Daniel Koch

Daniel Koch is Associate Professor in Urban Design with specialization in Spatial Analysis and docent in Architecture at KTH Architecture and a practicing architect at Patchwork Architecture Laboratory. At KTH, Daniel works in the Urban Design and Urban Theory research area, heading the profile Critical Morphology and Spatial Analysis, where he is involved in several research projects with external funding, supervise PhD-students, and participate in the research area Applied Urban Design.

Daniel is vice Programme Director for the Masters' Programme in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design where he also teaches in the introductory course (Sustainable planning and design) and heads the studio course Textures within the programme. For the period of October 2024 to June 2026, Daniel also has a special assignment as Deputy Director of First and Second Cycle Education at KTH ABE, with a focus on future development of the ABE 1st and 2nd Cycle educational structure.

Research

Daniel's research investigates the relation between architectural space and social, cultural, and political phenomena, with a focus on spatial relations as an integral part of architecture. The research examines how formations of boundaries, relations, spaces-within-spaces, disjunctions, and heterogeneity performatively situate people and produces social situations, extending into and dependent on social relations and structures. Central to this investigation has been the production of public culture, subjectivity, and the training of aesthetics, as well as how diagrammatic representations of such relations work to drive research and design.

Recent Publications

InThe Physical and the Digital City: invisible forces, data, and manifestations (ed. Silvio Carta), the chapter  "The smart city in the smaller context : Urbanity, data-driven planning, and AI in the context of small data and local conditions," discusses social, cultural, and geographical challenges of digitalisation in contexts where regular digitalisation strategies might not apply, the "smart city" model encounters difficulties, and where demographic change challenges local identities and ways of life. The chapter is an output from the projectDuvedmodellen för Lokalsamhällen 2.0 funded by Vinnova.

InMuseum Configurations(ed. John Peponis), Daniel contributes with the chapter "Narrative, Dramaturgy, and Spatial Choreography", delving into the relation between architecture and movement. utilizing choreographic theory to unpack a more qualitative, embodied, and nuanced conceptualization thereof. Challenging a predominant focus on flows and traces, the discussion includes movement as experience and expression, but also as culturally encoding and part of negotiation of collective norms - and as individual, collective, and socially and culturally staged for the other.

InThe New Urban Condition: Criticism and Theory from Architecture and Urbanism(ed. Leandro Medrano, Luiz Recamán, and Tom Avermaete), Daniel contributes with the chapter "The Bubble, the Arrow, and the Area", theorizing how diagrammatic concepts act in and on urban design thinking, including how they affect perceptions and projections of behavior and urban life. The chapter engages with conceptualizations of urbanity and urban design ideals active today, while also investigating how they have been continuously present in both theory and practice for quite some time.

Reports and papers

There are also two reports in Swedish (with English summary) that presents the collected knowledge of two recently finished research projects,Equal Living EnvironmentsandDuvedmodellen för lokalsamhällen 2.0:"Jämlik livsmiljö: Universell utformning och tillgänglighet som stadsbyggnadsutmaning" and "Digitalisering och landsbygdsutveckling: Lärdomar från Duvedmodellen för lokalsamhällen 2.0", and a co-authored review paper with Dincel et al.,  "Light formed through urban morphology and different organism groups: First findings from a systematic review.,".

See further publications in the Publication list.

Current Research Projects

Currently, Daniel's research is primarily focused on four projects: within Digital Futures the new projectDigitalization, AI and sustainability in cities and sectors, and wrapping up the previous Digitalisation and the public sphere; NorDark, concerning lighting design for multi-species ecologies; DelA – explorative prototypes in cohousing, coliving and beyond, concerning sharing in housing architecture; andThe inclusive, diverse and accessible city, a collaboration with MIT and Tele2. The work in Digital Futures builds on previous projects, starting with a project to develop an agenda for Smart Societies research within Digitalfutures:Towards a Smart Society–the Role of Digital Futures.

Earlier Research Projects

Daniel recently concluded work as researcher inSensable Stockholm Lab: Urban Segregationand project leader forCity Change(projects within Sensable Stockholm Lab, with Stockholm City and MIT), andArchitecture and Urbanism, addressing the social space in the 21st century(FAPESP; with FAUUSP, UMA, TU Delft, PC3, Harvard, Universidad Politecnica Madrid).

Before that, he headed the research projectEqual living environments: urban design for reduced segregation and increased accessibility(Vinnova, with Uppsala Municipiality, Funktionsrätt Uppsala län and Funktionsrätt Uppsala Kommun), and the digitalisation work package inDuvedmodellen.

Below is a list of a selection of previous research projects. Please see the portfolio pages for ongoing research projects and earlier research projects for full descriptions.

• CityChange (2021-2023), Senseable Stockholm Lab.
• Towards a Smart Society - the role of Digital Futures (2022-2023),a SEED project, where WP1 focused on developing a new agenda for Smart Societies within Digital Futures.
• Duvedmodellen för Lokalsamhället 2.0 (2020-2022), leading the work package on Digitalization.
• Equal living environments: urban design for reduced segregation and increased accessibility (2021-2022),Vinnova, with Uppsala kommun and the disability rights organisations of Uppsala municipality and region). Investigated how to understand universal design from system perspectives (political, social, spatial).
• Sensable Stockholm Lab: Urban Segregation (2020-2021),investigating (unequal) changes in urban habits following the COVID-19 restrictions.
• GIS and Spatial Analysis(Stockholms Stad, withinApplied Urban Design(SE))
• Structures and Systems in morphology and use, KTH / Trenop
• Methods and theory for building analysis,Chalmers / C-Arc, 2018-2020.
• Cities & Rail(Swedish Institute, Mistra Urban Futures, ABE), building networks and investigating challenges and potentials for research concerning how cities are affected by and interact with rail development in the Nordic region (with Riga Technical University & TalTech), headed by Ann Legeby, 2019.
• Interactive Platform for Social Systems Services in Comprehensive Planning(Vinnova), developing basis and prototypes for interactive analysis of accessibility to social systems services and differentiated models for spatial analysis (with Tyréns, Upplands Väsby, Boverket, and SGBC City Lab), headed by Ann Legeby, 2018-2019.
• Urban Form and the Practices of Daily Life, a project in the larger funding of Decode (in Swedish; English summary), studying a suburb in Uppsala, Sweden from the perspectives of (un)equal living conditions, societal presence of public services, and power structures in the built environment, 2018; Decode was headed by Björn Hellström.
• TheStockholm Commission for a Socially Sustainable Stockholm(Stockholms Stad) with the two sub-projectsEqual Living ConditionsandPerspectives on Culture,2016-2017.
• Vice Director of the national strong research environment Architecture in the Making (Formas), as well as performing research on modeling and consumer subjectivities within the environment, 2014-2017. Headed by Fredrik Nilsson (Chalmers).
• Head ofReformulation of the Urban Design Research Area at KTH Architecture (KTH), 2015-2017.
• Programme and steering committee of the national research school in Architecture, ResArc, 2012-2016.
• Lead of the Infrastructure Domain in the EU FP7 project RIBS (Resilient Infrastructure and Building Security), including heading the research work at KTHA in the project (with UCL, DTU, E2, Technion, Aedas, NBG), 2010-2013. Headed by Hervé Borrion (UCL).
• KI Architecture and knowledge environments (Akademiska Hus), a historically anchored study of the development of the KI Campus in Solna, Sweden. Headed by Anders Bergström.
• To see and be seen in healthcare environments (Formas, Locum, Västfastigheter, Karolinska University Hospital), concerning relations, interaction possibilities and potentials between personnel in hospitals, headed by Jesper Steen.
• Platser i praktiken ('Places in Practice', Stockholmshem, with the City Planning Office and Urban Development office of Stockholm), concerning small and mid-sized suburban centers with Hökarängen as a case in point, headed by Lars Marcus.
• Mind the Gap- an artistic research project about rhythm, mirroring and reflections headed by Monica Sand (Konstfack).

Other earlier academic work

Until 2016 Daniel was Programme Director of the Doctoral education in Architecture at KTH, where he also co-ran courses in Philosophies in Architecture (with Hélène Frichot) and Urban Design (with Lars Marcus). Between 2007 and 2013 he taught at the Stockholm Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, and between 2007 and 2012 he taught in the Building Management programme at KTH Syd (The planning and building process), now part of KTH ABE.

Contact information

Daniel Koch
KTH Architecture
100 44 Stockholm
daniel.koch@arch.kth.se
+468 790 60 25