Architecture students turn abandoned building into a public social space

For the spring semester of 2024, the Architecture Studio DKV migrated to an abandoned building on the KTH campus, Drottnings Kristinas väg 67 (DKV 67), to explore the building and its possibilities to work in full scale (1:1) with the spaces provided swells with the building itself as a testbed for explorations in architecture.

The studio has served as a lab where different approaches have been tested and evaluated - a boot camp for imagination and a testbed for new ethics. 

From the inside out, introvert to public

During the first part of the semester, students explored one of the floors inside the building, focusing on how to work with the existing building and its materials. In the second part of the semester, they delved into structures for meetings. With the term "loiter", students have discussed who can be present and how in our public and campus environments.

In a short period, students have moved through AI tools, scale models, and now, full-scale structures ready to be used by anyone.

"Our studio has conducted architectural experiments on a 1:1 scale, exploring dimensions, materials, behaviour, and atmosphere. With a pre-defined set of materials for each group, the result became five freestanding structures for loitering," says Adam Sävhage, a master's student in Architecture at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Text: Johanna Bernhardtz

The exhibition opened on 23 May. The structures will be displayed on Drottning Kristinas väg 67 during the summer and moved to new spaces on campus in autumn to make room for new constructions.

Per Franson, Fredrik Stenberg, Karin Matz and Nina Taghavi at the Department of Architecture are the KTH teachers who have guided the work.