences when it comes to active vs. passive participation. The venue would be an addition to existing public space of Långed Park, and as it is envisioned as collection of several floating platforms, it would also have the possibility of traveling through Dalsland Kanal to other places. A list of possible activities includes a stage for music and theatre performances, artist in residence studio, vegetable garden, grill place, bathhouse, outdoor classroom and more. The exact program would be developed through collaboration of all interested stakeholders - local inhabitants, students, business owners and more.
The scope of this project is to design and construct a usable prototype of a modular floating structure during summer 2024. The project constitutes a test arena and is experimental in nature as it explores what such a platform could mean and how it could function in a long-term perspective. Within the project, two small public events will be organized to test and evaluate the proposed solutions: thus the project is not only about participatory creation of public space in the community, but also about the interlace of different categories of activities, which will hopefully embed the vessel in the community without it feeling estranged or removed from the non-art oriented people.
The project is carried out in partnership with University of Washington and Dals Långeds Utvecklingsråd.
Student Portal
In the Student Portal you will find information that is good to know as a new student.
Register for your courses
To confirm your place on the course, you need to register. It is only when you have registered that you are considered a student on the course and can access all course material in Canvas.
Register for the course in Ladok Registration is open 8-11 June 2024. If you do not register in time, you will lose your place on the course.
Contact
If you have questions about registration, please contact Student Affairs: admission@hdk-valand.gu.se.
For questions about the course content and layout, please contact the course responsible teacher.
Schedule
You will find your course schedule in Canvas Calendar.
Note that the course schedule is preliminary up to two weeks before the course starts.
Course Syllabus and Reading List
Find the course syllabus and reading list in the course catalogue, use the course code to search for the course at the University of Gothenburg website.
Study Counseling
If you have questions about your studies, pedagogical support, approved leave of studies, course prerequisites, etc. you are welcome to contact the Study Counselor at Campus Steneby Jannika Johansson jannika.johansson@gu.se
Student Health
It is important that you are feeling well and that you feel that you can manage your studies. You can contact the student health service and there are also various resources that you can use on your own. Read more about student health in the Student Portal.
Sustainable Student Life
In a Canvas space called Sustainable student life you can find various resources from Feelgood and others. In this Canvas space you will find courses, videos and recorded webinars on various themes relating to student health and study environment, such as study technique and stress management.
Follow the link below to go to Canvas, where you can register yourself to the Canvas course by clicking the button. Then you will have access to all of the content in the space whenever and however you like.