Project I: Atelier Arrhov

Fall 2025, the three questions from previous semesters engage in correspondence with one another, ”How simple can we build?”, ”How simple can we live?”, ”A place to live?”.
Starting from the demographic growth in Stockholm and consequent need for housing, seeking places to live, we will explore how to inhabit the growing city today within four layers: the city, the suburb, the in-between and the countryside. ​​Engaging with these different areas, the semester will develop through a concrete, sensitive and radical approach to imagining realistic dreams. On building, living, positive.

The title of Atelier Arrhov fall semester 2025 assembles three topics, with no preconceived order or hierarchy: Living, Building, Positive. These three intertwined topics will be discovered together, supported by research from previous semesters. As a catalyst, this semester aims to ground proposals in the context of Stockholm, as a collective case study. We will investigate its history, urban fabric and various ways of building and living. 

To add living space. To densify with less. Acting on/in capitalism, searching for alternative strategies.

In presence

The semester structure draws an open process in which every week is the new chapter. We acknowledge the unfinished aspect as a quality, opening questions to be pursued further. An open process without a clear beginning nor end.
12 notes, like chapters of a book, will structure the semester into topics. The words from the notebook will act as interferences to the first question, enabling unexpected discoveries. These notes will explore different facets on specific conditions : investigating local ecosystems, surveying everyday life, calculating a structure, researching material costs, observing situations, habits and traditions. A weekly disruption as an opportunity to explore each topic from a different perspective, challenging the linear design procedure. Within this open-ended process, there are no predetermined sites, programs, scales, topics. Every week research will be gathered in an archive.
Depending on the weekly task, students will work in different constellations, mainly as a duo, it could extend to a larger group for a week, as a way to imagine, discuss and share collectively. The tools will be text, working model, hand drawing, image, 2D computer drawing, photography.  The process will be collected and gathered the four chapters/ semesters as one intertwined process.

The examination methods value the process as much as the final result. Curiosity, autonomy, capacity to work together, within a team, are valued during the whole semester. The precision of the research, attention to drawings, models and the clarity of the projects will be valuable qualities.

• Stockholm, 02.10.25 - 05.10.25 (Compulsory)