Assignment

Zaha Hadid Architects: Väsby Entré (2012–)

This course will focus on the suburbs, exurbs and the dynamics of an expanding urban fabric in Greater Stockholm. The purpose is to study the relationship between the different parts of Metropolitan Stockholm. The growth is never homogeneous, it results from the competition that has generated different development techniques in different parts, such as: tax policies, economic incentives, singular and sometimes spectacular architectural projects, etc.
The study excludes the obvious study object – the City of Stockholm – as it is contentiously studied, super complex and interesting in many ways, it also blocks ways of taking a fresh look at 24 other urban municipalities that makes up Greater Stockholm.

Research issues to consider
– A timeline of the municipality’s development, politics and policies during the post-war period until today
– Focus on today: How do the municipalities respond to the main challenges of contemporary Swedish society? And, what has actually changed since the the “miljonprogrammet”?
– What kind of impact does Architecture have on urban development today and the degree of architect’s involvement in the urban development.
– Important projects, typologies and type of programs that have the most influence on the contemporary urban development in the suburbia.
– In response to the ‘starchitects’ role in many global cities, what kind of role should architects have in the urban development in the future?
– Who builds the city? What type of decision making constellations and power structures define the process of development in each municipality and what type of political and ideological forces dominate?
– Describe the qualities of Swedish suburbia of today
– s there a distinction between the city and suburb of today in the given context of Greater Stockholm?
– Where does the money come from? Lenders, speculators,
–  Beyond suburbia: what kind of urban typologies can we find outside the classic images av suburban lif. Does sprawl, rurban clusters, zoomburbs and exurbs exist here?

Type of work: collaborative in groups of 8–9 people. See the post on groups.
Delivery: Thursday, 12th September 13:00 @ server
Type: PDF
Format: A4, standing. Layout according to InDesign template, as presented here on the blog on Thursday the 5th.
Required pages: Municipality ID-Card + plan: as it is now + plan: planned expansions. Please check the template post for specific info on these pages.
Presentation: The project will be presented as a seminar/discussion on the afternoon Friday the 13th. And, the collective research will be presented on-line as PDF-document.