ROOTED: A housing framework for small peripheral towns

The framework operates across three scales. At the urban scale, Hamngatan is transformed from a transit corridor into a civic pedestrian spine organised around three nodes. These include a public square that anchors civic life and community activities, a production node that supports local construction through a timber workshop and material bank, and a harbour node that extends public life to the waterfront through seasonal and year-round programmes. At the architectural scale, the framework provides two resident-facing tools. A catalogue structures decisions before construction, while a handbook guides residents through the building process. Together, these tools enable residents to complete their own dwelling within a shared structural frame, choosing unit size, interior layout, facade cladding, and surface treatment. At the tectonic scale, the framework connects regional timber production with local construction through CLT prefabrication at Martinsons in Bygdsiljum and resident-led completion, where locally sourced and reclaimed timber is processed, applied, and maintained over time. 

The proposal draws on theories of housing as process (Turner, Habraken), internalities as design drivers (Salgueiro and Bouzas), and the historical precedent of the Swedish Egnahemsrörelsen, which combined standardised guidance with resident participation and locally sourced materials. 

The thesis argues that housing production, when organised around regional resources, local labour, and cooperative ownership, can generate sustained economic activity within the communities it serves. The catalogue and handbook are proposed as transferable instruments that can support similar forms of housing production in comparable peripheral contexts.