Umeå universitets logga

Imagine visiting a housing exhibition so radical and so ground-breaking that it will influence urban planning and housing standards for an entire nation. During the Stockholm Exhibition 1930, around four million people got to experience just that when the ideas of functionalism were presented to the public. The new, modern style ideal sparked great public debate and opinions were divided. Some of the most vocal proponents of functionalism wrote the propaganda text “acceptera” in which they argued that we must break free from the past and must “accept” the new.

One of the advocates of the new modernist ideals was Sven Markelius who a few years later presented “Hem I Kollektivhus”, a new domestic concept for the Swedish family inspired by Alva Myrdahls’ socio-political ideas. The proposal was a multi-family house with a shared kitchen, a communal children’s department, and other collective functions with the aim of getting the woman out to work instead of being stuck in the kitchen with household chores.

Inspired by the ideas of collective functions as a response to current housing and social issues, the question arises of how we could approach the same thinking in today’s society. The study explores the Swedish housing model and what role housing exhibitions have had on Swedish housing architecture.

This thesis proposes a new Swedish housing concept that explores private and collective functions in domestic life and how it fulfils the personal need for space. The proposal includes a double sided, rotating wall as a new tectonic component in the Swedish domestic environment. The rotating walls can be opened and closed on our own premises and provide more space for our personal needs. The possibility of opening and closing rooms with a more periodized system creates new spatial connections. Either as an expansion of the unit, or a room of one’s own isolated from the dwelling. The room of one’s own can function as a home office, a painting workshop, a music studio, or a room for meditation and poetry. What space do you need in your Swedish domesticity?