Form Studio: Modular Vernacular will produce new architectural forms for a historically sensitive setting. Design work will focus on the relationship between construction and context. The aim will be to propose new spatial models for the present-day inhabitation of a heritage site.

The studio will build on the long-term AA Visiting School project the Island Reader which has for the last four years developed alternative ways of investigating a place through collective analysis.  We will continue to work with measuring and observation as our first act but construction and materiality will be the focus in our design studio.  

The Coast

The studio will operate on the islands of Lyngør, off the south coast of Norway. Historically, the coastline of Norway has experienced a continuous influx of ideas from around the world as a result of its location within coastal trade networks. Architecturally, this has resulted in a diverse and fluid notion of style. This is in visible contrast to the settlements of the interior valleys, where local culture was preserved in more isolated communities. This dichotomy between the coast and the interior is fundamental to Norwegian cultural history and identity. The studio will travel between these different communities to study their variations in style and typology, abstracting our readings into new architectural forms.

Our aim is to instil a critical appreciation for the enduring benefits and limitations of vernacular construction beyond the pastiche. We will draw on the spatial and constructional characteristics of the vernacular, to determine the formal qualities that have evolved over time from the necessities of island life. By teasing these implicit characteristics, we will address a key question:

How ought architects design new forms within finite historic environments?

The Island

The studio will focus on Lyngør, where buildings have been frequently restyled to mimic continental trends. Throughout the history of the island, houses have been taken apart, reassembled, cannibalized and reformed into new iterations. Sailors brought home the world and remade their houses in its image. ´Southern Classical´ houses were hand-crafted objects, built from standardized and transportable modular elements. We will understand modular structural systems and standardization as fundamental to contemporary architecture. Notched logs, timber panels, and stone foundations were rational parameters that determined the plan. Buildings were designed alike in their construction logic, but with individual expression and variation apparent in their detail.

Lyngør is nestled across four islands, located near historic shipping lanes, where the North Sea meets the Baltic. The island community blossomed into a rich merchant village in the late eighteenth-century, with a burgeoning class of ship owners, sailors and boatbuilders. The main strait through the village was once the main highway around the coast of Norway, and much like the follies of Potemkin or the strip in Las Vegas, the houses turn their good side towards the water. Expensive paints and ornate windows winking flirtatiously at the boats passing by.

Failing to modernize with the arrival of the steam ships at the turn of the century, Lyngør remained preserved nineteenth-century village - at least on the surface. After a period of stagnation, the concept of modern leisure hit the island in the 1950’s. Often it was the decedents of the shipwrights that returned, with their cabin cruisers, sunbeds, and a thirst for the authentic. Buildings are markers of wealth, monuments to family history and symbols of cultural and financial capital. In Lyngør everyone owns the truth about what is authentic, and they are not afraid to tell you.

Many people will claim that it is logical for new buildings to mimic the prevalent classical style. Some call for UNESCO world heritage status, while others are concerned with the implications this could have for the local businesses. Like many other villages along the Norwegian coast, an upsurge in seasonal tourism has been accompanied by a decline in permanent residency. The closure of much of the basic infrastructure necessary to maintain a permanent community has seen tourism replace industry.

The local municipality will implement a temporary construction ban while a regulatory framework for the new development is established. The studio will regularly engage with the various stakeholders involved in this process throughout the semester.

The Building

To Read – to gather knowledge through surveying, recording and interpreting.

The Studio will actively collaborate with Utmark Architects from Bergen, a multidisciplinary practice of architects, digital surveyors, and construction managers (www.gamle3hus.no) The practice works between preservation and new built form. Workshops on land surveying, digital surveying and post processing of digital information will be held in Lyngør.

The studio does not consider research to be a separate exercise from propositional thinking, rather, it asserts that the act of surveying is propositional by nature and therefore inherent to design thinking. Readings will focus on architectonic thresholds, such as the relationships between foundations and topography, the domestic interior and the weathered exterior, traditional craft and contemporary construction. As part of the municipal framework, these readings will create a catalogue of built form in Lyngør.

To Build – to construct by assembling and joining parts or materials.

The current statutory regulations on the island limit the built footprint of a residential building to less than 200 square meters, while also regulating colour, material, and roof shape. The studio will question these parameters and test their limitations. Students will use their precedent studies to inform their proposals for new construction methods and future modes of inhabitation on the islands.

Projects will be developed through large-scale material models and architectural drawings. Learning from what has already been built on the islands, traditional craft will inform contemporary construction methods. Prefabrication, contemporary timber technology and digital fabrication will inform the design of modular details. For the last three years Kastler Skjeseth Architects have been building on the island. Students will frequently be exposed to a network of builders, artisans and construction sites in various stages.