2023 / Monsoon Sem /
Experimental Practice | Crafting Circularity
Aleksandra Raonic (Project Leader)
August Schmidt , Arnstein Olav Gilberg (Tutor)
The course was organised as a set of variable experiential teaching/learning/research activities that build around and feed into main design tasks.
The first part of the semester was linked to Crafting Circularity, Erasmus + research project. For this purpose, Experimental practice hosted a large group of students and teachers from 4 other European schools of architecture: the University of Antwerp, the University of Thessaly, the University of Liechtenstein and the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture.
The design task was to design & build a green-house/chicken-house hybrid on a farm site in Eggkleiva, Skaun, for clients, a couple who have recently bought the farm and who are in the process of adapting it to their lifestyle and interests, that have to do with growing own organic food (plants and chicken). The task was framed as to rethink sustainable design and construction in architecture through reusability. Before the actual design and building activity, students were to dismantle the old 2-storey barn house, sort and measure all the materials. A large group of 60 was divided in 5 design building teams dedicated to specific parts of the project: roof construction, beams and columns, façade cladding, rammed earth wall, and floor. Through the coordination of the five teams the overarching goal was accomplished, that is to design and construct a new green/chicken house solely from reusable construction materials and other locally sourced materials (soil and gravel).
The design task in the second part of the semester was centred around community project Barnas Katedral, four small projects dedicated to children as users, on a site of Lademoen church in Trondheim, which commissioned the work for the local community. The four projects were to accommodate children's creative activities and were farmed as: Treasure box (multifunctional transformable theatre stage/play-space), Garden (creative outdoor area), Art-workshop studio/storage and Children’s wardrobe space.
