Hi there, it is Raygo here today! Today I would like to share with you my recent studio visit to Uppsala, a city close to Stockholm in the north.
This semester, I have been enrolled in a studio called “Housing Studio”, as the name suggested; we study different housing typologies in Sweden and try to understand their history, culture, etc. By the end of the semester, we will be expected to develop a housing project to answer the issues we are tackling. Our site for design is in Rosendal, a developing area in Uppsala filled with both built residential buildings and those currently under construction.
I travelled to Uppsala with my classmates in the morning by taking the SJ train from Stockholm central station. Contrary to SL, the metro system running within Stockholm, SJ serves as the major railway network in Sweden that goes from city to city. It took only about an hour to reach Uppsala, and it was around 9 am when we arrived there.
Then we headed by bus to the site directly from the Uppsala central station, as we had a meeting with the staff from the Uppsala municipality at around 10 am. The meeting was held by two project managers responsible for the development project in Rosendal. They introduced the housing situation in Uppsala and the site to our group. We were offered the opportunity to raise questions crucial to our design, such as the zoning details and target groups for housing.
After lunch, our studio tutor led us to visit two significant building projects nearby. The buildings adopted the concept of “Reuse” with materials being torn down and recycled, such as concretes, bricks and roofs used in their constructions, as it is of utmost importance for us, as future architects, to introspect and think of ways to attain sustainability in construction and reduce waste.
As a remark, my first impression of Uppsala was superb, and it has a different vibe than Stockholm, with the cycling paths going all around the city and the ongoing construction projects. And indeed, there is way more to discover as we only had a day there!
So that’s all for my sharing today. Tomorrow is the big day: the release of admission results for the upcoming year! Together with the Instagrammers, our team of digital ambassadors will post more information related to the preparation after receiving the results, the series of upcoming webinars and events and many more. So stay tuned with us, and I wish you all the best of luck!
//Raygo