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Uma BA2 project book 2011
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umeå school of architecture
uma projects
Point of no return4th semester 2011
edited by:Amanda EliassonJohan LöwstettEmili NorénJohan UddénIda Wänstedt
‘Point of no Return’
1. (aviation) The point in an aircraft’s flight when there is insufficient fuel to reverse direction and return to the place of origin.
2. (idiomatic) The point in any journey, process, or sequence of events when it is no longer possible to reverse course or stop the process.
www.wiktionary.org
This book was made by Amanda Eliasson, Johan Löwstett, Emili Norén,Johan Uddén, Ida Wänstedt. We did the concept, editing, page design and layout.
© 2011 Umeå School of Architecture, UmeåUmeå University, Swedenwww.arch.umu.se
Proof reading: Richard Conway, Johanna Gullberg, Ebba Hallin, Katja HogenboomTranslation: Johanna GullbergCover: Ida WänstedtPhotography, p16: Geson Rydén (bottom), Tobias Westerlund (top)All other images: Individual authors
Typefaces: Ostrich Sans Rounded, Open BaskervillePaper: Rough Lynx, 120 gramsPrint: Original Umeå, Sweden, November 2011ISBN:
7
peter kjær14 prefacejohan löwstett17 editorial text
20 mapping Umea HISTORY
nina bäckström24 SOUVENIRS OF HISTORYnathalie jonsson26 CROSSINGgeson rydén28 AFTER THE AIRPORT
olle forsgren, umeå city architect30 THE VISION
klara junvik34 PIECES OF AIRjuho remes36 UMEA - VAASA INTERNATIONALemil aludden38 MEETING FLOWSlina oldéen40 A MOVING EXPERIENCE
42 TRANSPORT PUBLIC/PRIVATE
cajsa winge46 BIKEPORTemelie sundström48 CONNECTED FLOWSagnes johansson50 BOARDWALK AIRPORTsara zetterlund52 THE AIRPORT AS A FACTORY
roemer van toorn, professor54 CITY + AIRPORT = THE FUTURe
9
TABLE OF CONTENTS
emil myrsell58 AIRPORT FOR USmaria argentea60 THE AIRPORT IS NOT A CITYkatarina rohdin62 HIDDEN GEMbjörn ylinenpää64 THE ANIMAL AND THE MACHINE
66 PROPERTIES POPULATION
patrik modée70 A CUSTOM JOBjohannes sverlander72 AIRPORT AS SPEAKER’S CORNERjoakim svahn74 SYMBIOSISylva af kleen76 A MEETING ABOVE
katja hogenboom, architect78 TOWARDS THE OPEN AIRPORT
johan lövstett82 GAME THE SYSTEMsofia sjölin84 CURVATUREsimon gotthard86 BETWEEN THE ANALOGUE AND THE DIGITALalexander lundmark88 THE ADAPTABLE CITY
90 TOURISM BRANDING
hanna eliasson94 OPPO SITEfrida stockhaus96 UMEA INTERFACEjohan lövgren98 VIEWUMEA
veronika mikolasevic100 SOAK IN WAITING
johanna gullberg, architect102 THE ARCHITECT’S SUPERPOWERS
amanda eliasson106 DIRTY RICHida wänstedt108 A-CITYemili norén110 A TEMPORARYgöran eriksson112 A POINT OF VIEW
114 NATURE CLIMATE
karin olsson118 VINTERGATANjacob everhed120 COMMON DELIGHTanna israelsson122 ARRIVING AMONG STORIES
linda jonsson, commercial manager swedavia124 UMEA AIRPORT - THE AIRPORT OF THE FUTURE
tobias westerlund128 INTERFACEanahid behzadnia130 AIR CULTUREviktor isaksson132 FLOW-verVIEWmalin isaksson134 URBAN BALANCE
136 ENERGY
ida huggert138 CITY EXTENDED
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linn persson140 BEAUTIFUL MACHINEalbin grind142 CITY IN TRANSITjohan uddén144 clashing in love
ebba hallin146 CITY SEARCH
rebecka örtegren150 CUTS FOR TIME AND TASTEalexander olsson152 FORWARD UP AND AWAYrebecca wallin154 diorama
157 acknowledgements
TABLE OF CONTENTS
13
assignment:the airport as metropolis
UMA 2nd year students present their work from Spring 2011.
During Spring 2011, UMA 2nd year students produced a project for a new airport terminal in Umeå.
In 2nd year the students are introduced to investigating architecture in different kinds of context such as cultural context and urban context. They also work with urban planning, history of urban development, different aspects of technology and theory of architecture addressing thresholds in the public realm.
Since airports tend to include more and more elements from urban life, the idea is to explore airports as simulated cityscapes that include shops of every kind, cafés, restaurants, chapels, relaxation rooms, first aid, police, surveillance systems etc.
Umeå Airport is fundamentally a local/regional airport, however the presence of the university helps to establish an international profile for the city. In the future this aspect should be considered more and more significant. Researchers, students and business people from the global context move in and out and many people living in Umeå will also move around the globe. One of the scenarios this project deals with is the probable demand for a larger and more international airport.
In the airport some situations closely reflect processes and developments in cities they arejust more controlled. Therefore by studying the conditions for the future airport we might increase our understanding of the development in the contemporary society and especially in cities. By doing this we can address issues of safety - security - common space - controlled space - commercial space - segregated space - all addressed from the perspective
14
of thresholds. We can also examine other questions such as: can we distribute the airport? Can we look at stressful situations such as check in, luggage delivery, security, boarding etc. in another way? Our students have also tried to raise the question: what is the future airport? - Is it an extreme continuation of the city like it tends to be now or...?
In many ways radical developments in society need to be reflected in architecture. This allows us to give support for strategic possibilities to help solve or improve problems in society. What we see here is the first attempt by the students to contribute to this future scenario. One of the most important aspects of architecture is the communication before, during and after the design process - this book is a typical example of ’post-design process communication’.
It’s a part of UMA policy to participate in the on-going debate on how to develop society. We do this by producing projects. It’s also our policy that our students and researchers work with questions and issues that relate to real issues in society, and to contribute to improving everyday life through architectural interventions. This publications shows our very first attempt to documents the UMA approach - more will follow.
Peter Kjær, Rector UMA
15
preface
17
There is an urgency for new ideas for the city and the common.
Johanna Gullberg, Ebba Hallin, Katja Hogenboom
The fuel tank of our society is draining itself. The shared interests of the cities; the common, have passed the point of no return. Our future seems uncertain and is continuously displaying a world of becoming; the patterns within the city are in a constant negotiation with itself. Opportunities for contributions are not just possible but necessary.
We, the students, were asked to contribute to a new agenda for the city. To approach this type of assignment is challenging; the inherent complexity creates immediate clouds of diffusions and uncertainties. These uncertainties are functioning as organisms that interfere and disturb our working process, hinting at new routes through the clouds. Together these routes start to reveal methods for us to use. By making this methodology public, the procedure and process of how we approach specific problems or situations enables us to both participate to the on-going debates in society and to reflect on our own work. This is the purpose of this book; to create a platform for discussions and reflections based on spatial proposals made from concrete conditions and premises. The content is made of student projects, research studies generated through innovative and critical methods; so called mappings, essays by teachers and a professor of Umeå School of Architecture (UMA) and text contributions from Umeå city planning office and Umeå airport. The purpose of this mixture is to display a variation of visionary ideas and expose real conditions and contexts in new and provoking forms.
The parameters in front of us are a city which is growing rapidly, an airport close to the city centers and a timespan of 40 years.
Umeå has been dissected into ten different categories, such as such social, economic and natural systems. The increased and renewed understanding of these systems raises questions as to how we should relate to our newly found knowledge.
Apart from our rector Peter Kjær’s preface there are six text contributions; two texts, that deals with questions related to the assignment and four essays by our teachers and professors at UMA. Umeå’s city architect; Olle Forsgren, and the commercial manager at Umeå Airport; Linda Jonsson, write about their visions of the future development of Umeå and how they see the city and the airport in a larger context. With these contributions an extra layer of realism has been added.
Professor Roemer van Toorn’s essay gives an overview of the complex and closely connected relationship between the city and the airport. It deals with deepening the reader’s knowledge of the theory surrounding the space produced by the airport and what changes these spaces produce in society.
editorial text
Exhibition Curated by:
Anna IsraelssonGeson RydénJoakim Svahn
Tobias WesterlundRebecka Örtegren
19
Our teachers; Johanna Gullberg, semester responsible, Ebba Hallin, and Katja Hogenboom, who assembled the assignment, were asked to write freely and independently of each other about their own thoughts and values relating to the assignment. Not only do their essays show fascinating insights they also tell us something about the methodology at UMA. Katja Hogenboom’s essay responds to the urgency for new ideas. It raises discussions on both contemporary social conditions and the need for alternative social structures through spatial interventions. Johanna Gullberg tells us about her view on responsibility and how we, as architect students could view our connection to society. These insights can guide us as to how we should approach the agenda for the city and how we could to translate it into practice. Ebba Hallin’s essay confronts the experience of the translation of our ideas and knowledge into more substantial proposals. In beautiful words she portrays the diffusions and uncertainties inherent in an assignment of this kind.
A red thread is formulated through the text contributions, they both display the chronology of the design process and the parameters in the assignment. The context of the texts is strengthened through the ordering of the mappings. The project works are then added to create a relevant discussion. The goal is that the projects enhance, question or criticize each other and the text contributions, both aesthetically and content wise. Each student was asked to choose a specific aspect of their project that they thought would be relevant to the debate. The results are often radical conceptualizations of space. By this means we, the editors, hope to create a speculative dialogue using architecture spawned from substantial analysis to question and criticize the status quo in society.
Together the teachers’ essays, the mappings and the student projects display processes which seem to be driven by a power which does not have a beginning nor end. The methodology behind the processes is fuelled by what appears to be a force of self-awareness; to be conscious of one’s own character, feelings, motives and desires. The reason for this is simple. You have to know yourself to be able to know why, where and how you should start approaching the problems and situations inside that confusing cloud. Somewhere inside proposals will be made.
As stated by Peter Kjær; there is more to do after the proposals are done. On September the 16th 2011 UMA’s first public exhibition outside the school’s premises; “The Airport as Metropolis” opened at Umeå airport. It is here the strength and necessity of “post design process communication” become obvious. By making our exhibitions and publications available to the public we can communicate with people outside the gated community of the architects.
This is the 2nd year students’ 4th semester assignment: “THE AIRPORT AS METROPOLIS”.
Johan Löwstett, project leader
editorial text
20
Although drawn from measured observations in the world, mappings are neither depic-tions nor representations but mental constructs, ideas that enable and effect change. In describing and visualizing otherwise hidden facts, maps set the stage for future work.
Mapping is already a project in the making.
James Corner
A city contains of many different qualities, elements that together makes the city as a whole. All these small pieces makes the different of how you experience and relate to a place but it is not always easy to se all the details. Mapping is a tool to help visualise and reorganise knowledge and helping us to se the relationships of the different qualities in new ways.In our mappings we have made an effort to rediscover Umeå. by divid-ing it in to 10 categories that covered all from politics to the climate and how people lives there life. Collecting information and putting it togheter in new ways to find the relationships and get a updated understanding and find the core in Umeå. The knowledge that we collected in our work with the mappings we could use in our own projects on Umeå. Some of the projects works as a critic of the information we found and others use the information to make better decision on what umeå needs in its future hjälpte forma concepts underlag för värdering . In the different mappings in this book is to share some of the conclusion we made and give you an understand-ing way our projects turned out as they did.
mapping umea
1940 1960-1970 2000-2010
22
mapping umeå
historyHow does Umeås history reflected in the city today? What has influenced the growth of the city? Umeås after the city fire has going from being a village into a city. Residential areas and industry has developed side by side.The city has grown on the two sides of the river, as an obstacle for the city to connect. During history bridges has popped up to solve the ob-stacles in the city. They connected the city but at the same time they in them self create boundaries in the city.
1940 1960-1970 2000-2010
souvenir
s o
f h
istory
nina
bäc
kstr
öm
Have the cities of today become man-made nature, planned fantasies? Do we live our lives in a manufactured scenery, a fantasy world? And if so, since when and for how long? We are striving for man-made perfection, a commercial paradise where everything is available in standardized sizes. But even in this make believe reality we cling on to our history as if it was an endangered species. In this overstrained delirium we fail to see how the future versions of times gone by are born today.
We plan for a goal, we strive to finish. In order to understand reality we have reduced it to a transition from point A to point B. Thereby we decide what was the beginning, the natural and authentic. We look at this fictional natural as divine, something to save, to fight for. We also decide what is the end, when to stop, what finished means. But can anything ever be finished? Can anything be forever? If nothing is ever finished, then everything is in progression. And if everything is changing, then everything is dying. The new can only be born to the cost of the old. Then why should we bother to save our history, when it is only a matter of time before it commits suicide. We are all walking dead, and so is our reality.
This contradiction is the surrogate-mother of Junkspace. A naïve attempt to break new ground while simultaneously do justice to the decomposing remnants of our ancestors’ interventions. Trying to combine the exaggerations of the past, with the minimalism of now, we end up with milk-and-water architecture. Endless spaces born without context and parents, but adopted by the walking dead society. The contradictory architecture refers to the past, it reaches for the future, but it remains torn in between. It leads to architecture which is afraid to be unique, it is a statement of decision agony. vWe need to question this duality and take a stand by creating our future and its history. We have to realize that architecture as all other materialistic things, no matter how grand and monumental, shall perish. Time changes everything. We can however take advantage of this inevitable destiny. We can create architecture that instead of striving for eternal life, evolves over time until it finally departs this life with dignity.
25
crossin
gna
thal
ie jo
nsso
n
Often airports are referred to as liminal, non-places, mainly because of the lack of history (time) and connection to its site. Liminality is the ending as well as the beginning of a certain perceived time, space or place. These discontinuities within continuities can be represented as a spatial intervention, a threshold, stretching across its site. Time and waiting are thresholds and this airport makes them visible. The airport runs over Ume River, representing time which will express that leaving for another place or arriving at this place takes time.
27
after t
he a
irport
geso
n ry
dén
Umeå 2050, 200 000 inhabitants, no airplanes...
The speed of trains has conquered continental travelling, and only the airships are left for other than emergency flights. The city got a tram system to move its many citizens around. Where the zeppelins need mooring towers and the trams need stations the city will also get what it needs. Great things on their own, together they will be not just an even greater thing, but will merge into Umeå and become nothing more than the aspect of Umeå that makes it the best place to live.
While the most visible and architecturally interesting part of this project is the towers, the greater intervention is the tram system; that will have the greatest impact on peoples lives. It is also the best symbol of what the project is, even though the towers don’t lack symbolism. It would have been easier and cheaper to let zeppelins land on a rebuilt airfield outside the city. To instead have towers in the city adds convenience but is also a visible reminder of a responsible way of keeping yesterday’s possibilities of flight and adventure while heading into a future where we have realised how to do these things in sustainable ways.
29
the vision
olle forsgren, city architect, umeå
the vision
olle forsgren, city architect, umeå
The visionUmeå is the natural centre of the region. However, despite steady population growth, Umeå still remains a scattered city. At present the official goal is to plan for a city of 200,000 inhabitants. This scenario means that the number of inhabitants and jobs will have to double. The continued implementation of functionalistic urban planning would result in a harmful expansion of the city. Instead, the vision is to achieve an urban densification that focuses on the everyday life of the inhabitants. The urban planning strategy should find a balance between the regional perspective and the wish to maintain and develop the central parts of Umeå as a diverse city with an increased number of residents.
The most important function of the city core is to be an attractive venue for the whole region, with spaces for commerce and activities that can create a city centre atmosphere. There is also a will to build housing within the city centre and to create city environments of a mixed-use character. A mix of functions creates more liveliness, increases safety and movement in the city core. At the larger scale,extra attention has to be paid to the connections between urban spaces. Well-made connections provide flows of people which stimulate business and activities. Pedestrians and cyclists are prioritized. The expansion of public transport and the prioritization of business-related traffic are conditions for sustainable growth, and have to be taken into account when planning the central parts of the city. The use and design of the urban spaces will be a key issue for the long term future. There will be discussions about what makes the city attractive, what the tasks of the city are, and what the character of its different parts should be.
The long streets lined with trees have given the city its moniker - The City of Birch Trees. The attractiveness and identity of the city can be enhanced through careful improvements to the existing neighbourhoods’ characteristics and key buildings. New blocks can be attached to the old in order to meet the target of an increased density. This focus provides good conditions for the combination of old and new, low and high, scattered and dense, and will strengthen existing qualities. The quality requirements for urban spaces and architecture must be demanding in order to achieve good living environs and attractive venues.
31
“A mix of function creates more liveliness, increases safety in the city core”
The urban milieu and architecture of Umeå should provide a basis for the development of private and public activities. The perception of Umeå as a city of knowledge and events should be reinforced while retaining its identity as a city for everyday life.
The airportThe Umeå region has a coordinated and functional system of transports and logistics, which supplies the entire northern part of the country. Several large infra-structural investments have now been implemented in Umeå and others are planned. Of particular importance are the railways Stambanan, Tvärbanan, Botniabanan, the airport, the E4 and E12 highways and the port and ferry connection between Umeå and Vaasa in Finland. Presently Umeå Airport is thesixth largest airport in the country in terms of passenger numbers. The airport is located close to the city centre and is a very important factor in the development and growth of Umeå. When it comes to being an attractive place for business, public activities, and the travelling citizen the airport’s location provides a very strong competitive advantage for Umeå and the region.
The future role of the city architectThe current division in the planning sector between different units and responsibilities have been necessary because of the size and strength of growth in the city. With this expansion comes a large amount of building permit and detailed development planning issues as wellas an increased need for strategic long-term planning. Improvements to the collaborations between these units are needed if the overall vision is to be retained. This need is highlighted through the ongoing consultations of the master plan, where investors have complained about the lack of consensus within the municipality. Insufficient resources can partly explain the communication problems. It is, however, clear that the routines of the planning process should also be reviewed. Within this review, which has already started, lays a chance to further define the profile of the city architect - towards an overall responsibility for the use and design of the central urban spaces.
33
Pieces o
f a
irkl
ara
junv
ik
The airport is split into smaller pieces.The pieces are strategically placed into the city.The pieces contain a concentration of movement, interaction, activities and process.The concentration produce ripples, areas around the pieces that are affected.The pieces are connected.The connection leads to where the airplanes depart and arrive.
The airport floats out in the city.The city meets the world.The world meets the city.
35
um
eA -
vaasa internatio
nal
juho
rem
es
An airport placed out in the baltic sea between Umeå and Vasa, creating a new connection between the two cities, a change for the whole region.
The terminal building is a play between the inside and the outside. Where the outside is made of rough concrete resembling the harsh climate and the cliffs that are found in the baltic sea. A heavy structure that melts into its surroundings.
The inside opens up to a large space that works as a counterweight to the many times hostile environment that is found outside, it also gives the visitor a chance to experience the place and its surroundings comfortably from inside the structure without moving outside the structure.
37
Meetin
g f
low
sem
il al
udde
n
Different directions, movements and people passing through, under, over and onwards!
The airport is not a detatched external part, but an intergrated feature of the city and the everyday life. Moving it into a new center of Umeå will make it accessible and useable.
The roof is a park landscape open to anyone passing by or seking it out. It also gives passengers the opportunity to experience the city without leaving the airport.
39
a m
ovin
g e
xperience
lina
oldé
en
This Airport is ever changing. The people here are ever changing. There is always a change in time and a change in mind. The people are replaced by other people. Thoughts are replaced with other thoughts. In this Airport there is a fast flow. In this Airport there is movement. People arrive. People departure. PEOPLE LIVE!
The city is the waiting hall. The city and the world are connected. The transport system is a structure spread out in each terminal. There is movement everywhere and you are always in contact with it. There is a structure with directions; you will never have to stop moving. The culture, the northern climate and physical activity is unified in the terminal, overlapping and side by side. This is a place you want to be in as a citizen and as a traveller.
41
Perception of accessibility to different location from Umeå city center
NUS
Nydalas
jön
Mariehem C
Gam
mliaC
oop Ersboda
Midgårdsskolan
Nolia
Umeda
lens scul
pture
park
Umeå arena Ö
n
Umeå airport
Ålidhem C
10 min centrum-distance
BIKE, CAR or BUS
Bus systemBike roads
Car traffic, density and speed
speed
den
sity
42
mapping umeå
transportWhat are the times and distances to, from and within the city?Transportation is about moving from one place to another in an easy way. It is essential in a city. But what about the distance the transportation covers? It can be perceived very differently depending on the context. These mappings explore accessibility in terms of transportation in the city. Both perceived and actual distances were traced and then compared in the same mapping. The intensity of different types of flows in the city has also been mapped, indicating which parts of the city contain the most movement.
Perception of accessibility to different location from Umeå city center
NUS
Nydalas
jön
Mariehem C
Gam
mliaC
oop Ersboda
Midgårdsskolan
Nolia
Umeda
lens scul
pture
park
Umeå arena Ö
n
Umeå airport
Ålidhem C
10 min centrum-distance
BIKE, CAR or BUS
Bus systemBike roads
Car traffic, density and speed
speed
den
sity
mapping umeå
public/privateFor the last sixty years cars have formed cities. The bikes are in conflict with the cars, are the pros of going by bike worth the risk of being hit by a car? The car is too predominant in the cityscape. More street space need to be left for bikes and pedestrians. These mappings investigate the situation of the roads and streets in Umeå, spaces that are some of the most public ones in a city. They introduce an interesting paradox. While being this public they are also very private, as you are cut off from your surroundings when travel-ling. It is an important public private space, therefore it needs to be accessible by more travellers than the ones that go by cars. Knowing the problems and dangers with the cars as rulers of urban space is the road to change.
44
very serious accident in conflict with motor vehicles
serious accident in conflict with motor vehicles
single bike accident
modest accident in conflict with motor vehicles
modest single bike accident
mild singel bike accident
mild accident in conflict with motor vehicles
bik
eport
cajs
a w
inge
This airport is not only the beginning or the end of a flight. It is the last and the first impression of Umeå. One node in a bikeroute.
When arriving you borrow a bike and start a new journey. When departuring you arrive from a bike excursion. In transit you borrow a bike and take a roundtrip to the city centre. I integrate the biking in the airport. I integrate bike lanes as an infrastructure in my project. You bike inside the building, the monument, the celebration of traveling by your own merits.
47
connected f
low
sem
elie
sun
dstr
öm
Today a city is not static; it’s a flow of different parts, different fragments. The city is a constant rotation of people, a never-ending rollercoaster of city-movement. It is an exchange of new experiences and knowledge, a continuous circulation of individual adventures.
This city of movement will be built upon a foundation of infrastructure, with the airport as it’s biggest node. The infrastructure will be what all people in the city rely on, making a constant movement within the city possible.
The infrastructure will also make people set of to new destinations in the world. It will always make it possible for the people to go where they want to go. Time and availability will no longer be a problem in this city.
The airport in this never-ending city will not just drag you in and then throw you out on a new journey, it can also keep you for a while and make you experience something new.
49
boardw
alk a
irport
agne
s jo
hans
son
The boardwalk creates a view and a distance over and from the city, instead of over and from nature. Instead of melting in and being a part of its context, it differs from the cityscape around it. Why do you choose to walk on the boardwalk?
It takes you to the airport, but it also gives you a new image of the city. It can be used to tie districts together, or to take you places in the city you have never thought of visiting.
When arriving, the boardwalk ends abruptly. You walk on gravel, to finally meet the airport. The wall, or the facade of Umeå. The airport is a symbol for all things temporary and no one stays here. Like a scaffolding in front of a restoration project. A building that sorts the waiting in layers, separated from the airplanes and from the city.
Security is an uncomplicated thing. This is the future.
51
the a
irport a
s a
factory
sara
zet
terl
und
The repetitive rhythm of the machine echoes in the outskirts of the city. This place never sleeps. Soon you will realize that this is not a regular factory. It is a gateway to a place elsewhere. It grows, improves, becomes faster. The production escalates. Time-consumption is no longer a valid term, as this place is saving time. The bodies that are being transported on the conveyor belts are the products of our society. In this case the products are also the producers. They are the ones creating requests and they are the ones fulfilling them.
The factory exposes the absurdity of our commercialized way of travelling. Instead of using our senses we have learned to experience through the lens of the camera. We travel to forget and to remember. We want to see it all in no time. And we cannot wait long, for we are hungry for vacation from life itself. By using choreography, separation and regulations, this airport becomes an inhumane and surreal place, but is it that far from reality? Some might even call it an ideal solution; it is efficient and convenient.
Architecture that raises questions, irritating or not, and provokes reactions in some manner, continues in the search for answers. Architecture that sits silently, on the other hand, hasalready made up its mind; it is fixed and therefore dead.
53
city + airport = the future
roemer van toornprofessor architectural theory and media
city + airport = the future
roemer van toornprofessor architectural theory and media
“Don’t tell anyone”, architect Rem Koolhaas once said, “but the 20th century city is over. It has nothing new to teach us anymore.” Umeå, Stockholm, Copenhagen, London and thousands of other 20th century towns and cities have nothing new to tell us. The pressures of populism, kitsch, nostalgia, consumption and security destroy what we once called our public sphere. The labyrinth of suburbs, shopping centres, highways and alike are places where everyone knows their place, while in contrast, at airports such as Heathrow “the individual is defined, not by the tangible ground mortgaged into his soul for the next 40 years, but the indeterminate flicker of flight numbers trembling on an annunciator screen. (...) An easy camaraderie rules the departure lounges, along with the virtual abolition of nationality - whether we are Scots or Japanese is far less important than where we are going” 2.
The airport - once you have checked-in 3 - erases class and national distinctions within the unitary global culture of the departure lounge. Being human will be never the same again in this cyberspace of the abstract, electronic communication and the world of the non-places. A new social potential emerges inspired by the abstraction of airplane travel and the discontinuous landscape of estrangement effects space in transit promotes.
I suspect that the airport will be the true city of the 21st century. The great airports are already suburbs of an invisible world capital, a virtual metropolis whose faubourgs are named Heathrow, Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Nagoya, a centripetal city whose population forever circles its notional centre, and will never need to gain access to its dark heart 1.
J.G. Ballard
1 “Going Somewhere? Airports” J.G. Ballard, The Observer, London, 14 September 1997.
2 J.G. Ballard, see footnote 1
3 Not only checked-in economy-, business- and royal class meet at the airport. A whole underworld (of immigrants, employees, etc.) services the suitcases, arranges freight, does surveillance, etc. for the sake of the smooth space of the horizontal plane of flight. Class differences seem to have disappeared in the smooth space of flight, while the labour force of maintenance suffers from the striated space of the (often literal spatial dark, narrow)
underworld.
55
“Look to today’s busiest airports and you will find the great urban centres of tomorrow.”
Not only could the virtual reality of the airport, through its modern infrastructure of transportation, alienating us form what we are familiar with, it could also inspire new urban formations of sociality. Also economic success in our global age will depend upon spatial models which investigate how an international airport and the classical city can merge and enhance each other; could this even stop infinite suburbanization. This quest is nothing new. Le Corbusier already whispered it to us “a city made for speed is made for success.” And he is right: in the past you would find the great urban centres at yesterday’s busiest train terminals. Look to today’s busiest airports and you will find the great urban centres of tomorrow.
With their recent book “The Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next” 4 John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay promote a new idea of the city based on the functional and economic success of the international airport. The aerotropolis, Kasarda and Lindsay promises, will be a new kind of city, one native to our era of instant gratification - call it the Instant Age. Today more than 4.7 billion passengers travel by air every year. That is three times the population of China. Within 20 years, that number will likely exceed 11 billion. Instead of just celebrating the late-capitalism hypermodern success of The Aerotropolis - producing junkspace - architects need to rethink the city. They should be on the look out for which possible emancipating effects could be found and produced within our age of excess through aesthetic and spatial interventions.
4 Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next, John D. Kasarda, Georg Lindsay, New York, 2011.
57
air
port f
or u
sem
il m
yrse
ll
First of all, a city must be understood as an agglomeration, not of individuals but of communities; the social interaction that becomes our very context. Therefore, the most interesting spaces are those which address the needs of these communities, beyond the private-public false dichotomy: spaces for commons.
The airport is however the archetype of useless space. It acts by separating people and defining them as individuals, obtaining order by discipline. Even though the airport is filled with people, we are all alone and we’ve got nothing to do; the airport is the palace of boredom. Crowds are considered a threat. There is no space for bodies to meet, no space for the constitution and communication of the common. The discovery of the common is what proceeds collective action. The common physically appropriate spaces; it takes place. It needs the possibility to inhabit. To inhabit is to directly shape the inhabited, to control and to alter. While the common space is temporal it disperses only to allow other, new communities to form and the common to take place once again. As more and more of our potentially common spaces wither into mimicking the concept of airport space, more than ever before it is time to build common space and what place is more eligible than the airport?
This project has been a struggle against the airport.
59
the a
irport is n
ot a
cit
ym
aria
arg
ente
a
this airport is made to be an airport and nothing but an airportit contains a linear movement throughout the whole building all architectural elements are based upon phobias and on making them spatial by exaggerating them, flipping the experience to a better one
claustrophobia agoraphobia phonophobia photophobia nyctophobia acrophobia ligyrophobia
61
hid
den g
em
kata
rina
roh
din
An airport is a place for people on the move, either doing their jobs, going to jobs or going for pleasure. For whatever reason you move, you follow given tracks, a path marked by habit or by signs. In my project I want to create an airport that offers new experiences and impressions for all its inhabitants.
The airport is a cluster of hidden spaces, accessible only to a small or certain group of people. The airport divides and limits people. The passengers are neatly separated from all practical aspects of running an airport, yet the most exciting part is still watching the planes land and take off, the luggage being moved onto or off the planes and so on. The airport is a fascinating and complex system, carefully hidden for its users. I want an airport that alters the view of its location and context. I want to transform the waiting to expecting.
By making the different part of the airport and its surroundings more connected and intertwined there are new aspects to be discovered when experiencing the airport. I want to distort the everyday views so that every time we see them they become something new. I want to make people experience the airport in an aware way, to be able to see and understand and in that way becoming a part of the complex machinery.
63
The narrative of the city has become that of utopia.The narrative of the city is a narrative of euphoria.The city is tolerant! The city is cultured!
Global City, Alpha City, World Class City. These are the buzzword of this narrative. Cities compete like athletes or eurovision artists for higher rankings on the buisness weeklies rankings of ”most livable cities”, ”places to invest”, ”best-performing cities” or ”bla, Bla, BLA” etc.
All cities chase after the mythical bicycling, latte-sipping ”young creative class”, who will with their creativity bring the sparkling, wonderful fairy dust which is growth to the city. In this manner the cities colonise themselves, they are no longer existing or creating anything for themselves. The city is a product, an entity, that is sold with the same arguments as a sneaker, car, och tv-set.In this urbanity there is no room for the ugly, inefficient or weird. We live in an age of the urban, but we also live in an age of shrinking cities. An age of cities cannibalizing on each other.The hunt for the attention of international investment capital even turns investments in infrastructure from being a tool for improving the lives for the citizens to a machinery to attract “investment” and “investors”. The city has become an entity, an organism, a machine with a purpose.
This is a lie. A dangerous lie. The city has no purpose. It is a habitat.
The city is the animal colony of humans. A city is a biotope for humans. The city is not an organism or an entity. The city must be a collective enterprise, a collective of collectives. This system is made up of a multitude of organisms, in which everything always is in relation to something.
THE A
NIM
AL A
ND T
HE M
ACHIN
Ebj
örn
ylin
enpä
ä
Our bodies have mass. Our bodies matter. Even though the internet allows for non-physical work, communication and entertainment, the city still attracts. The mass of the city gives it potential.There is nothing inherently tolerant in a city, or in its citizens. There is just demographics. Gather enough people and even the odd becomes many. This gives the city pluralism. A city with a purpose, will lack pluralism. Only the ones who can give the city purpose will be allowed in a city of purpose.
Many cities have been created with a purpose. Detroit and all the cities of the American rust belt had a purpose. The Arsenal of democracy! The great Motor City that will put the world on wheel! These cities became part of a machine. A machine with a purpose. Now the machine has stopped and the cities are rusting. They have become a barren reef, with few fish left. A city with a purpose must overcome that purpose or die.
A city must be its own purpose.The airport however is an organism, a machine. It is with purpose.
The airport is a place for machines. A place for the exhilaration of being lifted 10 000 feet in to the sky. It is a place of traveling, of being moved around the world by a wonderful machine. These wonderful places are more and more being turned a bleak copy of a bleak copy of a city. The airports are being transformed into another kind of machine, a machine for shopping. The airport is becoming a shopping mall with an aircraft theme.
The Airport must be a place for aircraft. The Airport is a machine. It must be with purpose.
65
66
mapping umeå
propertiesWho owns the city, the buildings and the land?Our mapping focused on the relations between the municipality, large property owners and private individuals. Through this mapping of both owners and use, new relationships were discovered and investigated. During this investigation we discovered that the relevant question was not who owns the land? But who owns which land? Patterns of attractiveness and accessibility began to appear. Our mappings put the properties and site of Umeå into geographical, social, economic context.
68
mapping umeå
populationWhat are the ages, incomes, occupations, etc. of the citizens?Since 1962 the population of Umeå muncipality has tripled. The population of Umeå has more than doubled, making it one of Swe-den’s fastest growing cities. This growth is of course directly linked to the founding of the university in 1965. The new population is centered around the university in the eastern parts of the city. They are young and well educated. Culturally and ideologically they generally have two influences; either their academic parents, brought to the city during the last forty years, or they them-selves have come to Umeå to be educated.Since there is a net loss of population to the south, the growth of the city is mainly depending on two things; the high nativity of a young population and immigration from the four northernmost regions.
HIGHEST INCOME
INHABITANTS WITH
TERTIARY EDUCATION
lowest income
MAPPING OF INCOME AND EDUCATION
20-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 %
9525 ages: 0-9 12% 10-17 11% 18-24 10% 25-44 27% 45-64 24% 65- 15%
TOTAL AMOUNT: 11924
AGES: 0-9 11% 10-17 10% 18-24 11% 25-44 26% 45-64 25% 65- 16%
10 598ages: 0-9 12% 10-17 11% 18-24 10% 25-44 27% 45-64 24% 65- 15%
7194
0-9 8% 10-17 7% 18-24 15% 25-44 32% 45-64 22% 65- 15%
TOTAL AMOUNT: 8481
ages: 0-9 10% 10-17 8% 18-24 15% 25-44 28% 45-64 24% 65- 15%
12 840
ages: 0-9 7% 10-1 6% 18-24 26% 25-44 39% 45-64 15% 65- 7%
289
0-9 12% 10-17 11% 18-24 10% 25-44 27% 45-64 24% 65- 15%
POPULATION IN DIFFERENT
AREAS OF UMEao
a c
ustom
job
patr
ik m
odée
People tend to be terribly nostalgic, which is all good, but one thing I wanted to show was how frighteningly selective, I find, that we tend to be about what we deem worthy of remembrance.
...trying to please everyone...
The ultimate solution, one that would put everyone’s concerns to rest. The idea of a city, fresh from the drawing board of someone who has had enough, and designs a metropolis, seemingly perfect, judging by what complaints were to be found. Born was the airtropolis. Shielded in between two runways the city was able to do away with the hazels of customs, effectively becoming a tax free zone. The city itself, one half destined for the conservation of nostalgia, the other for innovation. One, a park, for citizens to admire the old buildings, the other, a mixing pot where nothing was sacred. A place where local tradition could be studied for generations, as well as a battlefield for capitalism.
71
AIR
PORT A
S S
PEAKER’S
CORNER
joha
nnes
sve
rlan
der
This AIRPORT as metropolis ALLOWS the DREAMS and EXPRESSIONS within the CITY.
This airport as metropolis shall be BRAVE, INDEPENDANT and SPONTANEOUS. An EXPLOTION of expressions and CREATIVE ENERGIES interrupting the flows!
It shall be led by and used by the CITIZENS (as well as the TRAVELLER) so they FEEL the airport is theirs and part of their CITY LIFE.
It shall be a CENTRE of CREATIVE, INTELLECTUAL and MORAL FORCES within a city which is full of energy and life!
It shall always be crowded with TRAVELLERS and CITIZENS, DEMONSTRANTS and POLICEMEN, ARTISTS and ACTORS, POLITICIANS and HOMELESS. Its purpose to strengthen theFREEDOM OF SPEECH and DEMOCRACY.
THE STAGE shall be a guarantee for DIFFERENT VOICES to reach out, it shall embrace FRAGMENTS from many DIFFERENT DREAMS and REALITIES. It shall increase TOLERANCE as well as EMPATHY.
73
sym
bio
sis
joak
im s
vahn
The airport today is detached from the city. It is a commercialized megastructure that tries to be a city of its own. But it fails. Instead, let the true city be the airport.
This is done by having an airfield in the outskirts of the city, connected to the city with a shuttle. This gives the city the role of the departure and arrival hall. It also pushes the people in transit into the city, giving huge potential to a rather small city like Umeå.
The airport is a place of people leaving, saying goodbye to their loved ones. It is about people coming home, seeing their friends after a long time apart. It is a never ending drama. The idea is to pull this drama out of the cramped space of the airport and make it visible for the people in a public place. And to let it contribute to the city life.
75
a m
eetin
g a
bove
ylva
af k
leen
Citiness is space, it is people, it is movement and it is meetings. Your everyday life is citiness. At common space you meet known and unknown people, over activities that you enjoy. You meet people you have something in common with, who you share experience and knowledge with.
I have developed a structure that could be added in areas with different needs of new spaces. In Umeå it could work in the city centre where more homes are needed or in the student area where spaces for gathering and activities are needed. The structure also works as an airport, where spaces for meetings are created.
You are welcome up above ground level where corridors lead you to rooms with activities. Here you meet people who you are alike!
77
towards the open airport
katja hogenboom, architect
towards the open airport
katja hogenboom, architect
Since cities more and more start to look like an airport, “(...) an enclave devoted to high-end retail shopping and other pricey pleasures, a mirror of the out-of-office imaginary of the increasingly rich international middle class (...). There is no longer the rush of elation that might arise from sensing oneself as part of a grand social endeavor, a feeling of participation in the future that the grand railway terminals and early airline terminals (Saarine’s TWA terminal in New York, Sagebiel’s Berlin Tempelhof) evoked.” 1
Martha Rosler
The aim of the Assignment The Airport as Metropolis was to reinvigorate the idea of ‘the public’, as Martha Rosler describes in the quote above as being part of the grand endeavour.
The logic of our contemporary society and its architectural objects - in many cases suburban of character is based on security, efficiency, homogeneity and other predictable outcomes. Most people live their lives in or between comfortable recognizable zones; there are no unexpected encounters with the other or the unknown. Most of your neighbours are just like you. The overregulating and the excess of bureaucratic rules has frustrated innovation and growth too. It has 2
frozen the city, as Sennett explains, transformed the often suburban city into a closed city . This so called closed system of segregation, individualisation and consensus represses anything that does not fit in; nothing can be offensive, challenging, different or be in conflict.
In contrast to this closed city there is the idea of the Open City. In the Open City places are dense and diverse, their functions both public and private; out of such conditions comes the unexpected 3 encounter, the chance discovery, and innovation. Through genuine encounters our typical ways of being in the world are challenged, our systems of affirmative knowledge disrupted. It produces a cut, a crack. However this is not the end of the story, for the rupturing encounter also contains a moment of affirmation, the affirmation of a new world, in fact a way of seeing, thinking and experiencing our world anew and different. It is the creative moment of the encounter that obliges us to think and act otherwise which blossoms within the framework of the Open City.When the city operates as an open system - incorporating porosity of
1 Martha Rosler; Airport
2 Sennett, Richard. “The Open City” in: Burdett, Ricky and Sudjic, Deyan (editors) The Endless City (London, New York: The Phaidon Press Ltd, 2007), P. 292
3 IDEM, P. 293
79
“It is the creative moment of the encounter that obliges us to think and act otherwise which blossoms within the framework of the Open City. ”
territory, narrative indeterminacy and incomplete form - it becomes democratic not in a legal sense, but as a physical experience. In the past, thinking about democracy focused on issues of formal governance; today it focuses on citizenship and issues of participation, which have everything to do with the physical city 4 and its design. Designing radical democratic spaces in the Open City is about creating frames and platforms were the other (the unknown) meet beyond strategies of consensus. Instead of understanding the current state of the city as Either-Or, characterized by separation, delimitation and restriction, the desire for clarity, manageability, security and control, the sociologist Ulrich Beck developed the idea of the city as And, marked by diversity, cohesion, experiments with the 5 included middle, the affirmation of ambivalence and irony.
What the analysis of the sociologist Richard Sennett, Ulrich Beck and many other social scientists have shown is that our society is in need of another kind of sociality, another idea of civilization and politics, that moves from a closed to an open society and is reflected in its urban formation.
The challenge is how the spatial architecture of the airport can contribute to open systems, how can architecture be emancipating through the constructed idea of the open city now that successful cities cannot do without an international airport in our global age.
4 IDEM. p. 296
5 Beck, Ulrich. Democracy without enemies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998) p.115
81
gam
e t
he s
ystem
joha
n lö
wst
ett
We flock around the Christmas tree not for reasons of religion, love or devotion but because of values of nostalgia, generated by a TV-screen, and skew romanticized images of consumption and production. The communication in the ideal city should be a part of the democratizing process in our society and not belong to the corporations and the political agenda. Unfortunately, the communication today is a part of the control machinery. Which is forcing very strong norms on to us, both through the screens of the city and through the screens of the virtual worlds. Often in forms of commercialism, populism and security. Due to strong influences of neo-liberalism these systems are of inhuman character.
We are forced into a cynical game which we have not chosen to participate in. In our uncertain and schizophrenic world the hierarchies are not gone they are hidden behind gray veils.
GAME THE SYSTEM, understand the rules and procedures in the hierarchic systems around us, and manipulate them. We have to give the citizen the opportunity to not participate. Because it is here the power of the democracy exists, with the right to not participate. Often we hear about our obligation to participate or our right to participate, but it is important to keep in mind that our visions of open cities, democracy, participation and collaboration are all possible because of the “no”.
The physical redistribution of space is made through adding three floors on the existing airport. The economic and social systems are redistributed inside that rigid structure. Through architectural qualities such as light, view, privacy and activities the two top floors have become so desirable that people want to flock around them as around the Christmas tree. In there we put the commerce, up there it will blossom. Concurrently a loophole will be generated; where you as a passenger can go through the building at the bottom floor to board your flight without encountering the commerce. The Christmas tree does not stand in the middle of the road any longer.
What is the power with democracy? With no.Richard Conway
83
curvature
sofia
sjö
lin
The city is life and energy. The city is moving and changing.The city is a place for meetings and interaction.
The Curvature Airport is open for both travellers and citizens. TheCurvature Airport is closely connected to the city core of Umeå.The Curvature Airport is filled with activities such as theatre, performances, exhibitions and art installations.
The curvature inside the airport is a reminder of the constantly moving city. Smaller hubs, functioning as appetizers to the airport, are spread out in the city center of Umeå. A transportation route between these nodes makes the city center and the airport feel closer to each other.
85
betw
een t
he a
nalogue a
nd t
he d
igit
al
sim
on g
otth
ard
We experience many realities.
The analogue, our tactile cradle, is one. Another, and the one with the greatest concern in our society, is the digital one. Everything that defines us as humans is found in digital form, and - in more and more cases - only in digital form. Human society and human culture have exploded into a huge cloud of everything.
A seemingly ethereal, floating humanity is an illusion, however. The cloud is anchored down. Tied to what are spaces of extreme architectural potential and of paradigm importance to our society. The datacenters are open yet locked, free yet restricted, common yet kept well away from the public, and for that they cannot be a representation of our new society.
As we are dependent on the virtual, it in its turn is not without the analogue. It is experienced by analogue beings and it exists in an analogue world. As revolts, protests, financial crises and other symptoms break out across the world, humanity calls for a new space. A space which reflects the codependency of these two urgent realities of mankind and a space that is responsive to what we, and the society we shaped, have become.
What is this space? It could be a megastructure. A structure that connects all forms of human presence, bridges all forms of infrastructure and is a platform for all that is modern human society. It could be an airport, or it could be a datacenter, or maybe it could be both.
It should be a city. A new city. A city of information, with circuits like freeways and people like data. All things pass here. They change form and reroute. It is a transformer of speeds, forms and contents. Humans become airplanes become electricity become numbers become things become music become culture. Most importantly though; the power becomes present. We can enter the structure in many ways and forms, but we enter the same space, and we know this space. We know how big it is, for we can move around in it, we know how it works, for we have seen each step, and we know who owns it and who runs it, because they are always there, visible to us. We can act, interact and react in the new city and we are allowed to do so accordingly to what we now are. What humans have become demands this space.
We need space between the analogue and the digital.
87
The a
daptable c
ity
alex
ande
r lu
ndm
ark
As the world population increases and the world becomes larger and more complicated, the need for reduction in order to understand and control grows. This becomes most clear in the infrastructural aspects ofthe city, where movement of both people and information occur. They are constructed to serve the collective, the median, and suddenly the individual is just a number in a system, easily manipulated and calculated.
In the new, giant social, networks the need for the individual to express herself becomes critical for self-definition. But the world has grown too much, and she drowns in the masses. As the quest for being heard and seen in the 21th century escalates, transmission of individuality takes place where the flows are greatest; the infrastructure becomes the bat-tlefield for social recognition.
The (air)port is the site where different modes of transportation meet. Here the flows of people and information are the densest. The port becomes the greatest physical manifestation of the phenomena. It is anode in the infrastructure, offering travelers opportunity to both record, transmit and receive information to and from the rest of the world.
89
90
mapping umeå
tourismFrom a touristic point of view how do people percieve Umeå? What attractions and activities dose the region offer? How do these events differ throughout the year especially in relation to the seasons? How many people visit Umeå? Our conclusion to these questions: Umeå is not a city destination. It lacks special attractions. It is a city without a strong brand. It is seldom that people will visit Umeå because of what it offers either in terms of tourist attractions or sites. Instead the primary reasons for visiting include work, education, family and friends.
number of winter activities in relation to amount of tourist accommodation
diagram showing number of visitors in relation to activities and season
200
150
100
50
0
activities
number of thousand national flight passengers
number of thousand international flight passengers
winter spring summer autumn
activities
number of thousand national flight passengers
number of thousand international flight passengers
winter spring summer autumn
200
150
100
50
0
diagram showing number of visitors in relation to activities and season
number of winter activities in relation to amount of tourist accommodation
92
mapping umeå
brandingUmeå, the city that wants more. This is the town’s official slogan. But what does it say about Umeå? The first mapping is the city seen through an information brochure from the municipality. It shows what the city offers as tourist attractions, but at the same time it shows how the city wants to brand itself. A city of strong traditions but still looking to the future, with growing industries and a strong cultural agenda. The newly built Arts Campus and Culture Capital 2014 are important contributors to the cultural branding. The second mapping shows how the people of Umeå perceive it. They were asked what Umeå would be if it was an animal, person, plant, etc. The result is shown in the montage.
Umeå seen trough a municipality brochure
Hello!I’m Umeå, the mix of people that represent it. My pet is the mix of animals thet represent the city. We are selected by the people living here and our personali-ties is the city.
Umeå seen trough a municipality brochure
Hello!I’m Umeå, the mix of people that represent it. My pet is the mix of animals thet represent the city. We are selected by the people living here and our personali-ties is the city.
oppo s
ite
hann
a el
iass
on
This airport is a contrast and a complement to Umeå.
Umeå is a city with extreme climate, visible especially in the light conditions and the two seasons. When the city changes so dramatically over the year, you almost forget what it is like in the other season. These changes have great influence on the city and its people,physically and mentally. For example, the number of public places decrease due to the cold and the darkness.
By offering the opposite season with it’s activities, this airport will make you understand and appreciate the whole of Umeå. A place you can visit for just a moment or for a whole day.
The airport is made up of two parts - the passenger area, to which only flight passengers have access, and the landscape area. The landscape area is the opposite in season to the Umeå where you can take a walk, have dinner, practise sports or just spend some time and enjoy the contrast. The landscape area is to be used by visitors as well as flight passengers. There is also a beautiful view of the city from the top of the high building, which is the last thing you will see before boarding the plane.
By visiting Umeå and its airport you will experience the whole of Umeå.
The airport is a contrast and a complement to the city.
95
um
ea interface
frid
a st
ockh
aus
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Imagine a place where the countries leading green businesses share ideas, services and customers under one giant green roof. Envision a rich array of products, services and showrooms all available in an iconic, state-of-the-art green building in Umea’s most traveled passage The Airport. The Airport becomes a bridge, a green City.
The building is about awareness. The building makes visitors see and feel where they are going by bringing in nature, by making the consequences of flying visible and by making a distinction between arrival and departure.
97
view
Um
ea
joha
n lö
vgre
n
The airport is a separated part of the city. It is an island for temporary guests. An island divided not physically but by rules and regulations. If the airport users are to have any connection to the city it is only to observe it from a distance.
The airport citizens are not a part of the real city. To be a true part of a city it needs to be your home. To be a true part of a city you need to live in it. No matter how much the temporary guests try to interact with the city they will hardly even scratch the surface of what the city is really about. They are only visitors and all they can do is to observe.
The airport should be true to its nature. The guests are only temporary observers and the airport should reflect this. The main concept is how Umeå is shown from the airport. Which views are given, what parts does Umeå want to show the rest of the world?
99
soak in w
ait
ing
vero
nika
mik
olas
evic
take your time, get to know the city,wait in the midst of the action – the city pulse,talk, interact, question, answer, find,discover people – city – region,exchange experiences – knowledge – ideas,want to come in early to the airport,think, feel, breath in.Let travellers be greeted by the city and its people.Take your time, get to know the city. Soak in waiting.
A one-way way to and from the airport, where the airport is the end and beginning of the road, will lead you through five places of activity. Great activities that the city offers, such as libraries, the university and city squares.
The airport will be an escalated version of these five places, where everything will come together as a whole.
At the airport the travellers will be mixed in with the public. The common and the travellers will come together at the library on the first floor, the exhibition and public lecture halls on the ground floor and other spontaneous activities as it would be in the public squares of the city centre.
While you wait for your plane you continue experiencing the city and when you arrive you are greeted by the people and their activities.
101
the architect’s superpowers
johanna gullberg, architect
the architect’s superpowers
johanna gullberg, architectDear Students,
Superman moved from Smallville to Metropolis. He wanted to make the world a better place. People all over the world keep moving from the countryside to the city. This leads to challenges which we as architects have responsibility to act on, although the conditions of our work constantly change.
Umeå is a town in northern Sweden, a Smallville with a university. The local rulers want Umeå to become a northern metropolis. Umeå, as every other town with ambitions, wants to attract the most coveted inhabitants. Why, though, should Umeå change? Choosing to be bombastic, one could say that we as members of the so-called creative class are the contemporary Superpeople. Did we all move here because we wanted something else?
Architects operate within society, not above it. A sustainable change does usually not come from a singular heroic effort or idea, but rather from long-term investigations and production. An efficient way for us to argue for or against a suggested change such as Umeå’s expansion, is to produce concrete architectural proposals based on knowledge about relevant aspects of a given situation. Architects need to be passionate about being Clark Kent most of the time. In order to endure, it is therefore essential to reflect on what you as an architect want to achieve, what your aim is.
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“Architects need to be passionate about being Clark Kent most of the time.”
Our aim with The Airport as Metropolis was to discuss the city (or citiness) in general and, in particular, the interfaces between the individual and the public in architecture. The reason for this was a sense of a need for a new agenda exploring how common space can be produced and maintained within our society.
Space and society are not abstract concepts. Once having mapped, simulated and transformed one situation architects are better prepared to work constructively with others. We decided to use Umeå and the rulers’ grand ideas for the town’s future as a plot for The Airport as Metropolis. We do regard a transformation of the existing airport as an inevitable part of the story of Umeå’s growth. Moreover, the airport is in itself a miniature society, which can be used as a model or tool for working with ideas about new ways of living together.
Whether the tool fulfilled its purpose is up to every reader of this book to reflect upon. We tutors can only hope that we have charged you with some architectural superpowers, such as strong beliefs, critical minds and patience.
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dir
ty r
ich
aman
da e
liass
on
Fuelled by a hypercapitalist way of thinking, Umeå’s Airport of tomorrow grows into a parasite on society. It will be a gated community for the rich and the beautiful to live and spend their days lounging and shopping, partying the nights away. They are the Jetset, and they have all the money and all the fun in the world.
The Jetset’s hyperconsumerism turns the airport into Umeå´s new commercial center. Their life of decadence fuels the city and the city feeds their deprivation. A mutualistic parasitic relationship between the airport and Umeå is created, mirrored in the airport structure. What used to be a rational building of stone cold efficiency has been infected by delicate structures in steel and glass latching themselves onto and dissolving the original structure.
This is the airport where the jetset live, in the fragile, unpractical but oh-so-beautiful terminals on the border between Umeå and the world.
107
A-cit
yid
a w
änst
edt
The city & the Verfremdungseffekt
Imagine the city as a theatre where people come to be entertained.The airport is the foyer. Here the city is manifesting its size, place and importance in the world. The expectations of the visitor builds up -what will the city have to offer?
Teg, the city district on the south side of the Umeå river, is not the evident part of Umeå it should be. The city has neglected it and thus development is concentrated mainly in Umeå’s northern parts. By moving the airport and strenghtening its connection to Teg, Teg will grow and the mental picture of Umeå city centre will expand.
From the airport the visitor is lead to the cultural and commercial boulevard of the city where she is caught up by its monumentality. There he–she accepts the image the city creates of itself in an attempt to understand it. The visitor is seduced by the city.
The airport is placed on the southern edge of Teg, underneath a big traffic appartus where the E4 meets the E12. The new location of the airport creates and axis between itself and the current city center. A boulevard that becomes a natural direction of growth for Umeå’s commercial and cultural center. Here the city can express itself freely and be what it wants to be - More.
The built environment creates a powerful first impression, but it is the content, the actual plays, for which people return. Citizens do not wish to passively be a part of the audience, to become a visitor in one’s own home, since she turned blind to the visual manifesto of the city a long time ago. As the ambitious city manifests itself in monuments, the need for Vervremdungseffekt increases. The citizens are forced to actively create their own reality and thus make their city need them.
The relocation of the airport will make the city grow to the south-east along the river, bridging it and tearing down the barriers between sleepy Teg and the University with its vibrant housing areas. The river will define the direction of Umeå and once again be the central focus of the city.
The theatre is a machine where the largest surfaces are inaccessible to its visitors. It is managed from the hidden system of spaces behind the polished foyers and decorated auditoriums. The concealed spaces are the ones inhabited - the areas that are the most alive.
109
a t
em
porary c
ity
emili
nor
én
Umeå 2050.
This is not a city that believes in constant expansion, as if it would be the number or the size that made the difference.
This is a city believing in transformation. A city made for people in movement, meant for them to be temporary guests. Not knowing if temporary means 2 weeks or 20 years.
This is a city proud of being the best temporary place ever and it doesn’t struggle to make people stay.
This is an architecture that works with the people in processes. An architecture prepared to grow and decrease, offering chances to create new spaces which change with their inhabitants.
This is the city where the schools don’t have a solid place. Just like learning means experience and curiosity the school could never be in just one building.
This is the city with a vast range of possibilities because of its inhabitants from all over the world. Collecting knowledge and connecting the city with the world. The airport is working as a node for these meetings with the university placed at the airport. Umeå is already today a place that works as a temporary home for a lot of the people living in it. And Umeå needs these temporary inhabitants to be a modern and living city.
This is Umeå not trying to be someone else, not walking around in oversized shoes. This is Umeå in its full potential: modern, intelligent, curious, local and global.
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a p
oin
t o
f v
iew
göra
n er
ikss
on
The city is a complex creature. It is full of angles, relations and hideaways that you don’t see when you are in the middle of it. When you stroll through the city you might get a notion, though the relations between areas, houses, and thereby people, are hard to comprehend when you are new to a city.
To get an overview there must be height. The airport gives Umeå this opportunity. Arriving high up allows a panoramic overview and thereby an understanding of the city. Because it is a complex creature.Inside the airport a play and communication between spaces are important. Small, narrow spaces are related to bigger ones. Winding paths that start in the city, at the bottom of the building, seem to lead everywhere, mostly to the top.
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114
mapping umeå
natureIs nature the opposite to the man made city? Where do they meet and how do they relate? Initially the investigation started with the boundaries around and within the central and peripheral areas of Umeå. There are the obvious physical borders, visible to the shallow eye. There are also an aspect of the seasonal variations on these physical borders, such as how a field used by farmers during summer, blends in with the adjacent forest several kilometres away during wintertime because of the snow. Nature in relation to the city can be discussed in many ways and is versatile. Nature is not a solid thing, it changes over time and can never be all together controlled.
In winter, with snow the boundaries are blurred
large roadresidents in contact with naturecultivated landairportindustrieswaterregimentrailway
Barriers nature/built land
Without the snow the boundaries are enhanced
Barriers nature/built landlarge roadresidents in contact with naturecultivated landairportindustrieswaterregimentrailway
In winter, with snow the boundaries are blurred
large roadresidents in contact with naturecultivated landairportindustrieswaterregimentrailway
Barriers nature/built land
Without the snow the boundaries are enhanced
Barriers nature/built landlarge roadresidents in contact with naturecultivated landairportindustrieswaterregimentrailway
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mapping umeå
CLIMATEHow do the seasons influence and change the use of the city?Climate, opposed to the concept of weather is affected by the aspect of time. The contrast between seasons in Umeå is quite drastic, both in temperature and amount of daylight. This becomes very apparent in the use of public outdoor areas. It is not only the temperature that affects this, but also how the daylight situation changes the perceived safety in these public places.There is also an aspect of change in population and tourism in relation to the climate. During the winter for example, the snow attracts certain people that would not visit Umeå otherwise. The climate stirs Umeå and makes her move.
Change of use due to dumping of snow
Snow cover required to enable activity
Change of accessibility due
Variation of population
Annual variation of population The proportion of students
Total population, 114 000 (2009)
Average temperature
Reported crimes, Thefts, alcohol-and narcotics related crimes, violent crimes
Tourists
Students
Geberal population
Students -16% of total population
Remaining population
hunting season
sep
oct
aug
nov
dec
-10°C
christmas holiday
jan
feb
mar
apr
may
junjul
summer holidays
turist season
400 crimes
700 crimes
1000 crimes
5°C
20°C
Change of use due to dumping of snow
Snow cover required to enable activity
Change of accessibility due
vin
tergatan
kari
n ol
sson
Vintergatan airport is the reflecting back-drop for Umeås identity as a city of seasonal changes in general, and the identity as a winter city in particular. There’s a dramatic change to all layers of the city; physical transformations, aestethics, atmosphere and, not least - the human behavior and use of public space.
Umeå’s climate situation is specific and very rare in the world.The foundation of the ‘Vintergatan concept’ is based on three parametres:1. the winter climate2. the physical change of Umeå river, from running to fixed3. the public need of common space in winter
A merge of these topics creates an airport concept that changes with season. In winter, the outdoor river space is a public square. A plaza for a new, temporary winter city centre. With summer the need of public space disappears, and with it also to airport plaza. The city centre moves back to its original location. This will create a dynamic city that lives with the seasons, changes over time and accepts its true identity.
And, most important of all, the arrivals and visitors will step right into the heart of the Umeå city, entering a building that opens up to the very essenece of the northern region - the winter climate. And its inhabitants.
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com
mon d
elig
ht
jaco
b ev
erhe
d
Our cities have landed heavily on what was once wilderness. We have created our own systems of controlling the environment, generally by hefty infrastructural interventions, thus eliminating the natural systems that were originally there. This brute-force approach has been the way of the past, but it cannot be the way of the future. We need to go lightweight, use local and reusable materials and be a part of nature rather than fighting it. Capitalism co-created this old methodology and is also the malefactor to the privatizing and negligence of public space in many city centers when land became “too valuable” for the local governments to keep public. So where is the common space of the 21st century? Surely the accelerating urbanization calls for brand new venues. Or maybe it doesn’t?
Parks are still the great exception to an otherwise sad development. They represent unprogrammed space that is truly public (unlike a mall). I believe it is this freedom, combined with closeness to our evolutionary environment that makes people feel comfortable there.
An international airport in Umeå with green, common space all year round, under a lightweight building system is the product. Let nature in.
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arriv
ing a
mong s
tories
anna
isra
elss
on
Who am I?Where am I from?Where am I going?Really–
I know.
Who do I want to be?What do I want to do?Where do I want to go?
I know who I am.I don’t know who you are.Do you know who I am?
Where are you from?Where might you be from–?
Where are you going?Where am I going?
A city is full of people, flows, meetings. Class distinctions and dreams– In dreams you decide what is and what is not. Are there any hierarchies in your dreams?
Who would you be?What would you do?Where would you go?
By being combined with a library the airport becomes available for the common, a meeting place for all kinds of people. Nature is present and contrasts to the machinery of the airplanes.
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Umea airport-
linda jonssoncommercial manager swedavia
the airport of the future
Umea airport-
linda jonssoncommercial manager swedavia
the airport of the futureThe city of Umeå has a vision to have 200 000 inhabitants by the year 2050. To handle the increased number of travellers this growth brings with it, the Airport needs to develop.
Umeå Airport has a vision to grow and develop together with the city and the region of Umeå. The strengths of the city and the region must be represented at the airport:
•Youthful •Innovative •Natureandsustainability •Culture •Communication
A master plan for Umeå Airport is under development for both the long- and short term. The closest goal is 2014 when Umeå is the European Capital of Culture.
The communications to Stockholm, Europe and the whole world is a vital factor for companies to establish and for people to settles down in Umeå. Umeå airport existence is critical to Umeå’s vision of having 200 000 inhabitants by the year 2050.
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“TIME is MONEY”
The infrastructure around the Umeå Airport is therefore very important. A strategy to develop is finding an environmentally friendly way to get to the airport, for example; the possibility to bike to the airport, good communications with bus, train; Bottniabanan and Norrbottniabanan etc. Frequent communications within in the whole region is vital.
For an airport to developed with this location in northern Sweden, the Airport needs to save passengers time. TIME is MONEY and this is very important prerequisites both for the inhabitants and for those companies that choose to establish themselves in Umeå or are already established here.
Umeå Airport also needs to establish commercial products at the airport that assist and facilitate the travellers time. The journey starts when the traveller walks out the door at their home and doesn´t ends until they arrive at their final destination.
Umeå Airport goals with its development of the airport, are to give travellers a smooth and efficient total travel time. To succeed with this goal we must use the strengths of the region; youthfulness, innovations, culture and good communications, all focusing on environmentally friendly solutions.
- YOU DON´T TRAVEL TO AN AIRPORT, YOU TRAVEL TO A REGION!
Together we can develop the Umeå Airport to be “the Airport of the future”.
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interface
tobi
as w
este
rlun
d
The city is for humans and their interaction, where
they have the opportunity live freely. In cities; we live
our lives in the present.
HumanPublicOpen
Non-linearSocialBeing
PresentLocalChaos
The airside is designed for the aircraft. The machine can move around on ground in a confined, restricted space. People are only here for transport, you are going to somewhere else, your mind is in the future.
Machine Restricted Closed Linear TransportGoingFutureInterregionalOrder
I believe in the airport as a main factor for growth in a city. The airport is the city’s connection to the rest of the world, it is where the city starts and ends.
For the traveller an airport can be a disorienting and stressful experience. You are hurrying to quickly find your way through check- in and security, to in the end find yourself wasting time waiting by a gate where you are cut off from everything else.
The airport is an interface; what exists in between the rules of the city life and the rituals related to flying.
I believe in freedom. After you have left your baggage in the interface, you turn back towards the city outside. There is an open waiting lounge where you can sit with those who followed you to the airport and you can always go out to the shops and restaurants in the streets. When it is time for your flight to depart you are called to pass through the interface. The closer you get to the airside, the more enclosing the interface structure becomes. Once you are on the other side of security you board your flight immediately.
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air
culture
anah
id b
ehza
dnia
The Air Culture is located on the island, Ön, it connects the city and the people to the airport. The airport holds different types of events such as exhibitions, dance performances, sports games. It works as a waiting lounge for the travelers and also have restaurants and shops.
The idea with the Air Culture is to bring culture to Umeå and bring people closer to each other.
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flow
-verview
vikt
or is
akss
on
This project takes place in a not so distant future where the energy crisis has been solved. Well connected locally through rail, wheel and pedestrian friendly infrastructure it ensures next to effortless communication to and from itself. Positioned at the very centre of flows in the airport lies a marketplace dealing with the previously unseen luxury of trading perishable goods without affect to the environment, attracting both locals and people flying in from a far.
The programme of the airport has been simplified to such an extent that the market can grow in accordance to the seasonally varying pulses of goods from across the world, and in a longer perspective, so can the amount of gates dedicated for travellers without disrupting the coherency of the airport programme, internal navigation and efficiency.
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urban b
alance
mal
in is
akss
on
Umeå consists of constructed urban spaces created by buildings, squares and parks. All of theese spaces are created to achieve a balance between the manufactured and the organic. Birchtrees framing the streets, landscaped areas of different sizes and designs, the river dividing the city in half and the built areas with public spaces and buildings that range from historical character to modern design. This balance is very important to the inhabitants of the city and is to be be incorporated in the airport programme.
By bringing landscape spatialities into one of the most stressful places in today’s society, hidden oasises are created for travellers to stop in for a moment or get a glimpse of when rushing by. The structure and programme inside the airport will separate the travellers in a rush and thoose with a little bit of time on their hands. The city’s inhabitants as well are invited to enjoy the shops, restaurants etc that is normally restricted to travellers, without experiencing the stress that comes with travelling.
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service-14%transport-18,5%household-19,7%industry-47,8%
Sectors consuming the most energyrelation between energy usage per citizen, sector and geografical location
industryhouseholdstransportservices
Geographical localization of sectors
Energy usage per citizen (kW/h) and sector2008, Statistiska centralbyrån
servecis transport housholds industry
Mutualismalternative energy spheres in a mutualistic relationship
Synergidifferent energy systems on separate channels
136
mapping umeå
energyWhat energy systems occur in the city? What do we mean by energy? The word energy has many meanings and connotations. In this instance we view the city as a place vibrating with different energies. Our map-pings touch upon a few, but by merging them we hope to find potential in the amalgamation.
Our mappings attempt to show how energy is distributed throughout the city. We discovered an anomaly; where electric energy is high, social energy is low. By looking at the points where energies meet we produced a synergetic mapping of the city. This helped us understand the different streams of energy absorbed by the city and develop strategies to identify specific points for acupunctural architectural interventions.
service-14%transport-18,5%household-19,7%industry-47,8%
Sectors consuming the most energyrelation between energy usage per citizen, sector and geografical location
industryhouseholdstransportservices
Geographical localization of sectors
Energy usage per citizen (kW/h) and sector2008, Statistiska centralbyrån
servecis transport housholds industry
Mutualismalternative energy spheres in a mutualistic relationship
Synergidifferent energy systems on separate channels
cit
y e
xtended
ida
hugg
ert
The project is about taking part. When a city has a direct flight connection to another city, that other city should be looked upon as a close neighbour or perhaps even as a city district. Should not this city district be known by the citizens? Do we not want to know what is going on in our city?Think of the city map of Umeå as a subway map. Imagine all the city districts as subway stations on that map. Think of the airport as a city district and imagine it being a station on the subway map of Umeå. Now, imagine all cities that Umeå has direct flight connections to and think of them as being new city districts of Umeå. The name of the airport station could then be London, Copenhagen, Stockholm or Cadiz depending on where you are flying.The airport is a transporter and a bringer. It brings people and information. Let it bring information and let it be the information sent out to those cities in the world to which Umeå belongs.
How this works: The airport building holds different information halls depending on what city you are interested in. In these halls you will find exhibitions, cafe´s, events, maps, news and real-time projections. You can in simple terms visit a destination without going there. Information is sent between connecting destinations and people can take part of their extended city.The railway is an important link between the airport, city and region. At the Umeå central station a new square is created with destination information sent by the citizens of each destination. Arrivals and departures are registered at information tablets and the citizens of Umeå are constantly reminded of the fact that the extended city of Umeå is only a subway station away.
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beautiful m
achin
elin
n pe
rsso
n
Everything is about what we see and what we experience, from differ-ent angles, levels and times. The airport is the gate to the rest of the world, letting us out, but also bringing us in. The city core meets the outer border of the city through the airport. For a first time visitor, the experience of the airport is also the first impression of the city.
Umeå airport takes over an entire part of the city. It is open and trans-parent, showing off its beauty; the machinery, what makes it function. The airport is accessible to all. The usually hidden functions such as luggage handling or service of the aircrafts are highlighted and shown as positive features in the airport. Citizens and visitors alike, everyone should have the opportunity to experience the beauty of a city in ac-tion.
The city is the airport and the airport is the city.
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cit
y in t
ransit
albi
n gr
ind
The city is a limbo. The city is no longer a place; it’s a route.
The city does not belong to the earth. The city does not belong to the people. The city belongs to the individual in transit.
The city has no identity, as identity requires roots.
The home is its opposite and home is not where your hat is laid.
The airport is the city’s frontier, its gateway to a life in limbo.
The city is ever changing with its temporary population. It is its fate and its curse.
The new citizen knows no other way.
Move.
Change.
Be where you’re not.
Places are out. Spaces are in.
Space is in itself this city.
The dream is the orbit, never at standstill.
Never.
Transportation is no longer trans-port as the ideal is simply trans.
A race without a goal.
The city is not now, as now is too late. Time is a factor.
On-line, on-route, on-time, on-your-way.
On is the prefix of this city.
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clashin
g in l
ove
Joha
n U
ddén
The ”away” you left is the same as the ”home” you arrive to and you left ”home” just to see it repeated in ”away”.
That is the no-man’s-land that today’s airport constitute. What is the reason to stay? What identity is in that coffee you buy in no-man’s-land halfway around the world?To fly for hours and end up in the same room that you left.You should feel where you are, where you have arrived. The airport should be intense in its welcome and farewell. Climate, region, city, people.
The experience. Call it branding or marketing. The region and the city are the big winners. But this is not without risk.To come from the slumberous incubator of a no-man’s-land somewhere, anywhere and be kicked down by the crackling, sparkling northern cold could repulse.But you will at least feel that you are “away” orthat you have arrived home.
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city search
ebba hallin, architect
city search
ebba hallin, architect
We had been driving for hours to get to the city and were desperate to get out of the car. Only neither of us knew where to go or what to look for or when to stop. Sometimes it is completely surreal to reach an unfamiliar city when it is dark. In some ways it is similar to taking on an architectural project about a city. The uncertainties of what is in front of you multiplies your dislocation. You fill the fragmented motifs you see in the darkness with random city assumptions. Spaces filters through your imagination and you know it will look different tomorrow. Maybe you flicked through a guidebook finding some monuments that shouldn’t be missed. Maybe you heard someone recommend this city for its friendly faces or great food, you have to taste the pickled golonka. Maybe you know exactly how you want it to be. But on a night when you don’t have a map and you don’t know what you are looking for except for the city, the intensity on the streets is your best guide. You have to remind yourself that no matter how lost you are and how many mistakes you make you are still there. Making the attempt to get to a new city is already more successful than keeping to the tracks you know, as is every attempt of transforming ideas into projects.
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“Detours are a part of the excursion.”
Getting lost is of some value when trying to grasp a place. Detours are a part of the excursion. At least until you are in the middle of a mesh with only loose ends, contradictory road signs and endless u-turns. You see someone and stop to ask for directions but you don’t speak the language and they seem a bit drunk so you just say Zentrum? and they point in many different directions. In a city search you might stop out of sudden necessity, or just by chance, at something that vaguely resembles the destination. Maybe you check-in to a hotel, thinking you will be at the top floor getting an overview drawn by lights, that you will finally grasp a wholeness slightly from above. Instead there is about 6 meters to a fire-wall echoing traffic. Is it the city? Or in another case a city search will keep you in a peripheral orbit, pushing you out to what seems like borderline fields. You speculate on how many people actually live here and what era caused these alien passageways. Ending up at an airport hotel with the city’s name in very blue letters, would you still say you were in the city? But what is not a city?
Getting lost is also of some value when trying to grasp an idea. Detours by thought is both examining and evaluating. It seems every project is also a city; many parts and processes made up of relations that change too much to be ever fully grasped and with too many ingredients to ever be agreed. The way we relate to place, speed, time and presence changes and just like a city, a project suffers if the finished state is its main goal. The reflections on the way are a bigger treasure. The trick is to get in there and try because it is the loops that count and all of a sudden you are not a visitor in the city anymore.
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cuts
for t
ime a
nd t
aste
rebe
cka
örte
gren
The city is traces of people; of the ways they walk and the choices they make. Traces of their spontaneity and exploration. This airport has invited the city.
I want to escape the monotonous flow in an airport, and instead give as many options as there are people, but also offering a clear easy finding way. This is to consider everyone, regardless of how much time they have until boarding. People with little time can turn away from their conventional path to take part of the activities at the airport, or find shortcuts through them. Pass through the cinema to reach the security faster for example. People with a lot of time have a small city to explore and activities and shortcuts to try out, and will maybe end up somewhere they did not expect.
This airport offers many ways of moving by finding new ways. The shortcuts are a way of reaching the spontaneity of the city within the airport.
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forw
ard u
p a
way
alex
ande
r ol
sson
You arrive at the airport with one goal. It is not to shop or having an overpriced coffee at a cafe. It is not to pass through security or to have the joy of dropping off your bags at a check-in desk. The goal is to reach the airplane and your final geographical destination. Many layers of the airport have to be passed to achieve this objective. You want to advance. Each layer you manage to pass is a step closer towards the airplane.
The experience of the typical airport is a series of horizontal movements ended by a vertical one. This climax is of course take-off. The final advancement. What if the points of advancement could resemble the final advancement? Associating horizontal movement with waiting and moving between points of advancement - and associating vertical movement with advancement itself?
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dio
ram
are
becc
a w
allin
You are the explorer, in a world of increasing speed. Where boundaries, zones and borders, gradually blurringand distance declares its independence from time.Traveling through a physical patchwork, drawing the map of your reality.
Uncontrolled it transforms (...) inside your very mind. Landing waiting claim baggage passport customs controls buss taxi car? Baggage drop check in security shop wait go to gate? Boarding take off waiting landing...Without noticing, you end up in the busiest street corner in the mega city called Earth.But before rushing across the street, wait just a moment. Look!
The World passed by.
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With this book we first and foremost want to pay tribute to our class’s efforts made during the the 4th semester. We also want to display our deep appreciation for our tutors Katja Hogenboom’s and Ebba Hallin’s advice and help with proofreading. A great acknowledgement for Richard Conways never-ending patience with our free interpretations of English grammar. Finally but absolutely not last, thank you Johanna Gullberg for all your patience and help during the three month long process of making this book.
Thank you for contributing with your written words:
Peter Kjær, RectorRoemer Van Toorn, ProfessorJohanna Gullberg, Architect, responsible for the semesterEbba Hallin, ArchitectKatja Hogenboom, ArchitectOlle Forsgren, City Architect, UmeåLinda Jonsson, Commercial manager Swedavia Umeå Airport
This book was made possible by the financial support from:
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Acknowledgements
