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| Building a Studio Context: NY based, Swedish artist Sigrid Sandström recently negotiated the purchase of a small tract of land contiguous with the 4 house settlement of Tovåsen in the mountainous region of Häjedalen, Sweden. Her grandparents initiated the development of Tovåsen, and the immediate family owns all the cabins there. On her site, Sandström plans to build a new winterized cabin, or stuga, that she will use as a studio. However, her work is often of the form of large paintings that would be difficult to transfer to and from the location, so the studio is intended to function more as a contemplative environment. Sandström’s work often contains references to the winter mountain landscape and she has an abiding interest in the phenomenology of vision. Moreover, the work contains recurrent themes of loneliness and melancholy. Project Aims: Students from the Art, Space, Nature, Science, Edinburgh (asnse) programme at Edinburgh College of Art (eca) were set the project of providing a design solution to the proposed studio. The students were instructed to function as a radical research collaborative unit whose outputs would directly feed into the actualised building. From the onset it was stated that the final outcome need not take the form of a building. Rather the group were to interrogate the conditions of site, client and intended function to arrive at a unified design solution. Structure: 6 weekly one-hour seminars were held at eca exploring themes within art, architecture and philosophy concerning dwelling and solitude (meetings held between January 29th – March 4th). See selected references. The seminars were led by Gavin Morrison (with Eelco Hooftman and Alan Johnston). A site visit to Tovåsen near Ljungdalen (April 19th – 25th) was undertaken for site reconnaissance which resulted in an archive of images and details of landscape/geographical, architectural and psychological conditions. Possible plots for the building were researched and a series of micro-projects conducted to assist the focusing on the nature of the site. Underlying the active aspects of the site visit was the necessity to comprehend the pragmatic and psychological requirements to live in such a location. Site visit led by Gavin Morrison & Sigrid Sandström (with Eelco Hooftman and Alan Johnston). An interim crit session was conducted on May 27th with the deadline for the project set for 3 weeks into the new academic year. |
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