The Arctic is changing, not only in terms of climate and environment, but also in terms of demography and urbanism. These changes have lead to intense debates and extensive research. Through the research project Future North (www.futurenorth.no) along with a series of studios, the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape has investigated the urban landscapes and the development in a variety of Arctic cities, demonstrating that there is not one standard model for Arctic Urbanism. The studio stresses the fact that contemporary changes in Arctic cities are not necessarily connected to resource exploration and exploitation, but also to a general socital change. The studio challenges conceptions of Arctic communities as non-urban, and concepts of urbanity in the Arctic as largely imported from other regions. Most recent attempts to develop specific approaches to Urban Design have essentialized landscape relations in design, focused narrowly on mitigation of local climate or reduced urbanity to an engineering issue.

This studio will explore the specific urban landscape of Longyearbyen in the archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean. The community have undergone a rapid development, possibly facing even more dramatic changes in years ahead. A main issue for the arctic communities is the development of social, economic and environmental sustainability, so also Longyearbyen. This studio focuses on a wide range of issues, however, not to separate them, but rather to capture the complexity of the real and site-specific, treating them as complementary and entangled. What kind of urban design strategies, projects and landscape interventions will benefit Longyearbyen in order for it to become a more liveable, sustainable and enjoyable artic city?

The studios will develop sets of strong, but complementary logics of urban design that focus on a wide range of issues: social, cultural, infrastructural, ecological, etc. It is the complementarity of these approaches that first and foremost promises sustainability in the future thinking of cities in the arctic.
A mapping of potentials and ressources but also of the challenges and needs in Longyearbyen will form the basis for programming the design exercise.
Specific issues to be addressed may include: the development of a new port, the phase out of coal mining, the location and design of new residences, strategies for long-term sustainable urban development with a focus on inclusive (universally designed) urban social space, the development of tourism infrastructure, as well as the facilitation and redevelopment of new social, commercial and retail services.

In collaboration with local actors, students from AHO and the Tromsø Academy of Landscape and Territorial Studies will propose projects, strategic urban designs, and landscape interventions in and around the city of Longyearbyen. Students will have the opportunity to individually develop their own project, based on the collective mapping conducted by the two studios. This open process includes a step-by-step development of ideas, programmes, strategies and designs, guided by the studio teachers.
Teachers and researchers in the Future North research project and researchers at the University of Tromsø will contribute to the studio.