Listening to Tornedalen

For a long time, the Swedish North has occupied a paradoxical position as both a centre and a periphery within this nation. Now portrayed as Nya Framtidslandet (the new land of the future) amidst the ongoing Green Transition, the national priorities continue to eclipse its profound impact on everyday life in the North. 

This Master’s Thesis aims to shift perspectives by exploring what domestic architectures unfold when place directs the outcome, rather than responding to the national housing crisis. For the past year, I have devoted my full attention to a village by the Swedish-Finnish border and have speculated on how architecture can further assist Juoksengi’s resilience towards the national canon.

The methodology contends that examining crafted objects, landscapes, and architectural typologies in Tornedalen at millimetre resolution provides a means of uncovering northern domesticities that challenge the national canon of home. By demonstrating how a crafted object can be read as a condensed archive of labour, territory, and identity, the project establishes a basis for the spatial strategies later proposed in Juoksengi. 

Architecture is understood as a process of creation, recognising that time is not linear but a network of relations and resources. These resource fields include metrics of materials, labour, energy, and emissions related to extraction, transformation, distribution, installation, and deconstruction or reuse. The final architectural intervention became a compilation of crafted elements that bear the traces of those who built it, combining vernacular knowledge and traditions with contemporary and industrial technologies. 

I would like to conclude by saying that Juoksengi, Tornedalen, and the Swedish North speak loud and clear - if we choose to listen sincerely. This project has been my way of participating as a student of architecture.