Tromsø is an urban island that abounds with snow from the Polar night through spring-winter. Daily routines for snow handling and storage are required five to six months of the year. A warming climate poses new disruptions with sudden thaws and rain on snow entailing challenges to human and animal livelihoods both within and outside the city. The Arctic is warming six times the global average, and Tromsø is growing in a thawing environment. The course Nixtopia Tromsø combines traditional, scientific, and practical snow-how with landscape design strategies. Winter actions broadly define the conditions for snow critters and plant species, liveable, and pleasurable areas in spring and summer.

The studio will run parallelly and collaborate closely with the course Ecology for Landscape Architecture. Shared knowledge between the two courses helps to understand the importance of coordination of seasonal routines and ecological life cycles in the maintenance of green, blue and white infrastructures.

Latin names of plant species are used in the ecology course, mirroring this, the course name Nixtopia combines the Latin word for snow, Nix and the suffix -topia, which means both place and community. Nixtopia Tromsø aims to explore the possibilities for civic meeting places and connections throughout the Tromsø island’s city centres, forests, and plains. The studio aims to develop an awareness and critical reflection on topics that contribute to positioning landscape architecture in the public discourse.

The students will work with on-site field investigations and landscape architectural projects at localities on the Tromsø Island/Romssasuolu. Each student starts as location scouts to find a suitable location where snow practices may be experienced, staged and studied. We expect that the students use their site actively in their design research and concept development.