Architectural Anthropology

Architectural Anthropology
This book prompts architects and anthropologists to think and act together.
In order to fully grasp the relationship between human beings and their
built environments and design more liveable and sustainable buildings and
cities in the future, we need new cross-disciplinary approaches combining
anthropology and architecture. This is neither anthropology of architecture,
nor ethnography for architects, but a new approach beyond these positions:
Architectural Anthropology.
The anthology gathers contributions from leading researchers from various
Nordic universities, architectural schools, and architectural firms as well as
prominent international scholars like Tim Ingold, Albena Yaneva, and Sarah
Pink – all exploring, developing, and innovating the cross-disciplinary field
between anthropology and architecture. Several contributions are co-written
by architects and anthropologists, merging approaches from the two
disciplines in order to fully explore the dynamics of lived space.
Through a broad range of empirical examples, methodological approaches,
and theoretical reflections, the anthology provides inspiration and tools for
scholars, students, and practitioners working with lived space. The first part
focusses on homes, walls, and boundaries, the second on urban space and
public life, and the third on processes of creativity, participation, and design.
Marie Stender is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Department

of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, Denmark.
Claus Bech-Danielsen is an architect and professor at the Department of the

Built Environment, Aalborg University, Denmark.
Aina Landsverk Hagen is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the

Work Research Institute at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.
Routledge Research in Architecture
The Routledge Research in Architecture series provides the reader with the
latest scholarship in the field of architecture. The series publishes research from
across the globe and covers areas as diverse as architectural history and theory,
technology, digital architecture, structures, materials, details, design, mono-
graphs of architects, interior design and much more. By making these studies
available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote
quality architectural research.
Kenosis, Creativity, and Architecture
Appearance through Emptying
Randall S. Lindstrom
Affect, Architecture and Practice
Toward a Disruptive Temporality of Practice
Akari Nakai Kidd
Architectural Anthropology
Exploring Lived Space
Edited by Marie Stender, Claus Bech-Danielsen, and Aina Landsverk Hagen
Writing the Materialities of the Past
Cities and the Architectural Topography of Historical Imagination
Sam Griffiths
Louis I. Kahn in Rome and Venice
Tangible Forms
Elisabetta Barizza
Cybernetic Architectures
Informational Thinking and Digital Design
Camilo Andrés Cifuentes Quin
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Routledge-Research-in-Architecture/book-series/RRARCH
Architectural
Anthropology
Exploring Lived Space
Edited by Marie Stender,

Claus Bech-Danielsen, and
Aina Landsverk Hagen
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Marie Stender,
Claus Bech-Danielsen, and Aina Landsverk Hagen; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Marie Stender, Claus Bech-Danielsen, and Aina
Landsverk Hagen to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Part I: edited by Claus Bech-Danielsen and Marie Stender
Part II: edited by Sten Gromark, Aina Landsverk Hagen, and
Marie Stender
Part III: edited by Eli Støa and Aina Landsverk Hagen
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stender, Marie, 1978- editor. | Bech-Danielsen, Claus, editor.
| Hagen, Aina Landsverk, editor.
Title: Architectural anthropology : exploring lived space / edited by
Marie Stender, Claus Bech-Danielsen and Aina Landsverk Hagen.
Other titles: Architectural anthropology (Routledge (Firm))
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Routledge research in architecture | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020056660 (print) | LCCN 2020056661 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367555757 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003094142 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Architecture and anthropology.
Classification: LCC NA2543.A58 A735 2021 (print) | LCC
NA2543.A58 (ebook) | DDC 720.1/03‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056660
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056661
ISBN: 978-0-367-55575-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-55579-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09414-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of contributors viii

Foreword by Tim Ingold xiii
Acknowledgements xviii
Introduction to architectural anthropology 1

M ARIE ST END E R, C L A US B E CH - D AN I EL S EN , A ND
AINA L ANDS VE RK H AG E N
The method of architectural anthropology:

six suggestions 13
AL BE NA YANE V A
PART I
Home, walls, and boundaries 31
EDITED BY CLAUS BECH-DANIELSEN AND MARIE STENDER
1 The viscous porosity of walls and people 35

S AND RA L ORI PE TE R S E N
2 An outdoor living room: balconies and blurring

boundaries 48
M ARIE ST END E R A N D M A R IE B LO M G R EN J EPSEN
3 Mould, microbes, and microscales of architecture:

an anthropological approach to indoor environments 62
TURID B ORGE S TRA N D Ø I EN A N D M IA K R US E RASM USSEN
4 Homelessness and homeliness: collage technique as a

research method 76
L AURA HE L EN E HØ J R I N G AN D C LA U S BEC H - DAN I ELSEN
vi Contents
5 Walls and islands: exploring perpetual configurations
of carcerality through architectural anthropology 90
RUNA JOHA N N E SSE N AN D T O M A S M AX M A RTI N
PART II
Urban space and public life 105
EDITED BY STEN GROMARK, AINA LANDSVERK HAGEN, AND MARIE STENDER
6 Interdisciplinarity on site: exploring the urban

interventions ‘Unidades de Vida Articulada’ in
Medellín 109
L ISB ET HAR B O E AN D HA N N E CE C ILI E G EI RBO
7 Engaging with mixed-use design: the case of the urban

library in Oslo 122
CICILIE FA GE R L I D, B E N G T A N DE RS E N , A N D ASTRI MA RGARETA
D ALS E ID E
8 Urban youth, narrative dialogues, and emotional

imprints: how co-creating the ‘splotting’ methodology
became a transformative journey into interdisciplinary
collaboration 135
AINA L ANDS VE R K HA GE N A N D J EN N Y B . O SULDSEN
9 What makes spatial difference? Conceptualizing

architectural anthropology through filmmaking 149
L INA B E RG LU N D -S N O DG RA S S A N D EB BA H ÖGSTRÖ M
10 ‘After Belonging’: a study of proposals for

architectural interventions for arrival of refugees in
Oslo, Norway 164
E LI S TØ A A N D AN N E S I GF R ID G R Ø N S ET H
PART III
Processes of creativity, participation, and design 177
EDITED BY ELI STøA AND AINA LANDSVERK HAGEN
11 Architectural anthropologists in the making? Paths

to creative youth participation in local urban
development 181
INGRID M . T O L STAD AN D A S TR I M A R G A RETA D ALSE IDE
Contents vii
12 Questioning the shape of social concepts:
transforming anthropological insights into
architectural design drivers 194
DRE W NATHA N TH I LM AN Y
13 Rendering atmosphere: exploring the creative glue in

an urban design studio 207
ANE TT E ST EN SL U N D AN D M IK K EL BIL LE
14 Constructing community? A collaborative housing

development process meeting credit and concrete 224
S IL JE ERØY SO L L I E N AN D S Ø RE N N IEL S E N
15 Norwegian pilots: navigating the technological logic of

sustainable architecture 237
RUTH W OODS A N D TH O MA S B ER K ER
Afterword: engaging architectural anthropology 251

S ARA H PINK
Index 264
Contributors
Bengt Andersen, social anthropologist, senior researcher, Work Research

Institute, Oslo Metropolitan University. He has recently published on
segregated cities, surburban dreamscapes and visual marketing in home
selling.
Claus Bech-Danielsen, architect, professor, Department of the Built Environ-
ment, Aalborg University. Research in housing architecture including
postwar housing, disadvantaged housing, suburbia, homemaking, housing
trends, affordable housing, and downsizing. Holds several positions of
trust in the Scandinavian research community, is chairman in think tanks,
and has received awards for his research.
Lina Berglund-Snodgrass, landscape architect and urban planning re-
searcher, Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. Research
interests include urban planning ideas, knowledge and forms of
organizing. She has recently published on testbed planning as a way of
conceptualizing urban planning in the intersection between experimental
and public sector logic.
Thomas Berker, social scientist, professor in science and technology studies
and leader of the Centre for Technology and Society at the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His main research area is
end-user research, predominantly related to sustainable building.
Mikkel Bille, anthropologist, associate professor, Department of People
and Technology, Roskilde University. His research focuses on atmospheres
and social uses of lighting, particularly in Scandinavia and the Middle
East. He is leading the projects Living with Nordic Lighting (Velux
Foundation) and The Pandemic City (Velux Foundation).
Astri Margareta Dalseide, architect and urbanist at the architecture firm
A-Lab. Her practice focus has been on public participation in planning.
Recent publications concern parents’ experiences of revitalized urban areas.
Cicilie Fagerlid, anthropologist, associate professor, VID Specialized
University. She has co-edited two anthologies on public and academic
Contributors ix
libraries. Her publications on libraries concern author events and the
potentiality of literature, democratic coexistence and participatory
emancipation.
Hanne Cecilie Geirbo, social anthropologist, associate professor at Oslo
Metropolitan University. She has a researcher position at the Oslo
School of Architecture and Design and holds a PhD in information
systems.
Sten Gromark, architect SAR/MSA, professor emeritus, Chalmers
University of Technology ACE, Department of Architecture and Civil
Engineering, Göteborg, Sweden. His research profile is on critical
interpretations of contemporary residential architecture based on
humanistic and social science-oriented perspectives.
Anne Sigfrid Grønseth, professor of anthropology at Inland Norway University
of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer and head of Unit of Migration and
Diversity. Has recently published on the ethics of knowledge creation and
mobilities of wellbeing.
Aina Landsverk Hagen, senior researcher, Work Research Institute, Oslo
Metropolitan University. PhD in social anthropology from the University
of Oslo on collaborative creativity among architects in Oslo and New
York. She researches topics like urban development, youth participation,
freedom of speech, innovation and idea development.
Lisbet Harboe, architect, associate professor at the Oslo School of Architecture
and Design (AHO). She practised architecture before completing her PhD in
2012 on social concerns in contemporary architecture.
Ebba Högström, architect and urban planning researcher, Blekinge Institute
of Technology in Sweden. Research interests include social issues in
architecture and urban planning, welfare geographies, and experienced-
based knowledge and methods. Has recently published on the urban
ethics of the asylum.
Laura Helene Højring, architect, PhD, project leader, OK-Fonden. Focusing
on the interdisciplinarity between theory and practice, architecture and
anthropology, she has done research on housing architecture, home-
making, and homelessness. Højring works with architecture and home-
lessness, through research, as adviser, and as member of boards and
interest groups.
Tim Ingold, professor emeritus of social anthropology, University of
Aberdeen, and a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society
of Edinburgh. He has written extensively on northern circumpolar
peoples, human–animal relations, evolutionary theory, environmental
perception, lines, walking, art, and architecture.
x Contributors
Marie Blomgren Jepsen, sociologist, research assistant, Department of the
Built Environment, Aalborg University. Her research focuses on the
social forms of urban life, the interplay between spatial settings and
social life, disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and the relationship between
neighbours in the city.
Runa Johannessen, architect, PhD, adjunct professor at the Royal Danish
Academy – Architecture, Design, Conservation. Johannessen is specialized
in the political instrumentation of architecture in sites of violence, conflict,
and societal transformation.
Tomas Max Martin, prison ethnographer, PhD, senior researcher at
DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture. Specialized in prison
sociology and the anthropology of the state with a focus on the
localization of human rights and appropriation of new technologies
and penal architectures.
Søren Nielsen, architect MAA, partner and director of research at
Vandkunsten Architects. Main fields of interests include aesthetics of
circular design, sustainability documentation and research. Nielsen is
responsible for large upgrading projects in non-profit housing areas
reusing building materials and small radical natural materials based
experimental buildings.
Turid Borgestrand Øien, architect, postdoctoral researcher, Department of
the Built Environment, Aalborg University. During her twelve years in
research, her work has explored and dealt with experiences and effects of
architecture. She has explored complexities of the sociotechnical indoor
environment and provided new insights on issues such as moulds and
lighting.
Jenny B. Osuldsen, landscape architect, partner in the architectural firm
Snøhetta, professor of landscape architecture, Norwegian University of
Life Sciences. Her practice, research, and teaching focus are on the
intersection of landscape architecture, urbanism and architecture looking
for strong concepts in conversation with humans, context, and
environment.
Sandra Lori Petersen, anthropologist, postdoc, Department of Anthropology,
University of Copenhagen. She is principal investigator of the projects
‘What is neighbour noise’ and ‘Together around neighbour noise’. Her
research focuses on sonic experiences, soundscapes, social relations,
personal identity, homemaking, the human voice, modes of listening
and radio.
Sarah Pink, professor and director of the Emerging Technologies Research
Lab at Monash University, Australia. She is a design anthropologist,
Contributors xi
whose work is currently focused on questions relating to human and
environmental futures and emerging technologies.
Mia Kruse Rasmussen, anthropologist, industrial PhD researcher at AART
architects A/S, Denmark. She has been engaged in several cross-disciplinary
research and innovation projects within the fields of sustainability and
building performance, focusing on the relationship between people and
environments.
Silje Erøy Sollien, architect, PhD, industrial researcher at Vandkunsten
Architects and Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University.
PhD in architecture and urban heritage planning, research on housing in
Africa and Europe, and employment as architect and planner. Her postdoc
project ‘DiversifyNow!’ is about alternative housing models in Denmark.
Marie Stender, anthropologist, senior researcher, Department of the Built
Environment, Aalborg University. Co-founder and project manager of
the Nordic Research Network for Architectural Anthropology. Apart
from architectural anthropology, Stender’s research interests include
place-making, disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the relationship
between social life and built environments.
Anette Stenslund, sociologist, postdoctoral researcher, Department of
People and Technology, Roskilde University. Specialized in studies on
space and atmosphere. She has done extensive fieldwork in hospitals and
critically engaged in debates on healing art and architecture. Recently she
has published on how urban designers address atmosphere throughout
design processes.
Eli Støa, architect, professor at the Department of Architecture and
Planning at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. She teaches housing design
and has published on environmentally friendly neighbourhoods and the
role of architecture and housing quality for human wellbeing and social
inclusion.
Drew Nathan Thilmany, industrial PhD, Henning Larsen Architects and
the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. Trained in anthropology,
sociology, and applied cultural analysis, his research explores the human
experience of architecture and the design of shared space. Creator of
Henning Larsen’s cultural analysis program (2017).
Ingrid M. Tolstad, anthropologist, senior researcher at the Work Research
Institute, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. She holds a PhD in
musicology, and has published on youth participation, quality assess-
ments in creative art processes, organizational change, and music
production.
Ruth Woods, anthropologist, researcher at the Centre for Technology and
Society at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
xii Contributors
(NTNU). Buildings that include advanced technical systems, the
occupant’s response and the building’s relationship with the social
context are her main fields of interest.
Albena Yaneva, professor of architectural theory, University of Manchester,
UK. Crosses the boundaries of science studies, cognitive anthropology,
architectural theory, and political philosophy. Yaneva is author of several
books, including Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for
Architectural Legacy (2020), and recipient of the RIBA President’s
Award for outstanding research (2010).
Foreword
Tim Ingold
Architectural anthropology is not the same as the anthropology of

architecture. Nor is it ethnography for architects. The anthropology of
architecture has a pedigree that stretches back to such nineteenth-century
classics as Lewis Henry Morgan’s Houses and House-Life of the American
Aborigines. Since then, there have been any number of studies relating the
forms and layout of buildings of the most varied descriptions, in societies
around the world, to the rhythms of domestic life, patterns of kinship,
symbolic structures, belief systems and ritual practice. These studies have
always gravitated towards vernacular traditions sustained in the collective
consciousness of a people, as against the elevation of individual genius that –
in the Western world, at least since the Renaissance – has distinguished
architecture as a profession. In this the anthropology of architecture has much
in common with its cousin, the anthropology of art. With architecture as with
art, this kind of anthropology turns native productions into ready-made
objects, ripe for analysis and interpretation. It is a colonizing endeavour,
which encompasses the creative impulse and productive achievement of other
lives within the contextual frames of culture, society, or history. In so doing, it
absolves the analyst of any responsibility to join with the productive process,
or of to learn from it. Rather, the anthropologist of architecture sides with the
other grand masters of contextualization, the architectural historian and the
critic, as a gatekeeper to meaning, interpreting the work for the benefit of
those less knowledgeable than they are.
For many, however, anthropology is distinguished less by its objects than
by its method, of participant observation. In principle, of course, there can be
no observation without participation – without, that is, an intimate coupling,
in perception and action, of the observer with the phenomena that capture
his or her interest. In that sense, participant observation is more a condition
of inquiry than a method, an acknowledgement that we can only know from
within the field of our relations with others, in a process of joint attention
and response. To recast the condition as method, however, is to convert
lessons learned through observant participation into data for analysis. And
with that, participant observation mutates into ethnography. Close-up and
patient participant observation can indeed reveal ethnographic details
xiv Foreword
unobtainable by other means, of how people use the spaces they inhabit, or
turn them to account for practical purposes. Such details could potentially be
of considerable interest to architects in the design of new buildings. If their
aim is to create spaces that are easy and safe to live in, and that promote
personal and communal wellbeing, then ethnographic findings could help
them find viable solutions and avoid mistakes. This is ethnography for
architects. Yet in this as in its counterpart, user-centred design, the resident is
posited as a consumer, whose needs or desires are to be prioritized. Thus
ethnography for architects conforms to a market-based logic of service
provision, and does nothing to challenge it.
What, then, is architectural anthropology? To find the answer we have, first,
to cease thinking of architecture as buildings. It is rather a discipline of study, a
mode of inquiry, distinguished by a fascination with materials and structures,
with surfaces and atmospheres, and with the fashioning of a multisensory
environment that can become a place of habitation for both human and non-
human beings. It is not that there are no buildings in architecture; rather, that
every building asks questions of its inhabitants, of its materials, of its
environment, to which the architect is bound to listen and respond. Second,
then, we have to rethink what we mean by anthropology. It is not, as exponents
of the anthropology of architecture would have it, about embedding other lives
within an all-encompassing framework of cross-cultural comparison. Nor, as
the conflation of anthropology with ethnography might lead many architects to
believe, is it a way of collecting data on people by feigning friendship and
intimacy in the practice of participant observation. Anthropology’s mission is
rather to inquire into the current conditions and future possibilities of life in this
one world we all inhabit. And in the fulfilment of this mission it is prepared to
draw upon the experience of people everywhere. At this time of crisis, when the
very habitability of future environments is at stake, this is experience we cannot
afford to ignore. But nor can we ignore the lessons of architecture.
The possibility of a truly architectural anthropology, however, has arisen
only thanks to recent developments across the spectrum of the so-called
human sciences, which have upended the doctrine, inherited from the
Enlightenment, of progress and perfection in a world in which humanity is
destined to rule over the rest of creation. For anthropology, this has entailed
a recognition that the world we inhabit is not reserved for us alone but
teeming with vitalities of every conceivable kind. As an inquiry into the
possibilities of life in a more-than-human world, anthropology has no
choice but to engage with these vitalities. Architectural anthropology works
by way of these engagements, through speculative interventions that join
with inhabitants in the design of environments for life. This volume
contains a wealth of instances of how this might be done, focusing
respectively on houses and homes, urban spaces, and issues of creativity
and participation in design.
Consider the home, for example. An anthropology of architecture would
explore how the house, along with its furnishings, both scaffolds the
Foreword xv
activities of residents and maps them symbolically. Ethnography for
architects would collect data on these activities, and on residents’
experiences with them, in order to feed back into the design process. But
for architectural anthropology the home becomes a site of experimentation.
Thus we can do experiments with walls, to find out what happens when
things going on in adjoining rooms can be heard but not seen, or with
balconies, to inquire into how the tenor of domestic life is affected by being
enacted, as it were, ‘on stage’, in full view of neighbours or passers-by. We
can investigate the temperature and humidity of indoor spaces, how these
factors impact on the growth of mould, and how mould, in turn, affects
human health. We can compare home-living with the condition of
homelessness, learning from the ways homeless people perceive the urban
environment. In the home, things can be arranged in such a way that
movement from one space to another can be relatively seamless. Does this,
then, mean that life for the homeless, who cannot arrange things to suit
themselves, is disjointed and episodic? Is it like a collage? And what
happens when people find themselves in close proximity? Might their
density be reduced by building up? But then, what does it feel like for your
floor to be someone else’s ceiling? Can the home be anywhere other than on
the ground, at the meeting of earth and sky? And how can people be
expected to go about their lives, which extend along lines, in an architecture
built of blocks?
Turning to urban spaces: with its overwhelming focus on people in
‘traditional’, predominantly rural societies, the anthropology of architecture
has had rather less to say about the environments of the city. These have been
considered, instead, within literatures on space and place, which often make
little mention of architecture at all. Here, attention tends to focus on such
matters as the orientation of buildings, the location of doors and windows,
and the street as a thoroughfare, elaborating on the distinction between the
settings of domestic and public life. Ethnography for architects, for its part,
would collect data on the use of different kinds of urban space to inform a
process that, at this scale, is more frequently known as ‘planning’ than as
design. Armed with this information, architects and planners would set out to
design urban spaces that offer congenial opportunities for residents to come
together in the formation of what they call place.
For architectural anthropology, however, the city is a great human
experiment, a site for investigating not only the relation between place,
space, and movement, but also the experience of weather and seasonal
variation, the affective dimensions of what it feels like to ‘belong’, and the
possibilities for citizens to participate actively in the shaping of their
surroundings. How can the flux of social life, with all its comings and
goings, knotting and unravelling, be reconciled with the apparent fixity of
the urban fabric? How do features of the urban environment, both natural
such as riverbanks and coasts, and built such as walls, canals, and railway
lines, work to keep people apart? Architectural anthropology would show
xvi Foreword
how planning is enacted situationally, as a way not of predetermining what
is to follow, but of assembling or pulling together the wherewithal to be
able to launch into the future with a reasonable chance of success. In recent
years the meaning and purpose of ‘infrastructure’ has emerged as a core
theme, raising critical questions about how what is envisaged as a
foundational support for the city, on which all else rests, can eat away at
it from below. From sewers to metro-lines, from old mineshafts to the roots
of trees, underground workings threaten the neat division between
infrastructure and superstructure at the heart of progressive urbanism.
What if we thought of buildings not as erected on a solid base but as
floating in a waterlogged earth, under a looming sky? Is this a glimpse into
the future, when rising seas are expected to inundate many of the world’s
megacities?
When it comes to questions of participation and creativity, the limits of
the classical anthropology of architecture are yet more clearly exposed. For
an approach that starts from completed works, and sees in them the
expression of cultural values, given and transmitted from the past, can have
no purchase on the creative processes that brought these works into being.
People, in this approach, are bound to the reproduction of traditional
designs – designs that have effectively written themselves through a sort of
mental ‘bricolage’ – rather than participating actively in their co-creation.
Ethnography for architects could introduce a ‘user-perspective’ into the
design process, but as noted above, this still positions inhabitants as
consumers of an environment that has been designed and built for them,
with their needs in mind, and not as active producers or makers. In many
fields today including architectural design and urban planning,
‘participation’ is a mantra of good practice, yet it remains a panacea if it
is not transformative for all parties. The mere collection of ethnographic
data, even by means of the most participatory of methods, does nothing to
transform the understandings of the people themselves, nor does it alter
their status vis-à-vis the recipients of these data, who reserve the faculties of
creative design for themselves alone. How, then, would an architectural
anthropology do things differently?
First, it could promote the idea of participation as a genuine co-creation
that is mutually transformative, particularly for younger generations. Then, it
could recognize both design and making as ongoing, collaborative processes
in which people and materials are caught up in a complex web of ecological
relations. It could reconceive plans as ‘pilots’, in which these relations – their
resilience and creative potential – are put to the test through rehearsal, or
through their rendering in computer-generated imagery. This would mean
locating the creativity of the design process not in the exceptional faculties of
‘creatives’, such as architects and designers, but in the generative potential of
the social relationships in which all participants are involved. And it would
allow for a degree of friction and even resistance in the design process itself.
Architectural anthropology does not assume that ‘users’ automatically
Foreword xvii
comply with whatever designers, on the basis of received data, have decided
is good for them. The boundaries of inclusivity and exclusivity in the design
process are shifting and permeable.
Both architecture and anthropology are poised at an important moment
in their respective disciplinary histories, as they navigate the choppy waters
stirred up by the collapse of the project of Enlightenment humanism in
which they came of age. Neither can appeal, any longer, to the doctrine of
human exceptionalism, or to the idea of the progressive conquest by
modern civilization not only of the one world of nature, but also of the
many cultural worlds within which the lives of traditional folk were once
assumed to be confined. Anthropology and architecture, in opening to a
more-than-human world, and to the sheer range of human experience
within it, are also opening to one another, even melding with one another,
in their common bearing on the design of environments for future collective
life. This volume points a way forward.
University of Aberdeen, March, 2021

Acknowledgements
Most of the chapters in this anthology originate from the three workshops
of the Nordic Research Network for Architectural Anthropology held in
Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and Oslo in 2018–2019 organized by the five
editors and Jennifer Mack, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, School of
Architecture and the Built Environment. We would like to thank Jennifer
and all the participants in the workshops. The workshops and the
publication of this book were only possible with the generous support of
the joint committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and
Social Sciences. For the preparation of this manuscript, the editors are
especially indebted to Maja Wolters.
Introduction to architectural
anthropology
Marie Stender, Claus Bech-Danielsen,
and Aina Landsverk Hagen
We shape our surroundings – our buildings and homes, our cities and
landscapes, and even our world – and it shapes us back, often in unintended
ways. This is becoming unpleasantly clear in the era of the Anthropocene,
where human-made transformations of the Earth have reached an extent that
makes it relevant to consider human beings a geological force. The re-
lationship between human beings and their built environments is not a one-
way, finite process. Instead, it is an ongoing entanglement between humans
and their non-human surroundings. As the cases explored in this book de-
monstrate, architecture does not just concern buildings as delimited designed
objects but also involves mould and microbes, walls and views, sound and
smell, and legal and financial structures. All of these interact in our ways
of inhabiting the world, intervening in where and among whom we belong
and how space is lived. To fully grasp such entanglements and design more
liveable and sustainable buildings and cities in the future, we need new cross-
disciplinary approaches combining anthropology and architecture.
Thus, this book prompts architects and anthropologists to think and act
together. The two disciplines have long been related. Thinking about how
we inhabit the world is closely related to thinking about what it means to be
human. As argued by anthropologist Victor Buchli, the architectural form
has been the most significant analytical category in which to consider the
origins and ideal forms of human society throughout the anthropological
debates of the 19th century (Buchli, 2013, p. 21). Early anthropologists,
like Lewis Henry Morgan (2003/1881) and Cyril D. Forde (1934), used the
study of architecture to support the development of more general com-
parative theories (Vellinga, 2011). For French sociologist Marcel Mauss
(2006), architectural form was the key technology through which social life
and reproduction are made possible, and classic social anthropologists,
such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Pierre Bourdieu, have meticulously studied
the architectural layout of villages and huts as representing universal social
structures. Strauss launched the concept of house societies, highlighting the
house as an objectification of social relations (Carsten & Hugh-Jones,
1995). Henrietta Moore (1986) argued that the universal children’s game
‘playing house’ demonstrates how concepts of space are acquired and thus
2 Stender, Bech-Danielsen, & Hagen
‘signify principles or values which go beyond, and even determine, func-
tional uses’ (Humphrey, 1988, p. 17).
Architects have also studied vernacular architecture around the world
as a source of aesthetic inspiration; knowledge of functional, tectonic, or
material properties; or a foundation for general theories on architecture.
‘The primitive hut’ has been a recurrent preoccupation in architecture at
times when renewal was needed, according to American architectural his-
torian Joseph Rykwert (1981). The common interest of the two disciplines
has been concentrating primarily on vernacular architecture, or architecture
without architects, as Bernard Rudofsky (1964) coined it. Such approaches
have recently been revived through the promotion of the concept of new
vernacular architecture, stressing the environmental and cultural benefits of
architecture learning from and further developing native building techni-
ques and local materials (Frey, 2013; Richardson, 2001). Nevertheless, the
notion of the vernacular can also be considered to be promoting reduc-
tionist and romanticist representations of ‘the other’ (Vellinga, 2013). This
book thus argues in favour of architectural anthropology beyond the ver-
nacular. If the two disciplines have a common interest in architecture
without architects, it should be even more apparent for them to also come
together around architecture with architects.
A range of recent developments in both disciplines renders further in-
tegration of the two disciplines more relevant than ever. In architecture,
the break with modernism has given rise to a renewed focus on the social
and cultural contexts in which architecture is integrated and coproduces.
Modernism has been criticized for its intention to create a rationalistic and
universal architecture liberated from historical values and traditional life
forms and focusing on the needs of the average person (Bech-Danielsen,
2004). In the early 1960s, Canadian urbanist Jane Jacobs (1961) was
among the first to criticize the rational thinking of modernism, in which the
social qualities of urban life were disregarded, and she agitated for the
shared urban space as the place where people meet and engage in urban
development. In the following decade, the Norwegian architectural theo-
retician Christian Norberg-Schulz (1978) criticized the oblivion of the di-
versity of places and pointed to the relationship between place and identity.
In the 1980s, a growing interest arose among many architectural scholars
in the existential phenomenology brought into the discourse by the French
philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964), among others. This interest
led to a rediscovery of the sensory experience in architecture. Thus, the
quantitative objectives that characterized modernism were replaced by or at
least supplemented by objectives of a more qualitative nature and a renewed
focus on the aesthetic qualities of architecture. The development continued
in the 21st century. For instance, Clapham (2005) criticized 20th-century
housing research for being too rational and quantitatively oriented in its
view of housing needs. He pointed out a focus on objective categories and
quantitative data regarding housing size and the number of installations
Introduction 3
and called for more qualitative approaches that considered both individual
and cultural differences. Today such attention is even more relevant, as
many architects work in cultural contexts different from their own, while
their own cities are becoming increasingly multicultural.
An ‘ethnographic turn’ can already be seen in contemporary architecture
and design research (Yaneva, 2017), which stresses that architecture is to be
seen not as an object or a product but as a continuous social process in-
volving both human and non-human actors (Awan et al., 2011; Latour &
Yaneva, 2008). Sub-disciplines, such as landscape architecture and interior
and urban design, have long tended to focus on the entanglement of human-
material interactions, organisms, and objects. Such disciplines aim to create
an atmosphere and design spaces for a multitude of uses and potential
misuses (or alternative uses), including a holistic perspective of their design
of public places. Nevertheless, their methodological training has not fo-
cused much on the interaction with the actual or future user. Moreover,
architectural education and research at the schools of architecture are
currently transformed and modified to the standards of the universities,
implying a stronger focus on academic research. An increasing number of
researchers in architecture – not least the junior researchers – are inspired
by anthropological methods and theories.
Turning home and towards practice

Anthropology has, conversely, experienced an increasing interest in phy-
sical surroundings, spaces, landscapes, things and materiality over the last
two decades. What has been described as spatial, material, ontological, and
post-humanist turns has produced an increasing interest in design, archi-
tecture, and the built environment. With inspiration from phenomenology,
actor-network-theory and philosophical pragmatism concepts like dwelling
(Ingold 2000), the agency of things (Latour 2005) and the ontology of
materiality have been promoted (Henare, Holbraad, & Wastell 2007). In
addition to this, while architecture has increasingly ‘gone global’, anthro-
pology, in contrast, can be said to have ‘turned home’. This turning home,
as argued by Norwegian social anthropologist Marianne Gullestad, also
implies an inherent criticism of the binary segregationalism of colonialism
(Lien & Melhus, 2011) that was so integral to the thinking of the founders
of anthropology. Whereas before it was a comparison between ‘them’ and
‘us’ (also implicit in the notion of the vernacular), in recent decades,
anthropologists have been preoccupied with treating each context and
empirical setting with equal rigour in methodology (Lien & Melhus, 2011).
The commitment to context and ethnographic thick description of inter-
connections among different institutions and parts of society, which is
referred to as holism, is also integral to the anthropological approach.
Though initially developed as a study of other cultural contexts, many
anthropologists now apply similar approaches in their own societies, often
focusing on some of the same settings with which architects are familiar:
large cities, housing areas, office buildings, or modern institutions like
schools, hospitals, or prisons.
Furthermore, applied anthropology has experienced an upsurge in in-
terest in the last few years, exemplified by annual conferences and applied
anthropology networks with participants from a range of disciplines and
sectors. When the American anthropologist Margaret Mead and fellow
anthropologists founded the Society for Applied Anthropology in the 1940s
(Bennett, 1996), they were clear on its commitment to improving the
quality of life in local communities. Nevertheless, applied anthropology has
a conflicted history, including dubious colonial policy development and
military operations, going back to the early days of the discipline and in-
volving founding fathers, such as Bronislaw Malinowski (1929), who re-
ferred to it as practical anthropology, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1931), and
E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1946). Sub-disciplines, such as business, develop-
mental, and institutional anthropology and action research approaches,
have involved participants or respondents in different ways. Moreover,
these disciplines have aimed to influence policymaking and apply anthro-
pological methods and theory to the analysis and solution of practical
problems in the contemporary world.
Lately, design anthropology has evolved as a sub-discipline partly initiated
by international design and innovation companies implementing anthro-
pological approaches as tools for user-driven innovation, co-creation, and
collaborative design. Increasingly, design anthropology has also become a
field of research and teaching that merges applied anthropology and design
approaches (Gunn, Otto, & Smith, 2013). This development conflates an
increasing preoccupation with stakeholder engagement, user involvement,
citizen science, and impact measurement and the adherence to UN
Sustainable Developmental Goals by the founding institutions on the
European, regional, and national levels. Within the world of architecture and
urban design, the focus on social sustainability and user involvement has also
increased, and in this endeavour, architects and planners have started to
collaborate with anthropologists and related disciplines. In academia, an
emerging interest in architectural anthropology has appeared in publications
(Allen, 2014; Buchli, 2013; Hagen, 2015; Ingold, 2013; Stender, 2016;
Yaneva, 2012), conferences, and networks. This anthology emanates from
the Nordic Research Network for Architectural Anthropology, which gathers
scholars and practitioners working in the field between architecture and
anthropology. The anthology aims to explore and further develop the re-
search field of architectural anthropology and link scholarly research to ar-
chitectural design practice. Architects and anthropologists co-wrote several
of the following chapters, and the presented case studies often build on
collaborative projects between research and practice.
Developing architectural anthropology further is also about developing a
more engaged, applied, and constructive anthropology and a more critical,
Introduction 5
sound, and explorative architecture. Both are urgently needed as our ways
of inhabiting the world are in acute need of a redesign. The current global
crises of climate, health, and inequality call for new ways of engaging with
our surroundings and each other in more sustainable ways. As cities grow
and people increasingly live in dense urban agglomerations worldwide,
built environments increase in importance as habitats for humans and other
species and as the main factor changing our planet. The global building
sector is currently responsible for almost 40% of global carbon dioxide
emissions, which is growing at unprecedented rates.
Over the next 40 years, 230 billion square metres in new construction are
expected to be built, adding a building volume equivalent to Paris to the
planet every week (Abergel, Dean, & Dulac, 2017). As we apparently
cannot stop building, we must find ways to ‘build back better’, as currently
promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and other stakeholders and policymakers. Although
originating from post-disaster reconstruction in the wake of earthquakes,
the concept is presently also applied to how societies can engage in resilient
recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic (OECD, 2020). Whether it is in the
wake of earthquakes or global health crises, building back better is about
not just returning to business as usual to restore economies and livelihoods
quickly but also about increasing society’s sustainability and resilience.
Despite the physical connotations of building back better, this cannot be
done by material or technical solutions alone. Instead, the approach stresses
the importance of focusing on behavioural changes, well-being, and inclu-
siveness (OECD, 2020). If we are to build back better, rather than just build
as we used to, we need to combine anthropology’s profound understanding
of human beings and their social relations with architecture’s ability to
create and innovate the way we live.
Nordic and post-human perspectives

A majority of the authors contributing to this book come from the Nordic
countries, and most of the empirical cases presented in the book are
Scandinavian. This regional focus of the book reflects that the idea for it
was born out of the activities of the Nordic Research Network on
Architectural Anthropology.1 The network gathers researchers from var-
ious Nordic universities and architectural schools and junior researchers
and actors from outside academia – all working in the interdisciplinary field
combining anthropology and architecture. The scope of the network and
this anthology is open and explorative, aiming to discover what is occurring
in this cross-disciplinary field, who is working with or interested in archi-
tectural anthropology, and how they understand and practice it. What
methodological developments and theoretical reflections does it entail?
How can it contribute, and how can it be further developed? These ques-
tions have inspired the analyses and discussions presented in these chapters.
We are assured that there is much interesting architectural anthropology
occurring in other places in the world, which is highly relevant to include in
future volumes on the topic.
The Nordic influence may also permeate the contributions presented in
other ways. Nordic architectural and urban design approaches are typically
associated with notions of liveability, putting people first, well-being, wel-
fare, cities for people, and democratic urban design. The humanistic ap-
proach has long been a hallmark of Nordic architecture and urban design,
and architects and anthropologists in this region have always shared in-
terest in the relationship between human beings and their spatial sur-
roundings. Nevertheless, both architects and anthropologists must
currently open up to a more-than-human world and may benefit from
opening to one another. It is time to question such human-centredness and
explore how we create worlds for both humans and non-humans. Post-
humanism, an integrated theory of knowing/being (Barad, 2007), has
emerged from critiques of rational humanism and anthropocentrism and
fundamentally disrupts the logical binaries of the Western world: body/
mind, self/other, and human/non-human. It is about insisting on power
analyses and disrupting normative thinking practices that perpetuate in-
equities (Braidotti, 2013).
There is a need for new ways of inquiring into the current conditions and
future possibilities of life in the world we inhabit. Recent developments in
both architecture and anthropology have stressed the potential of further
integrating the two disciplines in this endeavour. Architectural anthro-
pology is neither anthropology of architecture nor ethnography for archi-
tects but is a new approach beyond these positions. This anthology aims to
inspire and challenge architects and anthropologists to think and act to-
gether in the future by demonstrating how the two disciplines can be
combined in novel and productive ways. The emerging field of architectural
anthropology has so far primarily been dominated by anthropologists
writing theoretically about architecture, or architects drawing inspiration
from anthropological methodological approaches, often by default or
without studied reflection. This anthology instead outlines a broad range of
concrete examples of how the two existing disciplines can be combined in
novel and productive ways. It aims to move beyond an anthropology of
architecture, regarding the world of architecture as a mere object for an-
thropological scrutiny. It also seeks to move beyond ethnography for ar-
chitects, or simply applying ethnographic methods to inform the design of
buildings and cities. Instead, the book asks how both architecture and
anthropology can be transformed by engaging with one another. It shows
that architecture is not just about buildings but is also a mode of study and
inquiry and that anthropology is not just about inquiry but can also join
with and learn from the productive process.
A disciplinary characteristic of anthropology is the comparison between
ethnographic material that describes social phenomena in different communities
Introduction 7
worldwide. Anthropologists negotiate not only cultural boundaries, but
also disciplinary boundaries and are suited for interdisciplinary work
(Sillitoe, 2007). For anthropologists as for architects, concepts are tools to
work with and building blocks of theory development. The late Norwegian
anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1990, p. 86) rhetorically asked, ‘if not to
comparative insights, where might an analyst turn for ideas?’. An essential
methodological strategy for anthropologists is to never start with pre-
formulated concepts when engaging with the field but to develop these in
close contact with the empirical material. Another disciplinary strategy that
anthropologists have institutionalized is to situate their knowledge by
making their position as researchers explicit towards both the people they
meet and the analyses they write. This reflexivity is also visible in the
chapters of this volume.
By promoting such architectural anthropology, we do not mean to suggest
that it is an easy or unproblematic task to collaborate and combine dis-
ciplinary approaches. As with all interdisciplinary work, there is a risk of
starting at the lowest common denominator and ending up with something
that qualifies neither as proper architecture nor as decent anthropology. As
argued elsewhere (Stender, 2016), several fundamental differences between
the two disciplines may complicate collaboration. Architects communicate
through plans, pictures, models, diagrams, and visualizations, whereas an-
thropologists tend to prefer words, even though films, photographs, and
drawings of both people and objects have been part of the fieldwork data
collection strategy since the early days (Bateson & Mead, 1942; Pink, 2006).
Architects study the world to change it. Architectural researchers even change
the world to study it, whereas anthropologists tend to study the world as it is
with ongoing social relations before suggesting any change, adhering to the
‘native point of view’ as an outset for analysis (Malinowski, 1932/1922). As
Jamer Hunt noted, ‘The ethnographer works in ever greater detail to ensure
that she has got the present just right … The designer uses the present – and
uses it often imperfectly – as a provisional leaping off point for re-imagining
possible futures’ (Hunt, 2011, p. 35). Like designers, architects are trained to
have a firm sense of quality and are expected to make judgements based on
their own ‘first-person perspective’ (Wang & Groat, 2002, p. 229), whereas
anthropologists are much more inclined to question and challenge such
judgements and presumptions. These differences hold plenty of potential for
conflict and misunderstanding, yet in combining and overcoming them, we
may develop promising new approaches. Architecture can be considered a
means of studying anthropology, and anthropology can serve as important
insight in the realities hiding behind the architectural drawings and facades.
In an architectural anthropological perspective, the built environment
emerges in a new light – not only as an object but also as an active part of our
lives. Studying architecture is not only a question of what it ‘is’ to us but also
what it ‘does’ to us. Anthropological methods become crucial to answer such
questions.
Comparison with distant phenomena enables us to make both what we
study and our own gaze relative (Vike et al., 2001). As a fundamental anti-
positivistic strategy, it is nonetheless full of uncontrollable variables and is
difficult to standardize. When translocating an anthropological concept across
cultural contexts, deliberations on what aspects of the concept we bring from
its original context and what is left behind are essential. Barth argued that
comparisons within fields are not distinguishable from comparisons ‘between
fields’; the focus is on using variation for a comparative investigation (1999,
p. 84). As is apparent throughout this anthology, variation is an integral part
of architectural anthropology, being a mode of inquiry and perspective that
includes rather than excludes, through investigating on a meta-level what we
take for granted in the respective disciplines.
Fifteen ways to explore lived space

The anthology gathers contributions from leading researchers from various
Nordic universities, architectural schools, architectural firms, and promi-
nent international scholars who have been an important source of in-
spiration in developing the cross-disciplinary field between anthropology
and architecture. The foreword of this book is written by Tim Ingold, who
has inspired anthropologists and architects to open to one another and
reconsider our approach to our environments. Ingold provides an essential
starting point for the book in arguing in favour of architectural anthro-
pology as being different from the anthropology of architecture and eth-
nography for architects. Rather than regarding architecture as buildings, we
need to regard architecture as a mode of inquiry, he writes. Equally, an-
thropology’s mission is not just to collect data on people but rather to in-
quire into the current conditions and future possibilities of life in this one
world we all inhabit.
After the introduction, Albena Yaneva, another central pioneer in the field
of architectural anthropology, unfolds how architectural anthropology can
offer such an enquiry into the current conditions and future possibilities of
life. She argues that architectural anthropology needs to perfect and renew its
methods and offers six methodological suggestions as to how this can be
done: first, to adjust the speed of enquiry and to suspend explanation;
second, to follow in concreto the paths and flows of non-humans and the
connections they trace; third, to stay on the ground as that site where little
can be seen, but can be seen well; fourth, to learn from the visual episte-
mology of architects and mobilize design visuals as a form of generating
knowledge; fifth, to renew the descriptive techniques that better capture the
ontological granularity of architectural processes; and sixth, to increase our
ability to intrude in the design worlds, to interfere and make difference.
After these introductory chapters, 15 chapters follow that present a
broad range of empirical examples, methodological approaches, and the-
oretical reflections, providing inspiration and tools for scholars, students,
Introduction 9
and practitioners interested in exploring lived space. The 15 chapters are
divided into three parts with different empirical foci and objects of study.
We first focus on the built environment of the home. Then, we turn to the
shared spaces of the city and public life. Finally, we broaden our outlook to
the processes involved in architecture across scales.
The first part focuses on home, walls, and boundaries. The five chapters
explore the socio-material dynamics at play in our most intimate built en-
vironments. Walls, windows, balcony railings, and other boundaries in the
domestic built environment keep us apart and yet connect us in sometimes
unexpected ways. The chapters illustrate that the built environment of the
home provides shelter from the outside world, yet also mediates our re-
lationships with the outside world. Walls are both for keeping in and
keeping out. We open up the boundaries of the home to remove mould and
microbes yet enclose other boundaries that are built to exclude some people
from our communities, protecting normality through walls and islands. The
chapters reveal that home is not necessarily a private heaven. To some,
home can also be a trap or prison, and power is also at play in where, how,
and with whom we live.
The emphasis on power and processes of inclusion and exclusion is
further developed in the second part of the book, focusing on urban space
and public life. Urban neighbourhoods, streets, squares, parks, libraries,
and community centres are for everyone in principle, yet not everyone is
included equally in public life. We need better tools to analyse how, why,
and where we belong and how built environments take part in such pro-
cesses. The chapters explore how space and sociality play together in cities
and public places in various ways and discuss whether urban and public
spaces can be designed for inclusion or whether architecture also has other
means for designing inclusion than through the design of built spaces.
The third part of the book focuses further on architectural processes of
creativity, participation, and design. The chapters delve deep into such pro-
cesses by examining how co-creation and participation unfolds and how
anthropologically informed insight into the social concepts of inclusivity and
the social constructions of architectural renderings can drive design processes.
It includes planning, piloting, financing, and building processes as integral
parts of the architectural anthropological creativity. As such, all become
elements in what shapes our built surroundings. These chapters all demon-
strate a mixture of research and practice efforts that include the creative
component that provides hunches and tentative intuitions of what might be
the most telling features of a group of people and what might be trivial (Barth,
1999) and the scientific component to inform the studies we conduct.
The concluding perspectives by prominent design anthropologist Sarah
Pink point to future perspectives and potential for further developing this
field. She argues that the combination of global crises and emerging tech-
nologies necessitates a turn towards more active and engaged anthropology
worldwide. There is an urgent ‘need for a movement, an impulse and a
mode of engagement’, and this is where architectural anthropology has a
pivotal role to play. Through discussing cases of the unbuilt, the prototype,
and construction work, she shows how future-focused architectural an-
thropology might attend to different elements of creativity involved in the
circumstances in which architecture as a practice and process is implicated.
Architectural anthropology enables researchers and practitioners of mul-
tiple disciplines to reveal experience, imagination, inequalities, and possible
productive ways forward. In Pink’s words, ‘it is a sub discipline that has the
potential to combine theoretical scholarship and applied practice in ex-
emplary ways’.
Note
1 From 2018 to 2019, the network supported by the joint committee for Nordic
Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted three workshops
in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
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The method of architectural
anthropology
Six suggestions
Albena Yaneva
The interest in architectural anthropology gained its contemporary cur

rency from a range of different analytic developments: first, the emergence
of a reflexivity trend among architectural professionals and scholars as a
key epistemological feature of architectural studies; second, the increasing
realization of architecture as a social practice and the awareness of the
highly contingent socio-cultural nature of all outcomes of architectural
production. It flourished in particular in the past three decades in the
aftermath of the 1980s structuralism wave when a number of fields changed
their conceptual repertoire and took a pragmatist orientation. Its critical
counterpart that emerged in the 1960s based its method on critique to
construct its object of study – that is, by rupturing with the social pre-
constructions, both spontaneous and scientific, of this object and explaining
the subjective experience of all social agents based on their insertion into
objective social structures relevant to the object of study. If the main task of
critical anthropology was to reveal what was hitherto hidden, i.e. the real
mechanisms behind official social representations, its pragmatist version is
based on what architects and dwellers do, the actions they undertake and
assume, the discourse they sustain while acting; their institutions, cultures
and practices, rather than their theories and ideologies (Schön, 1983). It
embraces a relational perspective that reinstates previously ignored areas of
contemporary urban life: from the presence of non-human activity to the
centrality of distant and forgotten actors and connections. Thus, an
architectural anthropology emerged (not anthropology of architects or for
architects) as “a mode of inquiry, distinguished by a fascination with ma
terials and structures, with surfaces and atmospheres, and with the fash
ioning of a multisensory environment that can become a place of habitation
for both human and non-human beings” (Tim Ingold, Foreword, this vo
lume). In this chapter I will discuss three concrete empirical settings that
exemplify three fieldworks, three settings for doing architectural anthro
pology and illustrate three possible modes of enquiry into architecture:
designing, archiving, and dwelling/inhabiting. While they are somehow
14 Yaneva
Figure 0.1 Architects at work at OMA, Rotterdam.

Photo: Albena Yaneva.
biographical and trace my long-term engagement with the field, they aim at
providing the background for a methodological reflection on architectural
anthropology formulated in six suggestions for improving its methodolo
gical tactics.
Six methodological suggestions 15
Setting one: Designing
Designing takes us to the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in
Rotterdam (2001–2004). While design has been the subject of multiple
studies, architectural scholars have rarely touched on the contingency of
design process, or on the process of designing as key for understanding how
buildings, cities, landscapes, and environments come into being. To grasp
the meaning of OMA buildings and Koolhaas’s architecture, we need to
forget the architect and his building for a moment and turn away from
official interpretations in architectural theory. Instead, we need to engage in
architectural anthropology that will circumvent traditional understandings
of star-authorship (in the spirit of subjectivist anthropology) or critical
studies (in the spirit of critical-historicist anthropology). This would mean
to follow the models, the foam materials, the software, and tools mobilized
by architects to design, but also the entangled networks of engineers, cli
ents, professional model makers, and interior designers. It requires ac
counting for the ordinary forces and conditions of design experience,
following (not Rem) but many young designers in the office and the paths
their work has traced. We track the way their actions spread, and the way
architects make sense of their world-building activities, the routines, mis
takes, and workaday choices usually considered of lesser importance. In so
doing, we can arrive at a better understanding of OMA’s design by the
means of a detour to design experience (Yaneva, 2009a, 2009b). The
purpose is to avoid the passage through the vague notions of society, cul
ture, imagination, creativity, which do not explain anything but rather need
explanation.
Thus, from the incidental accounts of design as product, I suggested
shifting the attention to design as practice, from design qua noun to de
signing qua verb, from buildings as static objects to buildings as uncertain
and contested moving targets (Latour & Yaneva, 2008). An architectural
anthropology of designing requires tracing the complex socio-spatial co
ordinates of design venture through the daily work of architects, models,
instruments, and technologies.
Setting two: Archiving

Archiving takes us to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in
Montreal (2015–2018). While the fate of established archives has been the
subject of multiple studies, architectural scholars have rarely touched on the
mechanisms of constructing these archives and the process of archiving as
keys for understanding how historical sources in architecture are estab
lished. An architectural anthropology of archiving aims at understanding
how mundane architectural objects become archival by scrutinizing the
specific mechanisms of production of archives in design practice (archive
making). Tracing also how architectural archives are assembled to reflect
16 Yaneva
Figure 0.2 Archivists and curators at work at the CCA, Montreal.

the nature of design as a collective, heterogeneous, social process, we ex

amine the situated and local practices of arranging (cataloguing, archiving,
numbering) and taking care of archival objects (preserving, conserving,
repairing, maintaining) and how they all happen to produce larger struc
turing effects in collections that resonate with greater epistemological an
xieties, coming from the discipline or the profession. To do this the
architectural anthropologist circumvents traditional understandings of star-
authorship, placing the architect or the key curator in the limelight of
History, and rather follows the myriad of actors: archivists, conservators,
digital archivists, librarians, registrar people, museum technicians, but also
instruments, microscopes, solvents, digital files, folders, and codes, thus,
tracing archiving in its mundane and practical course. Following archiving
and its web of moves is a way to access the specificity of the current con
ditions of architecture making.
Thus, from the incidental accounts of archives as sources, I suggested
shifting the attention to archives as practices, as ways of scrambling epis
temologies, from archive qua noun to archiving qua verb, from collections
as sites of enduring historical evidence to collections as sites of epistemo
logical reshuffle (Yaneva, 2020). An architectural anthropology of ar
chiving requires tracing the work of all human and non-human participants
in archiving and requires attention to the various sites of knowledge
Figure 0.3 The gas technician Chris at the National Graphene Institute, Manchester.
production and care, the attitudes, the forms of life, the conditions of
enunciation, discursive and nondiscursive, all those little and insignificant
things that little by little, step by step, allow us to understand what archi
tectural archiving is.
Setting three: Dwelling/inhabiting

Dwelling/inhabiting takes us to the National Graphene Institute (NGI) in
Manchester (2017–2019). Dwelling is understood here as the process of
active settling in, transforming, appropriating, adjusting, maintaining and
living with the varying materiality and programmes of action of a building.
“Dwelling” is a processual version (Strebel, 2011) of the functionalist
concept of “use” (Hill, 2003), the oppositive of a “building perspective”
according to which “worlds are made before they are lived in” and which
assumes that “acts of dwelling are preceded by acts of worldmaking”
(Ingold, 2000, p. 179). Dwelling/inhabiting is thus the activity of world
making through active participation in the shaping of material form and the
reshaping of the built through inhabitation. While science buildings have
been largely explored in the past three decades, existing research focused
either on the technical side of lab design (studies of efficient and sustainable
design) or on the human interface (studies of the communication patterns,
the shaping of scientific identities). Yet, how technical and human aspects
18 Yaneva
tangle in everyday lab dwelling remains largely unexplored. An archi
tectural anthropology of dwelling circumvents traditional understandings
of users and blatant functionalistic post-occupancy accounts that place
architects and clients in the limelight. Instead, it follows simultaneously the
modalities of action of the design infrastructure that makes a science lab
possible (the gas rooms, the grey spaces, the utilities blocks, the mechanical
workshops, and the different ways of servicing them) and the human ex
periences it facilitates. The purpose is not to trace the individual subjective
opinions and perceptions of this type of architecture, but to rather grasp
the quality and variability of the experience of different lab dwellers, i.e. the
various instrumental practices, the hours spent, the lost track of time,
the intensity of communication, the plethora of activities performed in the
same compact building, the equipment arrangements, the spatial choreo
graphy and the speed of work. As isolated and protected environments set
barriers for an anthropologist to access and freely stroll in these spaces
(much more than they do in an architectural office or in an archiving in
stitution), to circumvent these restrictions, the anthropologist takes eth
nographic walks and “tours” to gain insights into the different spatial
practices and daily routines of dwelling that form the core of the “la
boratory life” at the NGI. We question people’s attachments to the
building, take numerous photographs to explore the different atmospheres,
material arrangements, equipment settings, inscription techniques and the
various design features that matter for them. This allows following the
rhythm of scientific dwelling in its course.
Thus, from the incidental accounts of use and users, I suggested
shifting the attention to using/inhabiting/dwelling as a process, as spatial
practice, from dwelling qua noun to dwelling qua verb as key for un
derstanding the new generation of 21st-century science labs (Novoselov
& Yaneva, 2020). An architectural anthropology of dwelling requires
tracing the spatial practices and daily work of an array of participants
that are commonly excluded from the studies of scientific design: lab
technicians, facility managers, gas room and storage room technicians,
house attendants and porters, but also apparatuses, gases, flows, cylin
ders, cleaning machines, nanoparticles, that all partake in scientific
production.
In all three settings we witness how architectural anthropology
inquiries into the current conditions (and future possibilities) of life in the
world we all inhabit and recognizes all its participants. It outlines de
signing/archiving/dwelling as ongoing, collaborative processes in which
people and materials are caught up in a complex web of ecological re
lations. Moreover, it acknowledges all “unsung heroes” – the young
designers, foam, and foam cutters at OMA (not just the star architect);
the conservators, technicians, cataloguers, solvents, and software at the
CCA (not just architects and curators); the lab technicians, the facility
managers, the porter, gas cylinders, and the lab apparatuses at the NGI
(not just scientists and designers). That is, architectural anthropology
accounts all sorts of practical work contributing to the making of
knowledge in these three different settings. Tracing those that are less
accustomed to our presence as anthropologists, those who greet us with
the question “why me?”, will increase the chances to unravel a reality
that is commonly forgotten or considered as insignificant to the under
standing of the world we live in.
In all these three cases, designing/archiving/dwelling are not ways of es
tablishing kinds of stable knowledge (knowledge as a certainty), but rather
an active ongoing process of exploring, testing, assessing, repairing, con
serving, and reappraising the architectural connections of design/archival/
dwelling objects to the world, to other bodies of knowers and objects. It is
mediated, collective, and distributed. Knowledge is seen in a continuous line
of its reworking by human practice (Harris, 2007), as well as by a variety of
non-humans that act on and react to it. Architectural anthropology does
not settle on the ready building/archive/user but rather explores the cultures
of designing/archiving/dwelling by following, meticulously and slowly, their
specific moves, procedures, and instruments. Unpacking these processes
through the various moves of all entities involved in designing/archiving/
dwelling, while following their wider networks that often cross confined
institutional boundaries, architectural anthropology traces how these
worlds come to be.
How can we trace designing, archiving and inhabiting qua processes
and in concreto instead of embracing an individualized vision or the ob
jective vision? Away from the abstraction of a building, an archive or use
as a frame, the question to be asked is not “what is …?” The very question
“What is this?”, as Deleuze has put it, assumes the simplicity of “essence”
(1994). Asking it, reduces the city to a logic of contradiction, caught
between the pincers of being and non-being, ordering it by what it is and
what it is not, and ultimately draws us away from reality. Another way of
setting the question of exploring the specificity of designing/archiving/
dwelling is to assume that the insignificant, the details, the banal, could
contain the significant, or the “essential”, and only in different properties
and events. The questions to ask might be: “how does an archive/building/
use work?”, “Who and what sets it in motion?”, “In what cases?”, “How
and where?”, “Where and how?”, “What are its modalities of action?”,
“How does it become traceable, knowable?”, and “under what circum
stances can it be seen, grasped, and composed?’ Moving beyond the ex
isting trends of “subjectivist” or “objectivist” approaches and responding
further to these questions by drawing meticulously on the three empirical
exemplars, what I intend to offer here is an argument for a richer archi
tectural anthropological practice in the form of six methodological
reflections.
20 Yaneva
Method: Six suggestions
First: Follow slowly! Do not rush to explain!

A quick visit of an architectural office, an archive or a science building will
provide an impression of designing/archiving/dwelling as activities, but
hardly an experience of them. It will result in “quick” typologies and bullet
point as ways of understanding that rely on stable definitions and cate
gories. On these occasions we will become hasty writers and will produce
quick accounts by reconnecting the materials from the quick studies with
the literature and the key concepts. However, such a swift and partial
perception will inevitably limit any theory of it. The interpretation will be
analytical and one-sided. As hasty sightseer we will begin to replace the
missing experience of designing/archiving/dwelling as processes with un
related notions coming from the world of theory. The theorizations will
define random equivalent relationships between architectural works and the
larger frameworks of societies, cultures, and symbols, and will rely on the
rigid conceptualizations of styles, languages, and typologies.
Yet, as architectural anthropologists we can embrace another epistemo
logical position to engage with architecture, a slow one (Stengers, 2016). As
slow researchers we can visit the sites of designing/archiving/dwelling more
often, trying to understand their specificity by experiencing them, carefully
keeping a diary, interviewing, observing, documenting, and tracing dif
ferent activities, movements, and gestures. Exploring a design practice/ar
chival institution/building through repeated visits, we will be able to
experience the various speeds and intensities of the processes unfolding
there, the changing crowds of people and flows of things. Follow the moves
of the foam as Sarah is using the foam cutter at OMA and trying to reach to
that new shape of a building-to-be, follow the tentative gestures of a con
servator preforming a treatment of a mouldy drawing, placing it in a folder,
adding a code, on its way of becoming archival, follow the argon, as the gas
runs through the system of flows at the NGI reaching out to graphene work
in the labs and the moves of Chris trying to fix the valves. Follow them
slowly. Tracing gradually and trying to make sense of what we see, guessing
the meaning and “assessing the better guesses” (Geertz, 1973), mapping out
the trajectories, the events, and the happenings, we gradually gain experi
ence. This will make our theory different. It is this rich experience that will
form the core of our interpretations; this is, I will argue, the only founda
tion for theory. Historical and cultural information can throw light on a
building/archive/user but cannot substitute the understanding of the ar
chitectural objects or processes in their own qualities and relations. The
epistemology of the slow architectural anthropologist relies on presence and
immediacy and grasps the specificity of various architectural objects and
institutions rather than replacing them with the quick concepts of society
and culture, like a hasty sightseer would do.
Follow the moves of designing/archiving/dwelling; there is nothing
behind these actions that could explain the shape they take. Social
forces, economic factors, or cultural and contextual explanations are too
general, too detached from the real to explain the specific actions witnessed
(Latour, 1988). Instead of explaining, we simply witness designing/ar
chiving/dwelling happening and numerous events unfolding. This slow
mode of enquiry reclaims the art of dealing with and learning from what
some may consider messy and contingent realities (Till, 2009), and what
escapes the objective categorizations of traditional disciplines.
Second: Chase up all non-humans! Trace the relations!

It is impossible to understand and account for designing/archiving/dwelling
in concreto without tracing the paths and flows of a variety of non-humans.
Far from the dominant anthropocentric design or dwelling narratives, the
type of architectural anthropology description gives speech to that which
has no language: to the foam, the cutter, the spatula, the mould, the dust,
and the gas infrastructure. They are all part of the story to the extent that
they rely upon action. It is through the sliding of action from subject, to
model/foam/chemicals/spatulas/dust/gases, to potential spaces and objects
that designing/archiving/dwelling events occur, and actions are affected.
There is neither simply an architect and a model, an archivist and a mouldy
drawing, a technician and an infrastructure of flows in a science lab.
Instead, what enacts the chain of actions is “the foam cutter that makes the
architect bend and interact with the nebulous texture of versatile foam”, or
“the fishy smell of a mouldy drawing making the spatula of the conservator
perform a treatment of a drawing”, or “an invisible infrastructure of flows,
water and power running through the veins of a science lab enacted by a
technical operation in the gas room”. Follow them, trace and account for
their repetitive moves as slowly as possible, and what will be seen is a
building/archive/use that is not made just by powerful humans, but rather
populated by many characters as they act and trace many intricate
relationships with a variety of non-humans. Following how these non-
humans move back and forth between sites will allow us to witness how
a design product/an archive/use emerge, become knowable, traceable,
and work.
Accounts produced by architectural anthropologists can also better
capture the practical relations between the large scale and the modification
of the human and non-human associations. A better understanding of
buildings/archives/use could be gained by literally keeping our compass
sights on the paths through designing/archiving/dwelling, following the
routes that link the humans with the natural world, the subjective with the
objective, the built with the unbuilt, the small with the big. To miss fol
lowing these traces and accounting for these paths is to miss the specificity
of these processes. Trace the moves, the unfolding developments,
22 Yaneva
controversies and disputes, suspend the zoom, multiply the adjunctions
between the different statements, re-localize the relevant sites, and you
will see a building/an archive/use that is to be composed, recollected, and
aggregated.
Tracing various modalities of connections and attachments in designing/
archiving/dwelling makes us move both beyond the cognitivist, rationalist
perspective that situates the cogito or brain processes in the centre of
knowing, and beyond the phenomenological perspective situating the body
and the senses in the centre of knowing. Exploring different “ways of
knowing” (Boyer, 2005; Harris, 2007; Grasseni, 2007) as movements, as
achievements of repetitive work, of experience, of timing and spacing, of
inter-corporal and inter-textual activities, a slow ethnography suggests a
symmetrical ecological approach to designing/archiving/dwelling. This ap
proach emerges from the relational dispositions of humans and non-
humans, in their dynamic timing and spacing, and captured both in specific
sites and larger networks. Designing/archiving/dwelling emphasizes the
active and reciprocal nature of knowing and in return, influences how a
building/archive/use is understood.
Third: Stay on the ground!

Abandon the panoramic and panoptic ways of looking at design/archives/
users/cities. Forget about the Eiffel Tower viewing platform – you believed
that Paris can be seen from up there? Forget about the office of Rem
Koolhaas – you believed that OMA’s design can be understood from up
there? But it can’t! You thought the picture you have taken from the gal
leries of the CCA captured its archival collection. But it doesn’t! If instead
of embracing the official discourse of architects, city planners, politicians,
or investors, we rather follow designing/archiving/dwelling on a daily basis,
we rarely witness a building/an archive/use “as a whole”. Thus, abandon all
sites where we talk of these activities “as a whole” (the panoramic ones)
and focus instead on the small sites, on these misty locales of practice where
very little can be seen, but it can be seen well. Those sites, termed by Latour
oligopticons, are fundamentally invisible. By this neologism, Latour means
“narrow windows through which, via numerous narrow channels, we can
link up with only some aspects of beings (human and non-human) which
together comprise [the city]” (Latour & Hermant, 1998, p. 173). Examples
of oligopticons include design spaces and model shops in an architectural
studio, a conservational lab, cataloguers or registrar offices in an archive, a
lab, a gas room or a mechanical workshop in a science building. Once there,
we find ourselves in offices, corridors, tracing alignments, instruments,
dossiers, codes, solvents, facing teams, precautions, alerts, dangers. All
these rare and fragile places that accumulate the power of the oligopticon
are situated on the ground, not on the top, under our feet, not in our
imaginations; they are all dispersed and at our disposal.
Moreover, designing/archiving/dwelling cannot be captured from a static
viewing position, on one steel picture only, taken from the top in a moment
of contemplation. These processes are to be understood only as we move
and meander through the locales of practice and visit different oligopticons.
Just like the social is active engine (not a static frame) that orders and lo
calizes, reassembles and situates, links and distinguishes, but does not
have the shape of Society (Latour, 2005), a building/archive/use are also
to be traced and composed. They do not emerge as objective frames.
Alternatively, favouring the point of view of the human/designer/archivist/
user will not help us to get a better understanding of buildings/environ
ments/archives either. Instead, we access those channels that enable us to
connect the objects with the subjects, we follow trajectories of traces, series
of transformations; we stay on the ground and we realize that in fact, we
can never see the totality of a building/an archive/use. This is a pragmatic
absurdity. We only see those traces, small and big, perceptible and distinct,
running at different pace of speed in front of us, with us.
Fourth: Visualize and amplify!

Following slowly, factoring all connections, staying on the ground, the
knowledge practices of designing/archiving/dwelling emerge as restricted
and circumscribed into intricate and frangible, yet costly, networks of
praxis. To better understand them, we should engage in visualizing such
networks. Practising architectural anthropology, we begin to learn a great
deal from the indigenous visual epistemologies of designers and their
techniques of image production. Architects need visuals for a number of
reasons: to express and translate creative ideas, to communicate with other
architects or workers in construction, to explore the relationship between
site and surroundings, to present a building to larger audiences of non-
specialists, clients and sponsors, to teach and transfer knowledge, to con
duct experiments and generate new knowledge. Follow architects and learn
from their practices of visualization, and you can fully grasp the visual
potential of architectural anthropology. Ethnographic images do not merely
document a practice in minute detail but may themselves contribute to
strengthening or diminishing arguments. In going beyond illustration, they
mediate, they travel in cascade. Their epistemic style thus captures the
density of local “cultures” of practice while questioning what truly matters
to practitioners.
In addition, shifting the focus beyond single-sited ethnographies towards
methods and techniques able to grasp the “figurational” dimensions of
collaborative networks requires a versatile use of visuals supporting an
thropological research. Rather than simply replacing the traditional
methods with their computational alternative, a blended method of inter
views and observations as well as digital mapping can be used. This will
allow us to witness in the very process of tracing, mapping, diagramming,
24 Yaneva
and sketching, the constitution of an actor (or connections) whose format
and magnitude might not be initially obvious. Notably, rather than repla
cing ethnographic accounts or substituting the painstaking collection of
ethnographic data itself, these visuals can inform, enrich, and complete an
enquiry. Just like in design, the visuals of the architectural anthropologist,
are neither an endpoint nor standby for visual methods. They instead
provide a starting point for a richer and more intense anthropological en
quiry and can thus greatly facilitate the generation of a novel type of
qualitative data.
More mapping, scientometric, and parametric based tools can form a
major step forward in tracing visually and analytically the networks of
practice, thus enabling us to powerfully respond to critiques of our pre
dominantly qualitative and descriptive methods. Networks cannot be re
duced to purely social relations: they are socio-technical, and the power of
the visual techniques lays in their capacity to trace the heterogeneous
constitution and dynamics of these networks. To connect to the examples
from the three empirical settings presented above, it is clear that two years
in an architectural practice or in archive cannot simply be replaced with a
figurational map. However, an understanding of such a practice could be
much enhanced and complemented by a visualization/a map/a diagram that
adequately situates it within a larger comprehensive network. Composed of
the many agencies that make it work, this map or diagram would in turn
allow for the inspection of the actors’ constitutive relationships and could
Figure 0.4 Mapping visualizations.

Diagram: Albena Yaneva.
Figure 0.5 Mapping visualizations.

Diagram: Albena Yaneva.
offer visual strength to the analytical arguments made on the basis of eth
nography only. Ultimately, it would allow for a more comprehensive view
of the larger-scale networks of designing/archiving/dwelling.
Identifying the visual techniques used by the practitioners we study to
generate reality before transporting them into a field of study where these
techniques can further knowledge about native phenomena might appear as
an unconventional technique. Ought we to use a master plan to study the
practices of planning? Statistic graphs to study statisticians at work? Scale
models to study architects and collages to study artists? There is something
that fascinates me in that extreme way of learning from the epistemology of
the practitioners we follow, how to study them in a different way. That is
an intriguing shift in epistemology.
Yet, using images as subject matter of inquiry is not enough; it is instead
crucial to mobilize architectural visuals to generate knowledge about de
signing/archiving/dwelling leading to the visual structuration of arguments.
Using versatile architectural visuals can better help us to witness the process
through which actors gain identity via tracing their dynamic interconnec
tion or capture the constituency of a network and the fluency of the social.
A creative use of anthropological visuals can offer insightful ways of vi
sualizing dynamic relations and depicts a much more fluid world of active
entities in which the form of the phenomenon does not appear as de
termined from outside; it is being shaped in the flow. Such visualizations
26 Yaneva
have the potential to make stronger epistemological statements, while
overcoming the ontological assumption of “out-there-ness”. This specific
visual epistemology helps the architectural anthropologist to develop an
analytical method capable of portraying a degree of complexity that is
difficult to capture with traditional qualitative and quantitative methods.
Thus, drawing on the visual epistemology of designers, architecture itself
transmogrifies into something more than a site of anthropological ex
ploration. It becomes a site of experimentation for both architects and
anthropologists. The visuals of the architectural anthropologist successfully
capture the occurrences, events and situations that make the social grasp
able; they trace dynamic assemblies of heterogeneous actors, their locations
in time and space, and how their concerns work in tandem to shape an
environment, an atmosphere. Yet, no matter how versatile, these visuals
cannot replace a conventional ethnography of the process of designing/ar
chiving/dwelling. They rather help discovering actors, alliances or concerns
that might not be obvious at the start; they act as an epistemological tool
for underlining ontological singularities: a powerful visual device for de
ploying, not just describing, phenomena. Indeed, visualizing in architectural
anthropology is not a way of illustrating, but a way of generating and
deploying knowledge and thus offers a powerful technique for producing
infra-reflexive anthropological accounts. It has its own range of episte
mology offering a denser understanding of the world, in addition to textual
descriptions and analyses.
Fifth: Re-describe, re-describe, re-describe!

Drawing on novelists like Calvino (1974) and literary theorists like Barthes
(1975) can also inspire architectural anthropologists to perfect their “art of
describing” processes, environments, and atmospheres in cities and to
produce accounts that trace and measure the pluriverse of life without re
placing the specific with general. It is therefore critical to reinvent the
narrative techniques that will help us gain access to the particular, to grasp
the unique, and to offer an adequate description on the basis of the series of
situations that are accounted for. Equipped with various tools of descrip
tion, both discursive and visual, the accounts of the architectural anthro
pologist should deploy the networks of designing/archiving/dwelling,
instead of merely ethnographically describing, or unveiling in a critical
fashion, what is behind them: the culture or the social forces at work. To
deploy means to account with meticulousness the performances of entire
collectives of humans and non-humans (suggesting the collective of models,
archival materials, forces at stake in dwelling, etc.). Instead of relating ac
tion simply to a particular agent or explaining it with enduring historical
structures and urban systems, the narrative techniques of architectural
anthropology will capture the particular threads that connect different
entities. Sketching actions in a variety of situations allows us to dislodge
designing/archiving/dwelling from the subjectivity of individual perspec
tives, of lone pairs of eyes or single voices. It helps us describe and re-
describe them from within; a building/an archive/use do not emerge in a
series that implies logical sequence or a hierarchy, but their specificity is
rather revealed in a network in which one can follow multiple routes and
draw manifold ramified conclusions. The writing techniques follow suit:
advocating a respect for what things communicate without words, tracing
the irreducible proliferation of objects, buildings, times, spaces, and people,
anthropological description places the enquiry within the heart of
urban life/dwelling/designing/architectural archiving to better capture their
specificity.
Sixth: Make a difference!

Committing to describe the variable settings, objects, and practices of de
signing/archiving/dwelling, means concomitantly stating willingness to at
tend empirically to the disorderly specificities of the world of architecture.
Yet, it does not mean, taking sides while describing. Power of description
is not won at the expense of any serious attempt at engagement. In each
empirical situation we are confronted with what, following Donna
Haraway (1991), we can call “situated knowledge” or contested truths
about the mechanics of designing/archiving/ dwelling. Just as there is no
general methodological due process in design and design knowledge is
specific and arises out of the practices of architects or dwellers as they
sketch or inhabit a building, knowledge in architectural anthropology is
also specific and irredeemably messy. As architectural anthropologists we
witness states of instable idiosyncratic relationships, we follow outlandish
objects, we experience shambolic architectural settings together with de
signers and dwellers, we describe their specificities, contingency, and het
erogeneity for they are simultaneously material, social, political, technical,
and architectural in character.
However, describing the daily practices of designing/archiving/dwelling is
also about making a difference; it is a form of interference. It is in fact
possible to attend to specificity and to make a difference at the same time.
While engaging in re-description, we do not take any sides. We are all, as
Haraway puts it, “located in the belly of the monster” (1991). The idea that
we could climb out and look down to get an overview, and therefore make
a judgment, makes no sense. Immersion in the world of designing/archiving/
dwelling, allows us to produce descriptions where architecture appears as
performative and situated; not a distant and passive formal reality that
would project power, styles, cultural ambitions, and identity aspirations.
We describe, we attend to the specificities, the contingency, and the un
certainties of the empirical; the more we immerse into these worlds of de
sign and describe, the more we understand and learn. Our knowledge
practices are performative and so are our descriptions. The more specific
28 Yaneva
they get, the more the difference we can make would be embedded in their
specificities and our ability to intrude in design worlds will increase.
Sometimes unpredictably and involuntary, the descriptions start interfering
in their object of study. They can disperse it or diffract it, move it on or re-
do it according to the angle they take, the actors they follow, the grain of
details, the time-spaces and durations; they make a difference and they
make us intervene. We interfere! It is an illusion to believe that these
descriptions are neutral. And we have known this since Geertz’s
Interpretation of Culture (1973); description is never innocent. All an
thropological descriptions of settings and sites, of atmospheres, landscapes
and processes are simultaneously empirical descriptions and interferences.
In addition, re-descriptions lead to new ways of experimenting, new ways
of designing and redesigning. Attending to the specificity of designing/ar
chiving/dwelling, accounting partial local and perplex architectural order
ings of the reality can further inform practice and can instigate a different
thinking about design among practitioners.
References
Barthes, R. (1975). The Pleasure of the Text (R. Miller, Trans.; 1st ed.). New York:
Hill and Wang.
Boyer, D. (2005). Visiting Knowledge in Anthropology: An Introduction. Ethnos,
70(2), 141–148.
Calvino, I. (1974). Invisible Cities (W. Weaver, Trans.; 1st ed.). New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic
Books.
Grasseni, C. (2007). Communities of Practice and Forms of Life: Towards a
Rehabilitation of Vision? In M. Harris (Ed.), Ways of Knowing: New Approaches
in the Anthropology of Knowledge and Learning (pp. 203–222). New York:
Berghahn Books.
Haraway, D. (1991). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and
the Privilege of Partial Perspective. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The
Reinvention of Nature (pp. 183–201). London: Routledge.
Harris, M. (Ed.). (2007). Ways of Knowing: New Approaches in the Anthropology
of Knowledge and Learning. New York: Berghahn Books.
Hill, J. (2003). Actions of Architecture: Architects and Creative Users. London:
Routledge.
Ingold, T. (2000). Building, Dwelling, Living: How Animals and People Make
Themselves at Home in the World. In The Perception of the Environment: Essays
on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (pp. 172–188). London: Routledge.
Latour, B. (1988). The Politics of Explanation: An Alternative. In S. Woolgar (Ed.),
Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge
(pp. 155–176). London: Sage.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Latour, B., & Hermant, E. (1998). Paris: Ville Invisible. Paris: Les Empêcheurs de
penser en rond/La Découverte.
Latour, B., & Yaneva, A. (2008). “Give Me a Gun and I Will Make Buildings
Move”: An ANT’s View of Architecture. In R. Geiser (Ed.), Explorations in
Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Novoselov, K. S., & Yaneva, A. (2020). The New Architecture of Science: Learning
from Graphene. Singapore: World Scientific.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in
Action. New York: Basic Books.
Stengers, I. (2016). “Another Science is Possible!” A Plea for Slow Science. In H. K.
Letiche, G. Lightfoot, & J.-L. Moriceau (Eds), Demo(s): Philosophy – Pedagogy –
Politics. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Strebel, I. (2011). The Living Building: Towards a Geography of Maintenance
Work. Social & Cultural Geography, 12(3), 243–262.
Till, J. (2009). Architecture Depends. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Yaneva, A. (2009a). Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An
Ethnography of Design. Rotterdam: Uitgeverij 010 Publishers.
Yaneva, A. (2009b). The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to
Architecture. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Yaneva, A. (2020). Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for Architectural
Legacy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Part I
Home, walls, and

boundaries
Edited by Claus Bech-Danielsen and
Marie Stender
From an architectural-anthropology point of view, a home is not to be

understood as a mere physical object – a building. Le Corbusier’s well-
known phrase, “The house is a machine for living in”, needs to be re
interpreted, in order to understand how this machine takes part in the social
world. It now becomes important to study what home does, and it no
longer makes sense to consider the home in isolation from the individual
residents as well as the society it is a part of. Home is to be understood as
a personal relation between house and residents, and it has to do with
emotions and feelings that occurs when the residents become attached to
the place they live in. The residents develop their home, while at the same
time the home shapes them.
Cross disciplinary research in the field between architecture and an
thropology thus study how the built environments of the home interact
with the everyday life of residents. This brings a focus on how social re
lations, dwelling and bodily being-in-the-world is mediated by walls,
façades, and other physical boundaries in architecture. In classical archi
tecture the walls and the façades were seen as solid and static frameworks
around the home. There was a clear division between the two sides of the
walls, and doors and windows were designed to mark a clear zone of
transition between the spatial entities of the two sides. In contemporary
architecture a more dynamic spatial perception is developed, and a liquid
conception of space is promoted – walls are increasingly transparent and
the boundaries are in constant transformation reflecting and reinforcing
social and cultural developments.
Boundaries between home interior and outside space dissolve due to li
quid spatial concepts and transparent architecture, and boundaries between
private and public change and might seem blurred. However, the bound
aries play a pivotal role in housing architecture, as they define private versus
shared space and mediate social and cultural interaction. The five chapters
in this part deal with walls, windows, balconies, railings and other
32 Bech-Danielsen & Stender
boundaries to explore the socio-material dynamics at play in the built en
vironments of homes and to understand how boundaries are both keeping
us apart and connecting us.
Chapter 1, written by Sandra Lori Petersen, focuses on the experience of one
specific wall, the bedroom wall in the flat of a woman named Liva. Liva is
exposed to faint sounds from her neighbours, keeping her awake at night. The
author consults an architect, acoustician, and engineer who all find the noise
to be a problem connected to the material properties of the wall. Liva, on
the contrary, blames herself for finding it so difficult to handle the nuisance.
The chapter presents a binary categorization in the perception of neighbour
noise as being the fault of either the resident or building. Through the concept
of viscous porosity, a third position is suggested, investigating the similarities
and entanglements between Liva and the wall, showing how each shapes the
other.
In Chapter 2, Marie Stender and Marie Blomgren Jepsen take us to the
very edge of domestic boundaries in a study of Copenhagen balconies. The
chapter explores how balconies intervene in the social relationship between
city dwellers by adding new angles of exposure and new surfaces for con
tact. Differences between neighbours become increasingly manifest as ma
terial boundaries become blurred. As architectural attributes, balconies
affect the social forms of urban housing and city life, enabling new ways of
behaviour, and challenging the norms of co-existing on the boundaries
between private homes. The authors compare balcony façades to social
media, arguing that they expose those who live behind them and that such
exposure entails both possibilities to stand out and social pressure to fit in.
Chapter 3, by Turid Borgestrand Øien and Mia Kruse Rasmussen, focuses
on the indoor climate of the home. The two authors argue that architectural
anthropology can contribute to the understanding of indoor environments by
exploring the complex, multisensory entanglements between people, mate
rials, and meanings through the micro-scales of everyday life. In this light,
different properties of the outer walls of the home appear: Walls are both
keeping in and keeping out. We sometimes open windows in the walls to
remove unhealthy indoor air, whereas at other times we need the walls to be
an airtight shelter from unhealthy indoor air (e.g. because of pollen).
Sometimes, the walls are the very reason for the unhealthy indoor climate, for
instance, when mould and microbes grow on the inside walls.
In Chapter 4, Laura Helene Højring and Claus Bech-Danielsen focus on
homelessness and homeliness. Using collages as a part of their research
method, they study how home is perceived to someone who is or has re
cently been homeless. The two authors conclude that, to the people who are
homeless, the feeling of home is not always connected to a dwelling. ‘Home’
is not always something bound by walls but can also relate to an urban
space, to being with friends and one’s dog, or to specific activities and daily
routines. The chapter also demonstrates that home in a dwelling is not
necessarily a safe haven. To some people who are homeless, a dwelling can
Home, walls, and boundaries 33
evoke feelings that are contradictory to home, and they might even perceive
a dwelling as a trap or a prison.
The incarcerating dimension of walls is further explored in the final
chapter of Part I, by Runa Johannessen and Tomas Max Martin, Chapter 5.
With an empirical focus on a prison and a deportation centre on a small
island, they explore the archetypical boundaries of the wall and the island.
Both walls and islands can be viewed as sheltering the domestic from the
public or the wild, yet both also hold an intrinsic and particularly brute
violent potential in their capacity to domesticate people forcefully against
their will through exclusion and enclosure. The chapter demonstrates that
walls and islands not only protectively frame the domesticity of homes and
communities, but like other barriers and boundaries, also serve to exclude
and marginalize as a way of protecting normality.
1 The viscous porosity of
walls and people
Sandra Lori Petersen
On the third floor of a five-story building in central Copenhagen that dates

from 1901, Liva lives with her partner and their two children. Everyday
sounds, party sounds, and sexual sounds frequently seep into their 75 m²
flat from their downstairs and upstairs neighbours, while the sound of
traffic and construction work seep in from the outside. Liva, who is going
through a period of intense stress, finds these sounds overwhelming. Yet
what disturbs her the most are actually the faint sounds of what she as
sumes to be a couple, lying in bed, quietly talking to each other. Every
night, as Liva lies in her own bed, these sounds come through the wall next
to her. “It feels like an itch,” she says, explaining:
I try to ignore it, like I tell my kids to do if they have a mosquito bite.
[…] [The neighbours] talk in a quiet way – there is nothing to complain
about – but [the sound] is more annoying to me than for example music
would be, because it is private.
Liva keeps earplugs next to her bed, but they hurt her ears, and she tries
to avoid using them. Instead, she breathes calmly and attempts to soothe
herself and think about something else, “But it doesn’t work,” she says.
Every evening, she hopes it will be quiet, but every evening the sounds seep
through her wall anew.
This chapter is based on Liva’s account but also informed by the accounts
of how other flat-dwellers experience the sounds of their neighbours as
disturbing noise. The accounts draw on fieldwork among occupants of
multi-storey housing in Denmark, as well as professionals in the Danish
building and housing sectors.1 For the purpose of this chapter, several ac
counts of occupants’ experiences with neighbour noise were read by and
discussed with an architect named Søren, an engineer specializing in sus
tainable construction called Lau, and an acoustician named Rasmus.2 My
initial motivation for asking Søren, Lau, and Rasmus to participate in this
experiment was to gain a better understanding of their professional ap
proach to the relationship between occupants and buildings through their
readings of these accounts. As I describe below, our discussions showed me
36 Petersen
that, to Søren, Lau, and Rasmus, the sole issue at stake was the wall; as a
consequence, they valued only the elements of the account that allowed
them to learn more about the wall as real knowledge. My conversations
with them allowed me to access the wall in ways I would not have been able
to using only my anthropological approach and Liva’s experiences. Hence,
their response to Liva’s account, their interpretation of the drawings of her
home, and their characterization of their personal professional approaches
allowed me to engage with the material properties of the wall and to
consider the relationship between Liva and the wall, rather than solely
considering it from Liva’s perspective. “Do things speak?” asks Martin
Holbraad (2011) rhetorically, reflecting on recent tendencies in anthro
pology towards an emancipation of things that, in his view, runs the risk of
treating them as almost human. Things do speak for themselves, he asserts,
but the challenge is to hear their voice over the noise of what we say about
them (Holbraad, 2011, pp. 11–12). A way around this, he suggests, is to
conceive of things as concepts, defining them based on what our inter
locutors say and do with them. This would lead us to a better under
standing of ethnographic things (ibid., p. 12). Through Søren, Lau, and
Rasmus’s descriptions, the wall became an ethnographic thing to me.
In this chapter, I explore how built environments and human subjects are
deeply entangled with each other. Through the specific example of Liva and
her bedroom wall, I wish to explore what we can learn about both humans
and built environments through this entanglement. Liva appears to be a
critical case with respect to noise nuisance, since she describes the stress she
suffers from as closely related to her sensitivity to noise. When considered
together with the building she lives in, which is old and poorly sound-
insulated, Liva’s sensitivity is particularly interesting to me, because it ex
poses the intimate connections between the occupant (Liva) and the
building she occupies. Liva’s sensitivity enlarges connections that are om
nipresent, but difficult to grasp because of the subtle ways in which they
find expression.
Instead of seeing built environments as composed of disparate elements,
architectural critic Sarah W. Goldhagen (2017) calls for an understanding
of the city as an integrated whole. Goldhagen addresses architects and other
professionals of the building sector in particular, since – she argues – they
tend to consider disparate elements of the built environment independently
from each other in their design and conceptual processes. As a result,
Goldhagen states, they overlook the numerous ways in which people in the
city experience these elements as informing, contextualizing and shaping
each other.
Implicit in Goldhagen’s call is an understanding that people who inhabit
the city do not merely experience built environments; indeed, they not only
partake in constituting their environments, they are themselves shaped by
them. Architect Juhani Pallasmaa describes how, for an architect, the
process of designing a building includes the gradual internalization of its
The viscous porosity of walls and people 37
surrounding landscape, its functional requirements, and other character
istics (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 71). To Pallasmaa, designing a building is a
bodily process that communicates with the body of the person who will
later use or even inhabit the building (ibid., p. 71).
I find Pallasmaa’s approach particularly interesting, because he places
sensuous engagement at the core of his work. He describes how the human
body relates to buildings through processes that internalize space and
knowledge by imitating buildings through multifaceted sensory engage
ments. These engagements merge with personal memories and imagination
in ways that sometimes allow people to experience resonance and even
rootedness within built environments (Pallasmaa, 2012, pp. 22, 71–72). As
we shall see in this chapter, in Scandinavia, we tend to inhabit our homes in
a way that makes the internalization processes quite intense, and thus our
homes often become closely connected to our experiences of intimacy and
personal identity (Gullestad, 1992).
Inspired by Pallasmaa’s understanding of the relationships between
buildings and humans, I am interested in the relation between Liva and her
wall. I move beyond the interface between the two and into their respective
textures and dynamics. In this way, I get to learn more about both Liva and
the wall: rather than describing how Liva perceives the wall, I explore the
ways in which they can form each other. To undertake this, I turn to an
thropological notions of personhood as porous, to examinations of the
materiality of walls, and to philosopher Nancy Tuana’s (2008) conception
of “viscous porosity” as a means of describing texture, dynamics, inter
relatedness and entangled emergences.
Human and material inadequacies

An examination of the architectural drawings of Liva’s building3 reveals
that the bedroom wall through which she can hear her neighbours talk is
especially thin, and is likely to consist simply of wooden boards or coke.
Liva does not believe her neighbours are doing anything wrong. Instead,
she assumes, the problem lies in her own experience of the nightly situation.
“I am the one who is wrong,” she says. “I should not live in the city if I am
not able to cope with it.” Hence, Liva takes the responsibility for the dis
turbing sounds upon herself. The way she sees it, neither the sounds
themselves nor the wall that allows the sounds to pass through it is the real
problem. Rather, she blames her own inability to ignore the sounds and her
feelings of annoyance. Indeed, as she attempts to “breathe” her way
through her annoyance, she experiences her inability to do so as proof that
she is in the “wrong”, and that she “should not live in city.”
To Søren, Lau, and Rasmus, it is evident both from Liva’s account and
from the drawings of her house that the wall between her bedroom and the
neighbouring flat offers little resistance to the subtle sounds of her neigh
bours’ nightly conversations. Lau, the engineer, explains that his approach
38 Petersen
Figure 1.1 A section of the drawing of the façade as well as a cross section of the
building from 1901 in which Liva lives with her family on the 3rd floor.
Its storey partitions are made of wood, and its walls are constructed of
bricks and wooden boards or coke.
Drawing: Municipality of Copenhagen.
would be to focus on the quality of the wall. “When we deal with issues of
noise in buildings,” Lau says, “we are interested in the sound transmission of
the construction – for example, in how much sound passes through a wall.”
He concludes, “If someone is disturbed by noise in a house, we consider it a
problem of the building, not of its occupants.” To Søren, Lau, and Rasmus,
Liva’s account testifies to a wall that ought to be soundproofed. “It would be
incredibly easy to ameliorate the situation,” says Søren, the architect, who
describes how Liva could buy the necessary materials at a do-it-yourself
centre, layering plasterboard and insulation to create what he calls a “layer
cake solution”. I tell Liva that I have had the opportunity to see the drawings
of her building, and that the wall is very thin. She is surprised and relieved to
hear that the experts I consulted expect that even weak sounds would be
audible through it. I ask if she would consider insulating the wall as a means
of dampening the noise. She immediately dismisses the possibility, claiming
that her bed would no longer fit in the room. “The bed is not very good,” she
says, “but it is too overwhelming to have to change it.” I argue that this
dismissal may have less to do with the bed’s size than with Liva’s framing of
the issue at stake. To her, the real problem is not the wall’s inadequacy, but
her own, since she has proven unable to ignore the sounds. To Søren, Lau,
and Rasmus, however, the nuisance clearly arises from the inadequacy of the
wall. The issue at stake, then, is either occupant or wall – human or material
capacities. Each perspective structures different solutions: either Liva should
work on her ability to ignore the sound (or move to the countryside), or the
wall should be insulated. However, the binary conception of the issue pro
duced via these two perspectives creates a catch-22 situation, in which further
analysis is halted. To unfold these issues further, therefore, I seek a third
position. Instead of considering whether the core of the issue is Liva or her
wall, I explore what they have in common – namely a certain degree of
porosity.
The porous self

Liva can often hear construction work and traffic from outside of her
building, but she finds the sounds from her neighbours more disturbing
because, she says, they “draw” her into their lives. When the students in the
flat downstairs are having a party, she thinks about their musical choices,
even though she would rather sleep. She cannot keep herself from won
dering what her upstairs neighbour is doing when his footsteps are ac
companied by sounds that she cannot immediately relate to a concrete
action. The intimate sounds of the couple talking behind her bedroom wall
cause Liva to dwell on the fact that she is in bed alone, because her partner
goes to bed later than she does. Their talk is especially disturbing to her
because it is private and draws her into an intimacy between others that she
longs for in her own life. I suggest that Liva’s way of reacting to these
sounds can be understood as an expression of a form of porosity inherent in
the way she is formed as a person.
In order to understand the profound ways in which Liva is affected by
these sounds, I will consider some aspects of how personhood is perceived
in the anthropological literature, where it has long been a source of rich
40 Petersen
Figure 1.2 Original drawing of Liva’s flat, which occupies the corner of the
building. The arrow indicates the wall separating Liva’s bedroom from
her neighbours’ which is visibly remarkably thinner than the supporting
wall running through the inside of the apartment.
Drawing: Municipality of Copenhagen.
discussion. A landmark in this discussion occurred when Marilyn Strathern

took up the notion of dividual to describe the Melanesian person as
emerging through and dependent on relations with a community of social
others (Strathern, 1988; Smith, 2012, p. 54). The dividual was originally
formulated as a binary contrast with the so-called Western individual,
which was perceived as an indivisible whole formed around an essential
core that contained its uniqueness (Smith, 2012, p. 53).
Strathern rejected any strict opposition between dividuals and individuals
when she argued that the Melanesian person inhabited traits of both
(Strathern, 1988, p. 268). Several others have since shown how the two
notions are more enriching when considered together as general aspects of
personhood across regions, rather than mutually exclusive all-
encompassing descriptions (Englund & Leach, 2000; LiPuma, 1998). The
result is a conceptualization of all human beings as having both unique
characteristics and permeable boundaries through which exchanges and
transactions take place; thus, each person is shaped through their relations
with others while also being a distinct self (Smith, 2012, p. 55). In short,
each person must be understood as both distinct and dependent – as
permeable, porous and embedded in relations (ibid., p. 60).
Considering the person as porous and permeable is key in understanding
how the sounds seeping through Liva’s wall can become more than
mundane nuisances to her. Indeed, because of her porosity, they become
part of what shapes her in an intimate way. Of course, this does not imply
that every trace of sound that crosses Liva’s path influences her person
hood, nor that every person is porous to the same extent as Liva. There may
be degrees of porousness, just as there can be periods of time when others
make more significant impressions upon a person, or when one must rely
more heavily on others. When the sounds seep through Liva’s bedroom
wall, they become impossible for her to ignore because she is in a vulnerable
state: she is undergoing a period of intense stress and – importantly – she is
lying in her bed in the privacy of her home.
The intimacy of the home

Privacy and intimacy are qualities that most Scandinavians expect to find in
their homes, and upon which they depend in order to create a sense of
wholeness and integration within it (Gullestad, 1991, pp. 490–491). This
wholeness and integration is part of how Scandinavian personhood is
configured, according to anthropologist Marianne Gullestad, who describes
how the borders of the home are essential to this process (Gullestad, 1992,
p. 197). She illustrates how the home is constructed as a unique inside space
that contrasts with a more fragmented outside, and how the home’s
boundaries are established by its occupants through what Gullestad de
scribes as a “neat but in some ways fictional separation between the
spheres” (Gullestad, 1991, p. 494). Liva’s frustration with the sound of her
neighbours indicates that when she is about to sleep at night, she longs for
her sphere to be separated from theirs.
Though the wall between Liva and her neighbours looks like a solid se
paration between their homes, aurally, it is permeable. Pallasmaa describes
how what is heard structures the bodily experience of space, and how
sound creates an experience of interiority (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 53). Queer
theoretician Sarah Ahmed writes that the lived experience of being at home
“involves the enveloping of subjects in a space that is not simply outside
them: being-at-home suggests that the subject and space leak into each
other, inhabit each other” (Ahmed, 2000, p. 89, emphasis added). When
Liva hears the sounds of her neighbours, they become interior to her – they
inhabit her momentarily, to paraphrase Ahmed, though she does not want
them to.
In his studies of the acoustic environment of public British hospitals, an
thropologist Tom Rice (2013) describes the everyday life of patients for
whom the hospital has become a temporary home. Patients lying in multiple-
bed hospital wards are exposed to the private sounds of their fellow patients
when they react to pain, for example, or when their bodies emit involuntary
sounds. Rice details patients’ varying degrees of success at attempting to
“turn a deaf ear” or to “create privacy through the application of a particular
attitude or mental approach” (Rice, 2013, pp. 173–174). In a similar way,
42 Petersen
Liva expects herself to establish a separation between her and her neigh
bours’ spheres through force of will. Just as the ambition of not scratching a
mosquito bite implies the capacity to ignore it, she is frustrated by her in
ability to “turn a deaf ear” to these sounds. I argue that when Liva tries to
guard the privacy of her bed in this way, she is unsuccessful precisely because
she is in her own home and in her bed, the locus for an intimate form of being
where wholeness and integration are pursued. She is enveloped in this space
and comes therefore to experience the intimate sounds of these neighbours,
whom she does not know, as interior to herself.
Professional conceptions of a wall

Earlier in this chapter, I described Søren, Lau, and Rasmus’s impressions of
the wall based on Liva’s account and on its appearance in the building’s
architectural drawings. The wall is unquestionably very thin and likely to
be made of either wooden boards or coke. Neither of these materials is very
solid, but both possess a certain porousness.
To Liva, a wall is a wall; she tends to identify it by its visual qualities, and
this particular wall shows no sign of being any different from the other
walls in her flat. It is painted in the same shade of white, and decorated with
a colourful poster, just like the walls of her living room. As an acoustics
specialist, Rasmus relates to walls in a rather different way. When entering
a new space, he begins by clapping or snapping his fingers, “to find out how
much the room resonates,” he says. “Then I knock on the wall to find out if
it is a heavy or light material. I don’t listen to how loud the knock is. I am
interested in how much response I get from the wall – if it yields, or feels
hollow, for example.” Using a series of multisensory skills, Rasmus is thus
able to characterize the consistency of a wall and work out whether it is
made of brick, concrete or wood; whether it contains cavities or is solid;
and ultimately, what kind of acoustic qualities it is likely to have. He then
uses a variety of machines to measure sound transmission.
Although he has not had the opportunity to evaluate Liva’s wall, this
description of the way Rasmus relates professionally to walls in general
relativizes Liva’s approach to a wall as being merely a wall. When Rasmus
deploys his auditory and haptic senses in his encounter with a wall, his
professional capacities combine with his bodily knowledge to demonstrate
a subtle and nuanced understanding of the texture of the built environment.
His approach informs us of the expectations he has regarding any wall’s
propensity to transmit sound. As an acoustician, he is interested in esti
mating the density of a wall. Its lightness or heaviness may be connected to
a certain degree of porosity in its material composition. The material
properties of coke, of which the wall in question is likely to be composed,
happen to include a fair degree of porosity.
Above, Lau explained that he always assumes the quality of the building
to be the main issue in cases of noise nuisance. Similarly, Rasmus is
concerned with the quality of the wall. None of them believes that any
inadequacy of Liva’s is at the core of the problem, and as a consequence,
her accounts of her experiences do not represent knowledge to them. The
three professionals all express surprise that Liva does not consider insula
tion an option to rid herself of this nuisance, but they also maintain that her
account teaches them nothing new. They did not expect an occupant to
act – or in this case, abstain from acting – in the way Liva does. That said,
they do not consider her experiences to represent relevant knowledge to
them, since their concern is with the building. Liva, on the other hand, is
relieved to hear that the wall is in fact thin, but this information does not
change how she perceives the problem.
The issue at stake would seem to be either-or: the problem is either one of
Liva’s inadequacy, or of the wall’s. It is clear from Liva’s account that the
wall influences her life when it allows sounds to pass through to her. For her
part, Liva could change the wall by insulating it. This assessment of the
relationship between the two is clear enough, but overlooks why the re
lationship between this particular person and this specific wall is so sig
nificant. This is because they enhance specific qualities in each other, and
thereby influence each other in a very particular way.
Viscous porosity
Homes and persons have boundaries, across which substances, sounds,
images and ideas can travel. Liva’s flat would not be a suitable home
without its floors, ceilings, and walls; but the boundaries they demarcate
are permeable. Liva attempts to turn a “deaf ear” to the sounds that seep
through to her in the evening in her bed, but she does not succeed. Instead,
she feels “drawn in” by the sounds of others; they lead her to imagine what
others are doing and to long for quiet conversations in bed with her own
partner. The sounds of Liva’s neighbours represent a stimulation of her
sense of hearing, of her imagination, her emotional life, and her nervous
system, transgressing the physical borders of her body and preventing her
from falling asleep. Instead of sharing her evening thoughts with her own
partner, she interiorizes the intimate conversations of a pair of neighbours,
who are strangers to her. Her relationship to these strange voices becomes
part of what shapes her as a person. In order to understand how this is
possible, I find it fruitful to reflect on Tuana’s (2008) concept of “viscous
porosity”.
Tuana conceives of viscous porosity as a metaphor that points at the
multifaceted ways in which beings are interrelated (Tuana, 2008, p. 188). It
is in the interplay of these webs of relations that subjects – and I would add
objects – emerge (cf. ibid., pp. 188–189). As I have shown above, both Liva
and her bedroom wall can be described as porous. Thinking through por
osity, according to Tuana, “helps to undermine the notion that distinctions
[…] signify a natural or unchanging boundary” (ibid., p. 194).
44 Petersen
Figure 1.3 A photo of the wall in Liva’s bedroom with her bed right next to it. The
wall is simply white and decorated with a framed poster. It is through
this seemingly solid wall that the faint sounds of the nightly conversa
tions of Liva’s neighbours seep through to her.
Photo: Sandra Lori Petersen.
Whereas porosity describes a textural aspect that the bedroom wall and
Liva have in common, viscosity adds an important element in describing
how they are entangled in and form each other: how they emerge through
one another. The term viscosity is borrowed from Newtonian physics, as a
way of indicating the extent to which a fluid resists deformation, or opposes
the propensity to flow (Wagner, 2018). Viscosity and porosity then both
describe texture; but whereas porosity describes density, viscosity points at
malleability. Something that is viscous, in Tuana’s words, is “neither fluid
nor solid, but intermediate between them” (Tuana, 2008, pp. 193–194).
Viscosity is akin to stickiness in the sense that it offers a certain level of
resistance (Wagner, 2018). The bedroom wall is permeated by the con
versation of Liva’s neighbours, but it prevents Liva from discerning the
words themselves. Liva hears them talking, but continuously tries to ignore
them. Both the wall and Liva are permeated by, and mount their own
resistance to, these nighttime sounds.
Concluding remarks
In this chapter, I have examined specific instances of the relationship be
tween occupants and the built environment of their homes. Typically, the
anthropological core interest would be primarily in occupants’ experiences,
leaving the specificities of the built environment to architects and engineers.
As we have seen, the constitution of a home as a specific instance of the
built environment is a process of emergence that happens in the interplay
between occupants and the built environment. This process is the result of
a deep entanglement and cannot be understood by looking solely at the
occupant (as anthropologists might) or at the built environment (as archi
tects and engineers might). Indeed, the locus where the home is constituted
is to be found in the relationship between the two, which is why my main
interest here has been to explore this relationship. By situating my analysis
in this third position, I have attempted to capture what I consider the ex
perimental aspect of architectural anthropology. It has allowed me to move
beyond documenting the fact that Liva and the wall influence each other to
examining how this influence plays out.
Not only do Liva and her wall share a degree of porosity, but the visc
osity of each helps form the other. What the wall allows through irritates
Liva like a “mosquito bite”, and her inability to ignore it leads her to think
that she should leave this wall, this flat, and even the city itself. In this sense,
the viscous porosity that Liva shares with the wall threatens the wall’s very
status as an element of the border of her private sphere.
By seeking a perspective that defines neither Liva nor the wall as pro
blematic, I show how both emerge through their mutual entanglement. If
we recall Pallasmaa’s description of how the architect communicates to
the bodies of a building’s future occupants (what some might call users)
through its design, these bodies are more than receptors and much more
46 Petersen
than users. Through the ways in which they inhabit the building’s space,
their bodies continuously shape it and allow it to emerge in different forms.
These mutual processes of emergence represent more than aesthetic changes
of surfaces; they reach into the very textures and dynamics of buildings and
occupants.
It is tempting to derive an analogy from the occupant-wall relationship to
the disciplines of anthropology and architecture themselves: whereas the two
disciplines will typically be conceived of as representing different realms of
knowledge that might draw inspiration from each other, what architectural
anthropology points to is the space between the two. If we – as anthro
pologists and architects – situate ourselves in this space, we allow ourselves
to perceive how the profound entanglements between our two disciplines can
reshape both of them. Just as bodies and buildings reach into each other’s
textures and dynamics, anthropology and architecture can allow each other
to re-emerge in new forms. With its origins in another field of study entirely,
the concept of viscous porosity can help anthropologists and architects
situate themselves between their two disciplines. Thus positioned, we can
consider the forms of occupants and walls as they appear here.
Notes
1 “What is neighbour noise?” is a three-year research project financed by
Grundejernes Investeringsfond (The Investment Fund of Landowners) and
Realdania.
2 Whereas Liva is a pseudonym chosen to protect the privacy of the occupant in
question, these three professionals appear under their real names: Søren Nielsen is
a partner at the architectural firm Vandkunsten, Lau Raffnsøe is the technical
director of Green Building Council Denmark, and Rasmus Stahlfelst Holck Skov
is an acoustician at the GTS institute Force Technology.
3 These drawings are digitized and accessible through the Municipality of
Copenhagen’s archive of construction projects. I have been fortunate to benefit
from the guidance of acoustical engineer Dan Hoffmeyer in examining these
drawings. Hoffmeyer estimates that an investment of 10,000–15,000 Danish
kroner (about €1,300–2,000) would allow the wall to be soundproofed by in
stalling an additional wall (forsatsvæg) and insulation that would take up 16
centimetres of the room, according to the recommendations from Danish Building
Research Institute.
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Englund, H. & Leach, J. (2000). Ethnography and the meta-narratives of moder
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Shapes Our Lives. HarperCollins.
Gullestad, Marianne (1991). The transformation of the Norwegian notion of
everyday life. American Ethnologist, 18(3): 480–499.
Gullestad, Marianne (1992). The Art of Social Relations: Essays on Culture, Social
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Holbraad, Martin (2011). Can the Thing Speak? OAC Press.
LiPuma, Edward (1998). Modernity and forms of personhood in Melanesia.
Lambek & Strathern (eds), Bodies and Persons: Comparative Perspectives from
Africa and Melanesia. Cambridge University Press: 53–79.
Pallasmaa, Juhani (2012). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. Wiley.
Rice, Tom (2013). Hearing and the Hospital: Sound, Listening, Knowledge and
Experience. Sean Kingston Publishing.
Smith, Karl (2012). From dividual and individual selves to porous subjects. The
Australian Journal of Anthropology, 23: 50–64.
Strathern, Marilyn (1988). The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and
Problems with Society in Melanesia. University of California Press.
Tuana, Nancy (2008). Viscous porosity: Witnessing Katrina. Stacy Alaimo &
Susan J. Hekman (eds). Material Feminism. Indiana University Press.
Wagner, Laura B. (2018). Viscosity. Retrieved from: https://newmaterialism.eu/
almanac/v/viscosity.html
2 An outdoor living room
Balconies and blurring boundaries
Marie Stender and Marie Blomgren Jepsen
At the turn of the millennium, balconies were still rare in Denmark’s ca
pital, Copenhagen. The central city is dominated by a relatively homo
genous building stock of five to six storey brick blocks arranged around
green inner courtyards. The queen celebrates her birthday every year by
standing on her balcony waving to the crowd gathering in front of the royal
palace. Besides the queen, the experience of gazing down at urban life from
one’s balcony was only familiar to a minority of citizens living in buildings
provided with small balconies as part of the original façade ornamentation.
From being a ceremonial space or exceptional architectural ornament,
balconies have, however, become a much more common domestic and re
creational space. Within the last two decades, the city has witnessed an
immense increase in the number of balconies, in new urban areas along the
harbour where all flats have at least one big balcony and in older buildings
where new balconies are sprouting from façades facing both the street
and green courtyards. The development has caused fierce public debate.
Proponents have argued that balconies add to the quality of urban life and
provide a sense of security and life to urban space (Gehl, 2010; Earon,
2015). Sceptics have mourned the aesthetic and social consequences of the
balconies and have argued that they contribute to the privatization of
outdoor life in public space, where neighbours and strangers used to meet
and interact in the parks and squares of the city (Sonne & Weirup, 2018).
The rapid increase of balconies in Copenhagen and subsequent fierce
discussion can be regarded as one of the urban controversies that can teach
us what design does (Yaneva & Heaphy, 2012, p. 33). Balconies are in
teresting from an architectural-anthropological perspective because they
materialize boundaries but, as we argue, also transform boundaries and
relations between private and public space and between the domestic and
urban realms. Domestic boundaries and objects are a classic anthro
pological focus (Goffmann, 1990; Bourdieu, 2003; Douglas, 1996; Garvey,
2005; Löfgren, 2003; Miller, 2001), but attention has traditionally been
primarily focused on their symbolic meaning and social status.
Although this research has provided valuable insight, it may leave the
materiality of the domestic environment as a passive backdrop for social
An outdoor living room 49
relationships. Recent theoretical developments instead propose regarding
material objects of the home as artefacts or agents capable of changing
the world and our relationships (Jacobs & Malpas, 2013, p. 213).
Correspondingly, the focus in architectural theory has turned increasingly
from what architecture is or represents to what it does (Gieryn, 2002;
Latour & Yaneva, 2008). As argued elsewhere (Stender, 2016), a main
endeavour or contribution of architectural anthropology is to develop such
refined understandings of what buildings do and how they do it. This is
done not by regarding them as static objects containing the social but by
combining perspectives from the two disciplines to scrutinize how they take
part in social life. The architectural-anthropology advanced in this chapter
is not just about combining methods from the two disciplines. It is just as
much about developing an approach to architecture and the built en
vironment as experiments that can both cocreate and provide better insight
into our social worlds. As Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas coined it when
presenting the balcony as an element of architecture on the Venice Biennale
in 2014: “Balanced precariously between these poles, the balcony serves as
a laboratory where sometimes explosive mixtures of public and private,
inside and outside, are tested” (Koolhaas, 2018, p. 803).
In the following paragraphs, we enter this laboratory to unfold the bal
cony as a piece of social architecture and explore how it both constitutes
and changes the boundaries and relations between public and private, and
domestic and urban life. The empirical base of the analysis is collaborative
fieldwork conducted during the summers of 2019 and 2020, combining
approaches from architecture, anthropology, and sociology.1 The fieldwork
focused on three residential buildings: (1) an older building with co
operative housing flats in Nørrebro where all flats had balconies installed
during 2019, which made it possible to compare the situation before and
after balconies; (2) an older building in Vesterbro consisting of mixed te
nure flats, of which approximately one-third had added balconies over the
last 10 years; and (3) a new, owner-occupied residential building in
Nordhavn that was built with big balconies for all flats.
In all three cases, we conducted recurring in-depth qualitative inter-
views – 48 in total – with residents both in flats with and without balconies,
and we conducted an equivalent number of brief interviews with people
passing by or staying at adjacent streets and courtyards. We observed and
registered activities on and around the balconies for about a week for each
place and used field notes, drawings, spatial analysis, quantitative regis
trations, and film recordings. The process of filming and reviewing film
recordings served to focus on the interplay between the lived and built
space. Registrations and drawings helped further direct our attention to
how balconies change urban space by adding new layers to the façade
occupied not so much by people as by their material belongings.
Furthermore, as informants recurrently referred to discussions and pic
tures of balconies on social media, we added a bit of ‘netnography’
50 Stender & Jepsen
Figure 2.1 Three different spatial layouts: The case buildings in Nørrebro (left) and
Vesterbro (middle) have large, green courtyards and smaller balconies
both towards the courtyard and towards the street, whereas in
Nordhavn (right), the courtyard is smaller and the balconies bigger.
Drawing: Anna Jo Banke.
(Kozinets, 2010) to map how balconies appear on social media, such as

Instagram, and interviewed a few of the bloggers that regularly share their
balcony life on social media. In the following paragraphs, we first analyse
how domestic life is affected by being enacted on balconies in the close
presence of neighbours and passers-by, and then discuss how balconies
change boundaries and relationships between public and private, and do
mestic and urban life. We relate such changes in the built environment to
those of social media and conclude that architectural anthropology can
contribute to providing significant insight in such developments by meti
culously focusing on how built environments take part in social life.
Getting others into one’s living room

Anna lives with her boyfriend in a spacious third floor flat in Nørrebro.
When we first interviewed her, she did not yet have a balcony, but was very
excited about their coming balcony facing the green courtyard:
I love living in the city, but I am so tired of having to ‘be public’, in

order to be outside […] It always makes me happy when the sun shines,
but I don’t always have the energy to go out and enjoy it. It would be
nice to be able to just open the door and have a cup of coffee, read the
news or talk on the phone or whatever. I think it would work almost as
my living room – just outside.
Like many others we interviewed, Anna looked forward to being able to

“just open up the doors” and have a small private outdoor space, while still
living in the city. She regarded the balcony as a direct continuation of her
home – “an outdoor living room” as she says, where one does not have to
deal with others or face the public realm. When visiting her again nine
months later, her balcony was established, and she had decorated it with
potted plants, two chairs, and a small table. Anna was happy about the
balcony and told us that she often enjoyed sitting there, drinking her coffee.
In the afternoon when her neighbours came home, she would nevertheless
move inside, as she felt they were too close and making too much noise.
Our notes and film recordings from the time spent with her on the balcony
also document that she moves around on the balcony silently setting her
cup on the table, being extremely careful not to disturb her neighbours.
Though she has extended her domestic life to the new outdoor space, she
adjusted her outside behaviour, withdrawing to the indoor depending on
their presence.
Antonio, who lives alone in a third floor flat at the other side of the same
courtyard, also preferred to move inside once his neighbour was out on the
balcony:
The one who is out there first has it. When you sit in here it is like
[shows that when sitting at his dinner table he leans towards the
balcony to glance out through the open door to see if the neighbour is
out on the balcony]. When the door is open at this angle, it can be like a
loudspeaker: everything that is said is forwarded. The only way to keep
the privacy is to close the door.
As Antonio noted, his domestic life is not only affected when he is on the
balcony. In the summer, he tends to leave the door open, which lets sounds
flow freely between his living room and that of his neighbours. He has been
living in the building for more than 20 years and describes how the at
mosphere has changed along with the composition of residents. Everyone
used to know each other. There were more people with an ethnic minority
background like him, and a bunch of drunkards used to hang out on the
corner. Today, he feels slightly uncomfortable to find that most of his new
neighbours are university students younger than his daughter. The new
balconies have rendered this development more striking to him. He was
surprised the first time he went out on the balcony and saw a neighbour he
had never met before standing on the balcony right next to him: “She was a
babe, only 20 years old, and standing there in her bikini … We didn’t say
hello, I just hurried inside”. Thus, the balconies have brought the neigh
bours closer both visibly and audibly and have confronted him more di
rectly with their differences in lifestyle. He pointed out one of the carefully
decorated balconies below him with furniture, flowering pot plants, and a
parasol and explained in a slightly sarcastic tone that there is clearly “some
young, well-organized woman living there”. He covered his balcony with a
net to prevent his two cats from jumping out and installed a mattress that
52 Stender & Jepsen
Figure 2.2 The dream of the balcony is a private, outdoor living room, but
neighbours also come closer for better or worse.
Photo: Nanna Nielsen.
takes up most of the balcony floor so that he can lie out there in the sun
without being visible from the courtyard or by most of his neighbours.
In her study of the Norwegian window, Pauline Garvey finds that privacy
is not so much about keeping personal information secret as having a mea
sure of control over its circulation (Garvey, 2005, p. 172). She suggests that
we can understand domestic boundaries through Wallman’s analogy of the
social boundary as a teabag “that allows influences to pass across a social
boundary without jeopardizing it. It permits a certain to and fro across the
boundary that affects both sides” (Wallman, in Garvey, 2005, p. 162). The
teabag metaphor is appropriate to stress the porousness of domestic
boundaries at play on Copenhagen’s balconies. Influences certainly pass to
and fro the transparent railing and open doors thereby soaking domestic life
in the public and social realm surrounding it. Anna, Antonio, and other in
formants like to think of their balconies as a private, outdoor living room
where they can make themselves comfortable without entering the social
realm. Yet, the presence of neighbours and the fact that they can see and hear
each other influences how and when they use the balcony. As Karen, who
lives in the harbour area Nordhavn in a newly built fifth floor flat with large
and closely spaced balconies, puts it: “You almost get the others into your
living room, though you don’t really know each other”.
Getting others into the living room, however, challenges the measure of
control that Garvey identifies as the quintessence of privacy. Private control
is not given by the built environment of the balconies, and the boundary is
consequently not as stable and unchanging as Garvey finds to be the case
with Norwegian windows. Rather, domestic boundaries are continuously
maintained and recreated through ongoing negotiation and adjustment of
both material environments and bodily practices. By placing nets, mat
tresses, sunshades, chairs, barbeques, and potted plants along the edge of
the balcony, residents supplement the somewhat sparse material border of
the balcony railing. However, they also negotiate and recreate domestic
boundaries through bodily practices, timing when they are on the balcony
and adjusting their behaviour there, using subtle body language and min
uscule gestures to maintain privacy. Several mentioned headphones or the
act of controlling one’s gaze as a way to prevent social interaction on the
balcony when neighbours are present. Others describe how turning one’s
face and body away from the neighbour serves as a sign that interaction is
unwanted. Such manoeuvres are well known from studies of behaviour in
public spaces where symbolic boundaries can supplement physical ones, as
people tend to use “body management under particular circumstances to
create for themselves a symbolic shield of privacy” (Lofland, 1973, p. 151).
Like the teabag being soaked in hot water, the private space of the balcony
is saturated by the surrounding social sphere, and people adjust to codes of
conduct known from public spaces. Such behaviour seems generally agreed
upon to avoid socializing when on a balcony. Still, several informants de
scribed how the situation can be awkward if one actually has become ac
quainted with one’s neighbours but still wants to maintain the privacy of the
balcony. Karen, for instance, has a good relationship with her neighbours
and often chats with them over the railing of the balcony. Yet, sometimes she
prefers to be left alone and then must signal this quite manifestly:
When those two are out there, it can be a little … I mean, they are really
sweet, but this summer I was ill, and I went out there in my bathrobe, and
I just couldn’t handle that they would ask me how I was doing … So, I
either chose not to go out there, or I just turned my back in their direction.
Like Antonio, she also feels that many of the other residents have lifestyles
and norms that differ from her own, and the huge and closely spaced bal
conies of the building expose and confront these differences, most notably
when younger neighbours use their balcony to party all night, keeping her
awake. However, as boundaries are not given by the built environment, even
small differences, such as her next-door neighbours being retired and having
more time to talk, require ‘more things to be spelled out’ as she puts it:
They are actually the same age as me, but they are retired […] and she is
very talkative … and there you have to indicate with your body that
you want to be left alone, or that you just want to sit and read […] I
have also had to say directly to my neighbours: “I am actually working
right now …” It was OK, but there are just more things that needs to be
spelled out.
54 Stender & Jepsen
Consequently, she has decided to sell her flat and move to a place where
there is more space between people and a stronger common code of
conduct.
Garvey relates the discussion of domestic boundaries to Barth’s classic
studies of ethnic boundaries and argues that “in contrast to Barth, the
demarcation of socially significant difference and the point of distinction
between households does not necessarily run along ethnic lines; having a
“cosy” home has certain material manifestations that cross-cut ethnic, age
and class backgrounds” (Garvey, 2005, p. 162). Yet, as Karen and
Antonio’s experiences above bear witness, the material manifestation of
domestic boundaries may accentuate perceived differences in ethnicity, age,
and class background. Differences between neighbours can become in
creasingly manifest and bothersome concurrently with material boundaries
becoming blurred and porous. The implication can be that boundaries are
maintained and recreated by other means – through material objects, body
techniques, or verbally ‘spelling out’ – but the implication can also be a
change in the relationship between what was demarcated on each side of
the boundary. Getting the others into one’s living room thus requests that
they are not too different from oneself; therefore, people may seek to live
among more likeminded people. Like the materiality of teabags matters, so
Figure 2.3 Differences in lifestyle become more manifest with balconies. Getting
others into one’s living room is easier if they are not too different from
oneself.
does that of balconies and domestic boundaries: permeability and porosity
pave the way for exchange and mutual influence of domestic and urban life.
Moving one’s living room outdoors not only affects domestic life but also
the urban realm that it enters. Therefore, we now focus on how balconies
foster new ways of participating in and relating to urban space.
Private pouches in public space

Many informants describe how they enjoy viewing urban life from their
balconies. One can be a first-row spectator of urban events, such as music
festivals, marathons, and so on, and still have access to one’s toilet and
fridge with cold drinks. Moreover, one can also be a first-row spectator to
everyday life on the streets and in the courtyards. The view of the balcony
spectator encompasses not only distant urban scenery and street life but
also the very near surroundings, including balconies on adjacent façades.
Lily, who lives in a first floor flat in Vesterbro with a balcony facing the
courtyard, indicated that she enjoys observing the life and décor of the
other balconies:
I enjoy observing how others decorate their balconies. For example,

there is one woman down there who has wildly colourful flowers all
over, every year. Not like my own half-dead pots [laughs]. That’s very
nice. Or light chains – during the dark months of winter, there is
actually light in the backyard because people decorate their balconies
with light chains. It is so cosy to wake up to Christmas lights on the
balconies.
Domestic light is intricately connected to Scandinavian notions of cosiness

and social participation (Bille, 2015). Garvey finds that placing lamps and
candles in the window occupies a double role: drawing attention to the
beacon in darkened surroundings and “diverting attention away from the
interior by providing a focus on the border of the visual field”, adding that
“Plants on windowsills potentially function in a similar manner” (Garvey,
2005, p. 169). However, as Garvey also notes, residential ways of dealing
with interfaces between public and private often have less to do with being
seen than with the perception of the social gaze (ibid., p. 157). Balcony
owners internalize such a gaze and view their balcony through the eyes of
passers-by or neighbours. This gaze has a pivotal say in what belongings are
placed on the balcony. Lena, for instance, described how she felt an urgent
obligation to decorate and furnish her balcony, which had less to do with
her use than with how it appeared from the outside:
I looked at our balcony and thought it was so embarrassing that it was

all bare. There was nothing out there apart from three plants that died
56 Stender & Jepsen
within three weeks. So, we bought a couple of chairs and a table
because I thought it somehow said something bad about our relation
ship if there was nothing there. And everyone else started setting
flowers out there, and I thought: I really can’t cope with this.
She hired professional assistance, and today, her balcony is packed with huge
green plants that serve both as a shield against the neighbours and an im
pressive showcase of how to turn the balcony into a lush urban mini-jungle.
After this transformation, she has shared plenty of photos of her balcony on
Instagram and laughingly admitted that she even had to visit her friend living
on the opposite side of the courtyard to shoot some of her best-posted
photos. If windows offer pedestrians a glimpse of domestic life, balconies
provide private pouches exposed into public space. The Scandinavian home
since the birth of the Bourgeoisie has had a double role as both a stage and
shelter from the outside world (Löfgren, 2003, p. 144). Lena’s simultaneous
staging and shielding strikingly demonstrate how balconies not only mate
rialize but also merge and magnify this double function.
The relationship between balconies and social media is interesting, not
just because balconies are commonly exposed and staged on social media
but also because clear parallels exist between how boundaries and relations
between private and public life are currently changing. Like digital tech
nologies change and cocreate our social worlds, so does architecture and
the built environment. Rather than just blurring the boundaries between
public and private spaces, balconies create private pouches in urban, public
Figure 2.4 Furnishing and decorating one’s balcony entails possibilities to stand out
but also social pressure to fit in.
space, changing the ways of being private and public. Social media has
provided individuals with a new creative autonomy, changing power rela
tions in communications (Castells, 2009) and colonizing the space between
traditional broadcast and private dyadic communication (Miller et al.,
2016, p. 2). Similarly, the Copenhagen balcony boom has allowed not only
the queen but a broad range of citizens to appear to the urban public on the
façade of their homes. Such appearance, however, entails possibilities to
stand out and the social pressure to fit in. In their studies of social media
around the world, Miller et al. (ibid., p. xvii) concluded that “social media
creates additional stress over public appearance”, and that “where social
media is used to express individuality, the enhanced visibility tends to make
this increasingly conformist to accepted cultural styles of individualism”.
Correspondingly, the strive to follow similar fashions of interior design to
keep up with decorative trends is enhanced on balconies because they di
rectly expose and become part of the neighbours’ view and enter the cover
of the urban scenery. Thus, a strong consensus exists among the informants
that using the balcony for disorderly storage, garbage, or empty beer cans is
unacceptable. “You ought to contribute to the cosiness of the courtyard
yourself”, as Lily stated when discussing the plants and flowers of her
neighbours’ balconies. Our observations from the three case buildings also
document a process of social alignment, where people on adjacent balconies
purchase similar furniture, flowerpots, and barbeques. At the same time, the
balcony – like the personal social media platform – offers the possibility of
standing out. Either with plants and furniture or by flagging personal
preferences through rainbow pride flags, flags of a favourite football team,
Tibetan prayer flags, or even banners with statements, which is frowned
upon by some neighbours. Rather than the anonymous façade that neu
tralizes how citizens appear in public, the façades with balconies expose
those who live behind them. They turn private living rooms into open,
outdoor stages while rendering residents as spectators of the urban theatre.
Returning to the teabag metaphor, it is not only the inside of the teabag
that transforms by being soaked in hot water; public space also takes the
flavour of the private pouches infused in it. When boundaries become
permeable, residents extend the control of their private space into the urban
realm. Anita lives on the second floor in Nørrebro with a balcony facing the
street. She described how the balconies brought the streetscape somewhat
closer to her domestic space. She is, therefore, more likely to intervene when
seeing something outside that she does not approve of:
I’d say you have more access to what is going on outside your windows.
I saw a woman with her dog, and it left a poo, so I went out there and
shouted to her “pick up that poo!” I just felt like saying it to her.
Based on our registrations, such direct interaction between balconies and

public space are rare, but the private control of the balconies extends into
58 Stender & Jepsen
Figure 2.5 Balconies provide a platform for standing out, much like social media.
This changes the façades of the city from anonymizing to exposing those
who live behind them.
Photo: Marie Stender.
the public space of the street in more subtle and indirect ways. The possi
bility of being heard or seen from the balconies above one’s head can in
fluence people’s behaviour in the streets and courtyards. Nanna provided an
example of that. She lives on the first floor in Vesterbro and does not have a
balcony herself but often sits outside on the stone step:
I was chatting the other day with a young girl I know from my
stairway. And the fact that they (her parents) were present on the
balcony over us affected what we talked about, and what we could
allow ourselves to talk about because you knew that there were
somebody sitting there and listening … I just noticed that we changed
the subject because I could hear that they were up there.
Though people are not always as conscious of these dynamics of influence

as Nanna, balconies affect the urban spaces they are placed in. Most of the
year, the Danish climate is too cold to stay outside, and no one is on the
balconies. Still, their spatial presence, material belongings, plants, and
décor add a more organic, private, and sprawling layer to the façades of the
city. Balconies thereby change urban space in a way resembling how social
media changes spaces of public communication: From being dominated by
a few authoritative bodies, be it planning authorities or media institutions,
the public space is pervaded by a polyphony of individual expressions
mutually competing and comparing.
Conclusion
Architectural anthropology is not just about combining methods from the
two disciplines. It is also about regarding architecture as a discipline that
shares with anthropology the concern to explore processes that produce the
environments we inhabit and the ways we perceive them (Ingold, 2013,
p. 10). Taking this point of departure, we explored the Copenhagen bal
cony as an architectural experiment that reveals and cocreates the current
blurring boundaries between public and private space. This experiment
calls for a revision of existing theory stating that Euro-American home life
has turned progressively inwards, emphasizing the intimacy of the home
away from the public realm of the street and the alienation that it represents
(Garvey, 2005).
The present analysis indicates that balconies, hand in hand with social
media and other technologies, reflect and pave new ways for us to turn
outwards. Balconies expose and extend the private intimacy and control of
the living room into the public realm of the street, transforming its pub
licness. Like social media fosters a polyphonic space of public commu
nication, balconies foster the pervasion of public space by sprawling private
pouches. With both balconies and social media, we find new ways of
turning outwards, while still turning inwards. This implies possibilities to
60 Stender & Jepsen
stand out but also pressure to fit in. The balconies make residents turn the
social gaze onto their balconies, entailing an obligation to ‘contribute to the
cosiness’ of courtyards and streets. Like teabags, the private pouches of
balconies immerse domestic life in the public realm that surrounds it. This
affects the way people create and maintain privacy, but it also brings
neighbours closer. New possibilities for contact and exposure are created,
but dissimilarities between neighbours also concurrently become manifest
and bothersome with material boundaries becoming blurred and porous.
The materiality of teabags matters, and so does that of the boundaries
between domestic and urban life. A key task for architectural anthropology
is to explore how the materiality of built environments comes to matter.
Consequently, we must reconsider the existing understanding of domestic
boundaries and the home as a mere canvas for representing social relations
(Garvey, 2005, p. 165). Neither the home nor the interface between the
interior and the wider public sphere is a passive canvas. Rather, the built
environment and material boundaries between the home and public sphere
take part in the social life of the spaces and relationships between them.
Balconies not only materialize but also merge and magnify the home’s
double role as a stage and shelter from the outside world. Architectural
anthropology has a pivotal role in providing insight into such processes by
combining methods, competencies, and approaches from the two dis
ciplines and by meticulously focusing on and learning from the ways we
interact with the environments we inhabit.
Note
1 The research was financially supported by Aalborg University, Grundejernes
Investeringsfond (The Investment Fund of Landowners) and the balcony con
tractor Altan.dk.
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3 Mould, microbes, and microscales
of architecture
An anthropological approach to
indoor environments
Turid Borgestrand Øien and
Mia Kruse Rasmussen
The architectural profession has a strong focus on scale: working in models,

drawings, and representations of different physical scales, zooming in and
out from details to district plans, processing a design and addressing future
users. However, visible and physical structures are often prioritized, while
less attention is paid to the interactions between buildings and users, taking
place inside and outside of these structural boundaries. Indoor climate re
search investigates the small-scale of our built environment, mainly starting
from the health and technical sciences. In a Danish context, indoor climate
has been used as a broad term to describe studies that investigate hazardous
health effects triggered by the built environment (CISBO, 2016). The field
addresses physical senses and human perceptual systems by assessing four
basic factors: thermal comfort, quality of air, acoustics, and light (Bluyssen,
Bayon & Hamilton, 2009). Consequently, triggers are often reduced to
quantifiable metrics of physical conditions, as particles, temperature, deci
bels, or lux-levels, falling short of providing qualitative insights of how these
environments are experienced and how they affect peoples’ everyday lives.
Other academic traditions have explored the micro-scales of buildings
and homes as well, offering diverse approaches to the notion of scale. From
a phenomenological perspective, architecture, in addition to being a
structure with a given function, is understood as an embodied experience,
which “at its best, creates a meaningful relationship and mediates between
ourselves, the surrounding world and other people in it” (Fabian, 2016,
p. 192). Architects and scholars of architecture such as Zumthor and
Pallasmaa embrace the personal, vague, and ephemeral experience of at
mospheres as an important part of architectural quality (Havik, Teerds &
Tielens, 2013). However, even though this phenomenological under
standing of architectural spaces gains increasing traction across the pro
fession, the majority of architects remain relatively unconcerned with
gathering post-project data (Lawson, 2004) and most building evaluations
still lack social considerations (Sylvest, 2017).
Mould, microbes, and microscales 63
This chapter presents the work of two scholars, an architect in academia
and an anthropologist employed at an architectural firm. Each studies the
otherwise technical field of indoor climate from another perspective, pro
posing to broaden the scope and focusing on indoor environments through
an architectural-anthropological lens. If we want to investigate how
buildings impact people’s everyday lives, and how these lives in turn impact
buildings, we need to consider the social dynamics of how everyday users
“bond” with buildings (Ballantyne, 2011). We need to understand and
acknowledge the dependencies between architecture and everyday life (Till,
2009) and account for both the social and material elements of buildings in
use (Van der Linden, Dong & Heylighen, 2019). In our studies of indoor
environments, we build on anthropological understandings of the re
lationship between people and environments as dynamic and enacted
through the performance of everyday practices (Ingold, 2000; Mol, 2002;
Pink, 2012; Shove, Pantzar & Watson, 2012), focusing on the significance
of microbes and domestic boundaries in configuring and developing these
micro scales.
This chapter is our first collaboration and it has enabled fruitful discus
sions of the similarities and differences between the architectural and the
anthropological approach, as well as our contribution to academia and
practice. In two individual studies, a mixed-method study of the indoor
climate consequences of energy renovation and a PhD project investigating
mould issues in public housing, we study the ways in which various ele
ments affect the configuration of indoor climates in different multisensory
contexts, and explore how they are negotiated and change over time.
Furthermore, our studies show that architectural-anthropological explora
tions can offer unique perspectives for understanding the social dynamics of
domestic spaces.
Study 1: Opening the black box of the mould issue

The first study investigated how mould growth are understood and handled
as part of people’s everyday life.1 Despite increasing scientific knowledge
and growing concern about the health risks of environment-related ex
posures, the problem of moulds in domestic spaces is widespread. Caused
by constructional conditions and/or the improper use of a building, this
issue and its solutions are often disputed, and conflicts concerning re
sponsibility and accountability are common. Generally, people perceive the
mould phenomenon as abstract and inaccessible, which causes doubt about
how to maintain a healthy living environment (Øien & Frandsen, 2015).
Moreover, as the knowledge of people’s motivations and rationales re
garding housing are often unknown, ignored or based on assumptions, it
constitutes a black box – a system whose internal workings are hidden or
inaccessible (Latour, 1987). In order to open up to the internal workings of
these domestic boundaries, field studies and observations were conducted in
64 Øien & Rasmussen
11 public housing complexes where problems with mould growth had more
or less initiated the ongoing refurbishment, and included 41 semi-structured
qualitative interviews with occupants, building superintendents, and re
presentatives from the housing association. To prompt the participants to
describe their use of the building and their personal experience of the
phenomenon as part of their everyday life, the observations included walk-
throughs conducted with the occupants around their dwelling or with the
building superintendent around the housing complex.
Engaging with issues of mould growth, disclosed otherwise hidden as
pects of housing, such as how we behave when the unintended and un
foreseen alter our human-environment relationships.
First of all, I could feel it affected my breathing. My nose got stuffy …

and there was a very peculiar smell when I entered the bedroom … I
just knew that was not a bedroom smell. It was such a wrong smell … I
could just feel it …
(Occupant in housing complex 1 describing
the first encounters with the mould issue)
Several interviews included descriptions of sensory experiences, such as

obscure visual hints of the substance, vaguely discoloured or spotted sur
faces, odd smells, or distant feelings:
The moisture came from the ground and we would smell it in the winter
… we have a saying that we “could smell the edge of the lawn” …
Because it smelled damp and musty, and it came from the ground.
(Occupant, housing complex 7)
Decades had gone by in this manner but compared to other neighbours the
given residents were hardly affected: “we were pretty much spared from the
discomfort, but we had that smell. Once you returned back home, you could
clearly sense it.” These sensory experiences represent tacit knowledge, em
bedded in materials and embodied in individual, personal experiences as well
as in residents’ responses to the problem. Each interview and associated
observation helped form manifold detailed descriptions of these entangle
ments, first assembled across each case to understand each issue and then
assembled across the eleven cases to explore the phenomena more broadly.
Thus, the sensory perception of the phenomenon differed, and it was
clear that the narrative of the mould issue had changed throughout the 50
to 70 years of the building’s lifetime. Some occupants had been living in the
complex since its construction, and their narratives touched upon scenarios
from the early years – a long period of comprehending and fighting the
problem – but also reflections on the current renovation. One occupant
described a memory of the extensive mould issue in one of the neighbouring
houses:
We walked around this area with the building superintendent and
stopped at a house where the window was taken out and the floor was
gone [in the middle of refurbishment] … however, I recognized the
smell immediately, when I put my head inside the window opening … I
could still smell it … it just demonstrates its proportions.
(Occupant, housing complex 10)
Identifying and analysing key actors: Buildings, humans, and

microbes
Actor network theory (ANT) interprets the world as consisting of networks
of actors, where human and non-humans act, mediate, or intermediate
through associations (Latour, 1987). When a stabilized network, a “black
box”, fails or breaks down, its hidden complex internal workings are re
vealed. The mould issue, seen as a breakdown of the housing network,
revealed the workings of a range of actors: occupants, building and
household technologies, building structures, building superintendents,
housing associations, public administrations, treatment regimens, and, of
course, microbes.
The mould issue also renders visible the indoor environment and its
relationship to time. Initial encounters with the mould-as-actor estab
lished new relations between the occupants and their home environment,
which recognized the building and its technologies as actors co-creating
the present living conditions. One of the activities often adjusted as a
response to the mould issue was the practice of airing out. While the act
of opening windows was also related to getting up in the morning or
going to bed at night, its frequency often increased due to the mould
issue, and several respondents kept their windows open all day. For
some, the open window also assumed a social value, as occupants re
ported that the practice helped them feel connected to other people in
the neighbourhood. Others developed neatly tailored routines for airing
out, cleaning, and organizing, which were all closely related to the
present condition of the indoor climate. These changing routines relate
to the notion of dynamics in everyday practices and reveal that mate
rials, competences, and meanings are interdependent and fluctuating
(Shove et al., 2012).
Studying the mould issues as interactions between everyday practices,
materialities, and conventions (Øien, 2017, 2018) revealed different inter
pretations of the mould phenomena, how it was assumed and acted upon in
the everyday practices of occupants and building superintendents. The fear
of moulds but not of mildew illustrated that the rhetoric surrounding
mould as a technical/construction issue or as a health risk prompted dif
ferent daily practices. Additionally, it affected the individual’s relationship
to the substance itself, the mould issue in general, the home, and the
housing association. These different interpretations particularly emerged in
cases where the mould issue had become rampant, unexplainable, obscure
or contentious. In her empirical study of atherosclerosis, Annemarie Mol
(2012) developed the notion of the body multiple. Informed by their
background, their hinterlands2 of professional and scientific knowledge and
its ruling conventions, the clinician, physical therapist, and patient under
stood and enacted different versions of the atherosclerosis. Sometimes the
versions were ignored or excluded; on other occasions they were ac
knowledged and coordinated at various locations or times. Different in
terpretations were included in others or distributed in relation to diagnosis,
treatment and/or prevention.
When applied to the mould issue, the body multiple manifests across the
professional networks of healthcare, building, and laboratory professionals
as three different versions of mould, assessed by (1) the human body (re
vealing its effects on health), (2) the building structure (offering ideal mould
conditions), or (3) the microbes themselves (allowing identification and
classification). With the different versions came different approaches to
how to solve the problem, which also prevailed across the network of ev
eryday life, affecting the interpretations and actions taken by non-
professionals. Combined with various concerns regarding the issue’s impact
on financial wellbeing, public health, or energy savings, the different in
terpretations of the mould phenomenon instigated conflicts regarding, for
example, the frequency of opening windows. Finally, different versions
were employed in the renovation projects, typically one version replacing
the other as the project proceeded: First, it was translated from a health
issue initiating the project to a structural and technical problem to be solved
technically in the renovation. This translation was mainly enacted by the
initial building investigation and identification of the microbes. A specia
lized engineer or consultant often conducted this part and in many of the
cases the mould issue was considered remedied by the phase of demolition
or construction.
In cases where the technical and social understandings clashed, the di
verging interpretations of the phenomena increased the situation’s com
plexity. Figure 3.1 illustrates a case in which the occupant, the building
superintendents, and the management, among others, had different inter
pretations of and solutions to the problem, which had extended the con
troversy for fifteen years. Issues with the building typology and an earlier
renovation combined with other local controversies, and together with the
occupant’s airing and cleaning efforts, the mould issue was unclear and
most importantly, not acknowledged. The occupant’s suspicion was finally
confirmed when the roof structure was opened during construction work.
Study 2: Perceived indoor climate and everyday life

The second study3 investigates the indoor climate consequences of energy
renovations in three different types of dwellings: a social housing area built
Figure 3.1 Collage illustrating the materialities (plan and section), the practices
(stippled), and the conventions and controversies at stake (majuscules).
Illustration: Translated from Øien (2017).
with prefabricated concrete elements in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
townhouses from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, and a red-brick public
housing area from the early 1950s. Using a mixed-methods approach, the
phenomenon of indoor climate is analysed from the perspectives of en
gineering, public health science, and anthropology. Building on a holistic
understanding of indoor climate as measurable as well as perceived, as il
lustrated in Figure 3.2, the goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the
different elements that affect the indoor climate in different contexts, both
Figure 3.2 The Indoor Climate Wheel shows the different elements, both
sensory and measurable, that constitute indoor climate in a given
context.
Illustration: Developed in a collaboration between Pluskontoret, Lendager Arkitekter,
MOE, and Realdania By & Byg, in the Realdania funded 1:1 demonstration project
“Healthy Homes”.
technical and sensory, and how these change over time, before and after
renovations.
In the anthropological studies, special attention was paid to the various
everyday practices considered to have a particular influence on indoor cli
mate: cooking, laundry, cleaning, and airing out. In this chapter the
townhouse case is used as a primary point of reference. Most homeowners
had carried out renovations and adjustments over the years, houses ap
peared well maintained, and there were no apparent mould problems or
other types of structural decay.
Situating practices
Fifteen field visits were conducted in total. Ten homes were visited before
renovation, and five households agreed to be revisited after renovation as
well. Each visit lasted 2 to 3 hours and included a combination of semi-
structured interviews, asking about residents’ perceptions of their indoor
climate and the performance of different everyday practices, and home
tours, in which we moved around the homes to see where and how desig
nated tasks and practices were carried out. This enabled a close look into
the micro-processes involved in various practices, and an opportunity to
discuss residents’ specific behaviours in more detail. It provided a way to
approach these otherwise invisible or unarticulated aspects of everyday life
related to indoor climate, and allowed us to focus on both the overall
perceptions and narratives as well as the specific performances, to be able to
situate the practices within “wider ecologies” (Pink, 2012, p. 23). Sarah
Pink proposes to examine individual performances and how they can be
understood within wider ecologies as a way of attending to the situatedness
of practices beyond their social, material, and technological elements:
how we understand embodied practices in relation to the wider

ecologies they are part of: where environments are not just social,
material, and technological, but multisensory, charged with energy,
emotion, shifting with the weather, and contingent on the activity of
non-human organisms too.
(Pink, 2012, p. 23)
Her approach also draws on Tim Ingold’s work on the relationship between
people and their environments. With central concepts like “dwelling”
(Ingold, 2000) and “entanglements” (Ingold, 2008), Ingold invites us to
think about place as relational and dynamic. He asserts, “Environments are
never complete but are continually under construction” (Ingold, 2000,
p. 172), and our individual actions are shaped by past experiences as well as
practical engagements with our environments. This approach resonates well
with a study of indoor environments as complex phenomena consisting of
material, technical, and sensory elements that continually change, because it
“situates perception and practical activity within the ways we move in and
as part of the environment” (Pink et al., 2013, p. 4).
Situated practices offer a way of approaching the phenomenon empiri
cally and analytically. By focusing on the reported changes or fluctuations
in people’s practices and perceptions related to indoor environments over
shorter periods of time, we come closer to understanding the phenomenon
as a dynamic part of our material, social, and sensory environments, and as
part of a continuous dwelling.
Across the cases in this study, people perceive indoor climate as complex,
and they are often unsure what the right thing to do is. They experience
conflicting concerns and make situated judgements case by case, as the
following reflection on laundry and drying of clothes exemplifies:
I know it is not optimal to dry the clothes in the basement, and I also
feel that it does get more humid down here when I do so. However, it is
not good to use the [tumble] dryer too much either. I try to air out as
much as possible and the window is always open when I air dry clothes
down there …
(Homeowner 4)
Though it may seem trivial, this statement demonstrates the concrete en
tanglements of multiple concerns and the pragmatics of decision-making.
Drying clothes in the house is not “good” from an indoor climate per
spective but might adhere to other concerns (the need for dry clothes in the
morning) or personal beliefs (using a tumble dryer is “bad”). Options are
evaluated holistically, weighing conflicting concerns and making situated
judgements, highlighting the interconnection of indoor climate with other
aspects of the home, personal values, and social life.
People’s attention towards their indoor climate varies greatly, and so do
their behaviours associated with it. Some aspects of indoor climate are not
readily available to us through sensory experience. As long as everything
seems “normal” they remain black boxed, as described in the previous
study. Humidity, for instance, is not readily noticeable unless it moves
above or below a certain comfort threshold. The eyes or nose detect if it
becomes too dry, and the odour is immediate if it is too humid, but it
otherwise goes unnoticed. Other changes can be triggered by the fluctuation
of seasons, or concrete health issues, and different triggers result in mark
edly different perceptions and performances of indoor climate.
From natural and invisible to centre of attention

Generally, people do not pay much attention to their indoor climate.
Statements like “I don’t really think about it that much,” “It’s quite
average, I guess,” or “It’s just air!” dominate in cases in which there are no
apparent domestic issues or challenges to be dealt with. However, even
these cases show significant variation in the performance of practices across
seasons: “In the summer we usually have the windows open, but during the
winter I guess we often forget.”
The analysis shows strong patterns of interconnectedness: The perfor
mance of airing out one’s space is contingent on the weather and season,
and residents report opening doors and windows in their homes sig
nificantly more in the summertime as opposed to the colder winter months.
Though this is not explained as a deliberate effort to air out the house, but
rather a result of the warmer temperatures or an increased use of outdoor
spaces, it still affects the indoor climate. The point is exactly that these
changes go mostly unnoticed, so closely connected to the natural cycles of
everyday life that they remain in the background.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, other changes in practice are
brought about by individual health issues. In contrast to the seasonal
changes, these changes are experienced and articulated as needing attention
and action:
Well, the problem is, my girlfriend, she has a lot of pollen allergies, and
our daughter is allergic too. She is multi-allergic to different foods and
is very allergic to birch pollen. We have a large birch tree on the
backside of the house, so it is kind of a dilemma: we don’t really want
to air out her room during this period, because then all the birch pollen
will get in her room.
(Homeowner 8)
What is otherwise invisible or peripheral suddenly takes centre stage,
shifting both perception and practical activity. Much like the microbes,
pollen acts as a strong trigger, creating very visible effects, though invisible
in its own right. It shifts attention from inside to outside, reinforcing do
mestic boundaries. The walls and windows of the house shield residents
from the outside air, creating a pollen free environment. This stands in
conflict with airing out, and so this practice (of airing out) must be com
promised, at least for a while, until the very visible and sensory effects of
pollen wear off.
For other types of allergies, focus remains on the inside and the changes
in practice are less defined and better aligned with creating healthy indoor
environments:
I think we air out more than most people. Upstairs we air out several
times a day, summer and winter – and that is of course also because he
tends to get these rashes and I assume, it is important to get a lot of
fresh air into the house. We also change the linens once a week to keep
it down.
(Homeowner 3)
In these cases, indoor climate plays a more active role in individuals’ lives
because of the visible effects on individual well-being. The examples show
not only how different triggers can bring the otherwise “invisible” indoor
climate to the foreground, but also how changes can occur more seamlessly
and inconspicuously. They reveal the complex, interconnected, and dy
namic nature of indoor environments and people’s actions in relation to
them, and they also show the dynamic character of domestic boundaries in
mediating these relationships between people and their environments.
Contributions of an architectural anthropological approach

The two studies represent different theoretical frameworks and have been
conducted by scholars with different professional backgrounds. However,
there has been common ground in bringing qualitative research into the
field of indoor climate. Our discussions have revealed a range of similarities
between the architectural and the anthropological, such as an interest in
context and ecologies, scales and human-environment interaction. While
there are clear differences in the studies, and the scope of the mould study is
broader physically, temporarily, and socially than the study of energy re
novation, the empirical findings point to the same overall insights.
Through the studies, we have identified three major contributions of the
architectural anthropological approach: as a lens for studying (1) the often
invisible microscales of indoor environments, (2) the multiplicity of versions
added by different interpretations and hinterlands, and (3) the situatedness of
these microscales on a continuum of temporal, physical, and social scales.
A lens for seeing the otherwise invisible
Architectural anthropology allows us to focus on the microscales of everyday
life to understand what otherwise remains largely unnoticed. While architects
have focused on lighting and the visual environment, an increasing scientific
monopoly has evolved on indoor climate throughout the last century, en
gineered in rates of air change, comfort temperatures, and lux-levels. Thus,
indoor climate is both omnipresent and largely invisible, and to understand it
we need ways of knowing that extend beyond deliberate articulations. We
need to find the cracks that allow us to open this otherwise black-boxed issue.
In the first study, we see how the mould issues expose an otherwise invisible
network of actors and demonstrates that a focus on everyday practices fa
cilitates an understanding of these relations from a personal, material, and
structural perspective and addresses indoor climates from a broader outlook,
putting the quantitative measures into context as indoor environments. In the
second study, the focus on the performance of practices helps us understand
the fluctuations and configurations of people, places, and practices in relation
to indoor environments. The empirical data we gathered from interviews and
observations provides rich material for exploring these patterns and connec
tions, and it allows us to go beyond the reflections of individual respondents.
The anthropological approach studies the seemingly mundane practices
of everyday life and provides a theoretical framework for understanding
these practices in wider ecologies. By focusing on the performance of spe
cific practices, we gain access to knowledge about the social and the ma
terial, and the relationship between the two.
Individual, technical, and social

Among the actors, ranging from microbes, humans, technologies, buildings,
and natural elements to policies and funding restrictions, entanglements
arose both as intimate encounters between individuals and as controversies
over responsibilities, public health issues, and precautionary principles ne
gotiated across housing associations. Consequently, the architectural-
anthropological approach not only acknowledges the entanglements of
humans and nonhumans, which could involve the technical indoor climate
and the phenomenology of individual experiences, but it also recognizes the
social aspects. As the mould issues showed, the divergent interpretations
were conflicting in some cases, while others acknowledged these different
meanings and managed to negotiate and coordinate technical and social
interpretations when addressing the problems.
Across physical, social, and temporal scales

Departing from what we have called the microscale of architecture, the
studies demonstrate how the intimate and immediate are interrelated across
Figure 3.3 Architectural anthropology as a lens for zooming in and out.

Illustration: Turid Borgestrand Øien & Mia Kruse Rasmussen.
not only physical scales but also social and temporal scales, and how the
configurations of these elements constitute indoor environments.
Recognizing indoor climate as part of wider socially situated practices
helps us understand the shifting dynamics at play. As illustrated in
Figure 3.3, architectural anthropology works as a lens for zooming in and
out across physical, social, and temporal scales. Moreover, it locates itself
between the fields of indoor climate and atmospheres, by combining the
technical, social, and individual, insisting on a holistic understanding.
The studies show that sensory experiences of indoor environments fluc
tuate over time, and while they may not necessarily be predictable, they still
carry a certain rhythm, constituted and evolving through perception,
movement, and place. The same goes for our bodies and surroundings.
Architects are already working across scales, coordinating details and
concepts, and translating through the different phases from idea to con
struction and use. However, these intimate and relational experiences of the
user(s) need to be recognized as an aspect of architectural quality. As the
trajectory of entanglements studied across the settings of the construction,
everyday use, and renovation illustrate, there is a fantastic, complex, dy
namic interrelation both within and across the domestic boundaries of the
built environment after its construction, which needs further exploration.
Concluding remarks
The contribution of architectural anthropology in these studies lies in both
the methodological and the theoretical. Approaching the built environment
through detailed narratives of microscales helps us understand the dynamic
entanglements of the individual, the social, and the material. First, by ac
knowledging everyday routines and status quo, which then allow us to notice
shifts, changes, and convergences. Moreover, the theoretical lenses offered by
the anthropologists Pink, Ingold, Latour, and Mol also encourage attention
to and patience for insisting on the microscales of everyday life. This focus
includes an exploration of the multiplicity of scales present in the specific
empirical context, such as how an odour can link people emotionally and
physically to their environments and their nonhuman cohabiters.
Maintaining the architectural scope of scaling and contextualizing, ar
chitectural anthropology as an inquiry, does not propose quick fixes or
simple explanations, but attempts to look deeply into complexities and
anomalies. In this regard, we argue that learning from our built environ
ment as it exists in these ever-evolving entanglements is also key to the
development of future architectural design. Not by providing lists of design
properties but by acknowledging the dynamics and complexity of indoor
environments, and showing the nuances and richness of the microscale.
Notes
1 The study was funded by The National Building Fund, The Landowner’s
Investment Foundation, and Aalborg University.
2 Hinterlands describe pre-existing social and material realities that are built up,
sustained and enacted in our practices (Law, 2004, p. 13).
3 The Be Ready projects (2015–2022) were funded by the philanthropic fund
Realdania.
References
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Criticism, 69(1), 43–49.
Bluyssen, P., Bayon, R., & Hamilton, K. (2009). The indoor environment hand
book: How to make buildings healthy and comfortable. CRC Press.
CISBO (2016). Indeklima og sundhed i boliger. [Indoor environment and health in
housing]. Center for Indeklima og Sundhed i Boliger, Realdania.
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L. Weiss (Eds), Art of many, the right to space: the Danish pavilion – Bienniale
Architettura 2016. DAC & The Danish Architectural Press.
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for Architecture, 91(1), 3–12.
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Ingold, T. (2008). Bindings against boundaries: Entanglements of life in an open
world. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 40(8), 1796–1810.
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society. Harvard University Press.
Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. Routledge.
Lawson, B. (2004). What designers know. Routledge.
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actornetwork perspective. In Healthy Buildings Europe 2015. ISIAQ International
Conference, p. ID568.
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[Mould growth in housing – Practices and politics]. Aalborg Universitetsforlag.
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Universitet.
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Series, 201(1), 329–354.
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Morosanu, R. (2013). Applying the lens of sensory ethnography to sustainable HCI.
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Van der Linden, V., Dong, H., & Heylighen, A. (2019). Tracing architects’ fragile
knowing about users in the socio-material environment of design practice. Design
Studies, 63(1), 65–91.
4 Homelessness and homeliness
Collage technique as a research
method
Laura Helene Højring and
Claus Bech-Danielsen
Kasper has been homeless for most of his life. His past as a street kid has
left scars on his mental health that he still struggles to cope with as an adult.
He uses the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark with all the external im
pressions of the urban space to occupy his attention and thus push the
chaos of his inner voices into the background. In his experience, the calm
inside the four walls of a home makes his inner voices take over and makes
what he is missing – contact with family, a partner, a job, money, and so on,
too evident. To Kasper, a traditional home feels like a trap.
In this chapter, we focus on homeless people and the way they relate to
the places they live in and how they adapt. What is ‘home’ to someone who
is or has recently been homeless?1 In this context, it is crucial to understand
that a home is not just a physical object – a home is a relation (Després,
1991). The relation occurs when a person starts feeling at home in a certain
place, and a home is the sum of emotions, habits, memories, familiarity,
and social relations of the people who inhabit it (ibid.). This also means that
feeling at home is not necessarily linked to a dwelling (Mallett, 2004). Our
empirical studies show that the ‘post-homeless’ can have very ambiguous
approaches to the places they live in and that having access to a flat not
necessarily equals having a home or even getting out of homelessness. What
qualifies as ‘home’ to those who are or have been homeless might as well
relate to an urban space or to being with friends and one’s dog or perhaps
to certain activities and daily routines. Furthermore, as in the case of
Kasper, a dwelling can even evoke feelings that are contradictory to the
ideal of ‘home’.
In our study of homeliness for the homeless, home is not considered
a physical object isolated from everyday life and social relations. The ex
periences and narratives of the homeless are included and connected to
the physical space. To explore this, we linked anthropological and archi
tectural methods through the creation of collages. In these collages, the
everyday lives of the homeless are linked to their physical contexts. Thus,
the collage technique creates a way to understand the social consequences
of the material world while at the same time focusing on individual per
ceptions of the physical environment.
Homelessness and homeliness 77
Conceptualizing homeliness
Theories on home and homeliness (Korosec-Serfaty, 1985; Després, 1991;
Somerville, 1997; Mallett, 2004; Bech-Danielsen & Gram-Hanssen, 2004)
primarily focus on middle-class families, and they typically lack a focus on
the negative emotions that can be linked to ‘home’. However, this per
spective is offered by Somerville (1992), Mallett (2004), and Wardhaugh
(1999), presenting some of the variations in the experiences of home that
are particularly relevant to homeless and other vulnerable groups. They
stress that, by defining home as an inside that is private, safe, and com
fortable in contrast to the world outside as dangerous, unsafe, and beyond
our control, we miss the fact that these negative experiences might also take
place within the four walls of home.
To operationalize a phenomenon that is primarily based on feelings and
therefore intangible and subjective, the literature works with a thematic
structuring of the topic. In this analysis, we are inspired by the categor
ization by Després (1991) of the meaning of home into the following six
topics: safety and control, privacy, community, identity, everyday life, and
time. The categories apply well to the reality observed among the homeless
in the field study, and they make it possible to discuss how their living
experiences relate to the more common perceptions of home. Together with
the general theories on the meaning of home, the categories also help
nuance the analysis of how the physical surroundings affect the everyday
lives of the homeless. Thus, the feeling of homeliness was indicated by a
successful connection between the person and place, while not feeling at
home would indicate the opposite (Højring, 2019).
Most of the sources on the meaning of home have been written by so
ciologists, geographers, and anthropologists who focus on the social and
cultural aspects of the subject. This means that the physical and material
aspects are treated more as backdrops for other relations than as an active
part of the experience. To better understand the influence of the physical
surroundings on the experiences of home, it may be beneficial to search
outside of the theories of home. Don Ihde’s (1990) post-phenomenological
models of relations and James Gibson’s (2015) affordance theory unfold
what objects, technologies, and – in this context – especially buildings ‘do’
to us. Affordance theory suggests the idea that the physical context pro
motes some forms of actions and inhibits others. Affordances are present
whether we use them or not. Ihde’s (1990) four models of relations (em
bodiment, hermeneutic, alterity, and background) can be used to describe
the different ways we relate to, use, and understand our physical sur
roundings. Both Ihde and Gibson based their theories on the role of our
bodies in terms of the way we perceive and interact with our surroundings.
By doing so, they added another aspect to the overall picture of the many
different factors that interact when we intend to understand the connections
between a person and her/his environment. This point is especially valuable
78 Højring & Bech-Danielsen
when setting out to understand a group of people who often distinguish
themselves by a lack of personal belongings and to whom in particular the
body is an important tool in their interaction with the world.
As architects, we can seek knowledge about the significance of the phy
sical surroundings through anthropological methods. This is a way to move
beyond the first-person phenomenological research approach (Seamon,
2000) that is otherwise prevalent in architectural research. Anthropological
methods offer not only tools to include users in design processes but also
methods to become more critical and self-conscious about the co-creation
of architecture and the different actors involved. As in this project, the
anthropological approach and ethnographic methods can be used to in
vestigate how architecture affects us when it is in use (Stender, 2017;
Højring, 2019).
Combining the two perspectives in research provides a fuller picture that
not only includes knowledge of the interplay between architecture and users
but also makes it possible to expand the meaning of both the social and
physical. To include the body and mind, earlier experiences, cultures,
norms, and the material, structural, aesthetic, geographical, and organiza
tional aspects depending on what our informants emphasize in the stories
they tell us.
Collages as a research method

For this study,2 we designed a method that focuses on both the informants’
personal and emotional experiences and the physical space and archi
tectural characteristics of homes. Furthermore, it is crucial that the physical
and social are not considered and studied as two parallel tracks but as being
interlinked and connected.
Jane Rendell’s ‘site-writing’ (Rendell, 2010) inspired the development of a
method that intertwines anthropological methods (qualitative interviews)
with architectural methods (e.g. drawings and photographic registration).
Site-writing is a creative method to map different layers of a place or an
object, space, or text. Site-writing can consist of texts, images, or sounds and
has a special focus on the way things are related to each other. In the current
research, the concept of site-writing is developed into the creation of collages.
In recent years, researchers have explored collages as an analytical tool
(e.g. Davis & Butler-Kisber, 1999; Vaughan, 2004; Davis, 2008; Keddy,
2009; Butler-Kisber & Poldma, 2010; Gerstenblatt, 2013; Norris, 2008).
They argued that collages are not necessarily to be considered only a result
of an artistic process; the process itself can be part of qualitative research
(Norris, 2008). Thus, the collages in the current study are not primarily
considered artistic expressions and interpretations. Knowledge is developed
through the very process of creating the collages.
It is widely recognized in the field of architecture and architectural re
search (e.g. research-by-design) that drawings and other visual tools can be
used not only for communicating and creating expressions but also as a tool
to uncover place and space (Hale, 2014). Drawing can be a way to create
knowledge (Bagnoli, 2009). However, in the current research intending to
unfold the different ways homeless people use and relate to their physical
surroundings, the traditional architectural representations – drawings, such
as plans and sections – are insufficient. Personal experiences, emotions,
atmosphere, everyday routines, and social life are included, and new visual
tools and methods are therefore developed. The intention is that the use of
the different visual and creative methods can facilitate investigating layers
of experience that are hard to express with words. Drawings and images are
evocative and can allow access to different parts of human consciousness by
communicating more holistically (Bagnoli, 2009, p. 548).
Collages in practice – three examples

In the following paragraphs, we present three of the 15 collages that were
made during this study. The collages were created from architectural draw
ings, such as plans, sections, and maps, and photos taken during the interviews
were cut out to highlight important belongings. The interiors were drawn by
hand, and colours were used to highlight elements with special meaning.
Kasper
Kasper’s story exemplifies how having a flat can sometimes increase one’s
problems. Kasper needs the commotion of the street to keep his mind oc
cupied. As he expressed it: ‘The streets demand that I pull myself together’.
Navigating the streets, he must stay alert all the time to stay out of sight and
prevent confrontations, which is an effort that diverts attention from his
internal chaos. To him, a flat represents a trap. Inside four walls, his aching
body and worn-out mind start to gain his attention. When he is suddenly
alone and has a place to stay and rest, all the hardship of his situation has
room to show itself. It becomes evident what he is missing: that lack of
contact with family, a partner, a job, belongings, money, a healthy body,
and a non-fragile mind. These facts were not only depressing to him but he
also thinks they are a common problem among former homeless and are a
typical source of increased drinking and drug use.
Kasper has chosen the street as a form of self-medication. He uses the city
and its many impressions as an anaesthetic, a way to keep occupied and sane.
At the same time, the city is where he practises his passion for helping others
in the same situation as himself, which is a task he loves and finds mean
ingful. He divides his everyday life between a busy daytime in the centre of
Copenhagen, where he is active and social, and nights in the suburbs where
he finds calm and safety through anonymity. This is an arrangement that
works to Kasper because it has to but is also an arrangement that is strenuous
and has an expiration date depending on his health.
Figure 4.1 Kasper’s collage shows how his everyday life is divided between his
outgoing and social life in the centre of Copenhagen and his nights in
the suburbs. His nights and days are divided by a train ride, and his
belongings are stored in a locker at the main train station: a small
backpack for daytime and a large backpack containing sleeping gear, a
toothbrush, a flashlight, and other essentials for a night outside.
Collage: Laura Helene Højring.
Majbrit
Majbrit’s story demonstrates that having the right place to live and the right
neighbours can exert an immense influence on the process of creating and
feeling at home. Majbrit discusses very different housing experiences. The
first was her old flat where she spent two, as she put it, “awful” years, and
the second is her new flat where she moved in a few months earlier. The first
flat was assigned to her by social services, whereas she found the second flat
on her own. To Majbrit, the two flats represent diametrical oppositions to
each other. The first flat was connected to feelings of chaos, unsafety, and
anxiety. She did not like the flat, but the most disturbing part was her
neighbours who were loud, messy, and violent. She could easily hear them
talk and yell, and when the upstairs neighbour urinated, it sounded as if it
was taking place in her flat. Urine and blood were on the staircase, and
people were fighting. Once, she was even punched. She felt the environment
sustained the chaos of homelessness that she wanted to leave behind.
Having stopped her drug abuse, she was motivated to catch up on the years
she felt she had lost in homelessness, and in that respect, these living con
ditions were counterproductive.
In the second flat, Majbrit went around to meet the neighbours before she
signed the lease just to ensure it was not the same kind of environment. Now
she only hears the neighbours when they leave and return from work, a
sound that reminds her of normality. The flat is painted white and does not
have a fleck of dust anywhere. Step by step by using paint and cleaning
products, she has started to build up the everyday life that she has been
longing for during her years on the street. This flat reflects an identity of
normality that she wants. She might not have quite reached it yet, but she
puts this image of normality in front of her to be followed. However, Majbrit
is concerned by her lack of financial resources, which prevents her from living
up to her expectations. It is important to her that things are done properly
and that her neighbours can see that she has things under control.
Brian
In stark contrast to Majbrit, Brian has moved from a flat he liked to one that
he is unhappy with. He explained how the housing department forced him to
move to another flat because his dog did not fit the height restrictions. He did
not see the new flat before he moved in and only realized that it was placed
on the fourth floor the day he moved in. This fact increases his dislike for the
place because his bad legs make it difficult for him to move back and forth
between the outside and inside. While he used to stay in his old flat only
occasionally, this paradoxically means that he now spends more time inside
than before because he must rest every time he has walked up the stairs.
As he states, ‘he just turned off his ‘computer’ the first time he saw the
flat’, and he has not made any attempt to interact or take ownership of the
Figure 4.2 Majbrit’s collage shows her local neighbourhood where she feels at
home. Her flat is placed centrally as the most important part of the
story. The flat is empty and painted white to illustrate her approach to
it, while pieces of furniture, pictures, and colourful dots show the dif
ferent objects like furniture and pictures that she adds to her white
space.
place since then. Most of the items in the flat were brought up by his friends
and look like they are stranded in the spot where they were first set down.
All surfaces are covered with a miscellaneous mix of clothing, musical in
struments, plastic bags, blankets, and so on mixed with dirt. The only ones
using the kitchen are his friends and his dog. He had renovated several flats
and houses before this, but because he is indifferent to this place, he has not
spent any resources on it. This indifference is also his explanation to why he
can spend time in the flat even though it looks the way it does.
For Brian, the flat is more like a garage where he can park himself and his
dog for the night than a place where he can ever feel at home. Home to him
is the local area he lives in, which includes both his current and old flat but,
most importantly, the local square where he spends most of his time
hanging out with his friends. Being outside with his friends and his dog, that
is home to him.
Discussion – homeliness among homeless people

This study reveals that people who are or have been homeless have many of
the same considerations regarding the place they live in as are described in
research on the meaning of home in general. However, the personal reasons
that lead them to homelessness and the fact that the range of habitations
they have access to is limited compared to the rest of the population in
dicate that they sometimes also relate very differently to the places they live
in (Højring, 2019). Based on the six categories on the meaning of home –
safety and control, privacy, community, identity, everyday life, and time –
we exemplify how these differences appear in the fieldwork.
Safety
Feeling safe and in control of one’s surroundings is essential to being at
home (Dovey, 1985). People cannot feel at home if they do not feel safe.
The threats, however, to this feeling can come from both external and in
ternal factors. One must be able to feel safe from others and from oneself.
As Majbrit’s story illustrates, the feeling of being unsafe among neighbours
can be devastating to the entire living experience. Kasper knows that a flat
equals the loss of control and safety that he finds in the crowded streets.
Moving into a flat can feel like an isolating and pacifying contrast to the
streets. If an individual is not able to overcome this, he or she can feel
unsafe and experience a lack of control.
Privacy
Privacy is about being alone, of being in close, caring, and intimate
relationships with oneself or especially selected family and friends. Being
able to withdraw helps to define personal borders. To be able to relate to
Figure 4.3 Brian’s collage is dominated by the local square where he spends most of
his time and by his dog who is his faithful companion. His flat is scaled
down in size and drawn with all its contents, whereas the belongings that
have special meaning to him, such as his guitar, collection of knives,
picture of his dad, and leather pants he ‘lives in’ during the summer are
enlarged. Placed centrally in the picture between the square and flat is his
staircase, illustrating how exhausting it is for him to ascend from street
level to the fourth floor.
the surroundings and ultimately to create the emotional connection that is
home, people must be able to feel certain about who they are (Korosec-
Serfaty, 1985). Kasper finds privacy by physically distancing himself from
the crowds in the city, whereas Majbrit finds it in her new flat, which means
a tremendous improvement to her well-being.
Community
Privacy is only experienced as positive if it is balanced by social interaction.
The two are thus dependent on each other, and it is important that one can
choose when and to what extent one or the other is desired. To those ex
periencing homelessness, it is often either a matter of living alone with too
much privacy, resulting in isolation and loneliness or living close to others
who are often strangers, and the consequence is a stressful and unsettling
social context (Højring, 2019). Brian’s story illustrates that it can feel safe
to have friends that keep an eye out; thus, being part of a community can
feel like home in itself.
Identity
The place we live in and the way we inhabit it tell a story about who we are.
It can reflect conscious choices but can also ‘mirror’ aspects of ourselves
that we are not aware or in control of (Dovey, 1985). While most people
have some form of choice in how and where they live, this is often not the
case for those who are homeless. They must settle with the possibilities they
are offered and carry on with their lives the best they can within that
context. While Brian chose not to connect with and take ownership of his
flat, the state of it still reflects something about his personality. In contrast
to this stance, Majbrit tries hard to make her flat mirror the identity for
which she strives.
Everyday life
One can determine whether a housing solution ‘works’ by observing the
functionality, aesthetic, social, and emotional connection it offers compared
to the inhabitant’s personal needs, desires, and dreams. If it works, the
connection strengthens through the repetition of activities and routines, and
if it does not, everyday life becomes a continual reminder of the problem.
To feel at home, some sort of compatibility must exist between the re
sidential situation and the inhabitant. The stories of both Majbrit and Brian
exemplify the striking difference it can make to live in a dwelling that
matches one’s needs. To Majbrit, having the right neighbours means peace
and quiet compared to chaos, and to Brian, a move from the first to the
fourth floor means that he can no longer move back and forth between
outside and inside as often as he desires.
Time
Being able to feel at home is a process that can only be experienced over
time (Després, 1991). Transforming an unknown place to a home is an
effort that requires major mental habituation and physically and socially
settling into the new surroundings (Bech-Danielsen & Gram-Hanssen,
2004). It takes time to build up the habits and routines of everyday life,
and as Kasper stated, it can take time to even reach a point where one
believes enough in the project to start making the effort necessary to create
a home. As it is such a contrast to move from the streets or a shelter to a
private dwelling, formerly homeless people often experience short-lived
habitations, sometimes even continuing to live on the street even though
they have a flat available.
Evaluating collages as a tool

We view the collages as a qualitative cross-disciplinary research tool com
bining architecture and anthropology as research disciplines, making it
possible to experience, analyse, and interpret a physical place in relation to
a certain person. We find that a quality of the collages is that they do not
present the experienced place as isolated aspects described in order one by
one but as an assembly of aspects of social, psychological, and physical
natures. The collages present our surroundings as a whole, such as they are
experienced in reality, where the physical and social are present at the same
time and place and mutually influence each other.
The first sketches were drawn at the site during the field studies. At this
point, the sketches worked as personal notes but were also a way to see and
understand the housing areas and homes with new perspectives. In the
words of Betty Edwards (1979), a drawing is a means to see; thus,
she pointed out that, through a drawing, one sees features of the motif that
hide behind our preconceived notions of it. Likewise, we see the sketch as a
tool that provides the researcher with better insight into the physical
environment.
The sketches were also integrated as a tool in qualitative interviews.
When looking at and commenting on the sketches, the informants were
enabled to discuss her/his everyday life in new ways and to get away from
the encoded life stories that homeless people have often told, for example,
to social workers and social services (Højring, 2019). After the field study,
the creation of the collages began, and this process became an important
part of the analysis. To create the collages, it became a cardinal point to
understand how space, artefacts, and social life are interrelated at specific
places and which aspects the informants find most significant. However, the
collages are artistic expressions, and during the process of gluing and cut
ting, it became increasingly obvious that the collages are expressions of
figurative interpretations.3
The question arose regarding whether the collages had become too sub
jective, representing the experience of the researcher rather than that of the
informant. Therefore, the informants were again visited to obtain feedback
and further qualify the collages. As part of this process, the collages became
important objects for further dialogue with the informants. The collages
paved the way for new questions and made it possible to ask the same
questions with new perspectives. In addition, the visual elements enabled
asking more directly about specific relations and being more precise in the
questions on the effects of the material and structural surroundings. In that
way, the collages worked as a basis for new discussions and a deeper un
derstanding of the narratives of the informants and as a means of resolving
misunderstanding, which became apparent in the visual manifestation.
During the second visits, the informants were invited to take part in the
co-creation of the final collage. However, the invitation was declined by the
informants – perhaps because they felt inhibited by the artistic process or
because they felt that it was a product of the researcher. Therefore, in the
further development of the collage technique, we address the artistic ele
ment. The aesthetic expression of the collages might be one of the reasons
informants did not want to engage in the co-creation, and by putting
‘prettiness’ aside, the recipe of sketching, photographing, cutting, gluing,
and colouring might be experienced as less intimidating.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we let Kasper, Majbrit, and Brian exemplify how being or
having been homeless can influence the way social and physical surroundings
are experienced through everyday life. Their perspectives on the meaning of
home may not only be relevant to understanding the challenges connected to
transitioning out of homelessness but may also inform our general under
standing of home. By showing the difficulties they have with fitting inside the
traditional boundaries of a home, they emphasize the point that ‘home’ can
be linked to negative emotions. To them, a dwelling does not automatically
become a home. Rather, the dwelling confronts them with feelings of in
adequacy, lack of control, or entrapment. These feelings might also resonate
with some residents in the majority population – not the least in the current
pandemic period where many people might feel trapped in their own homes.
The three cases also promote a widening of the idea of home as something
that can be much more than what takes place inside the four walls of a
dwelling. The feeling of home can be attached to urban spaces, to specific
objects, to spending time with one’s friends or dog, or to activities like the
daily travel back and forth between the city and suburbs.
The developed collage technique is a valid method of inquiry combining
ethnographic studies of the everyday life of the homeless with architectural
studies of the places they live in. The collages have proved valuable in qua
litative interviews, where they can open up alternative topics and concrete
insights into the informants’ relations to the physical environment. In the
analyses, the collages added new perspectives and reflections, and when the
informants were subsequently visited the second time, the collages became
important objects for further dialogue. The visual elements enabled asking
specific questions on the significance of the physical structures, and in this
way, the collages worked as a basis for a deeper understanding of the nar
ratives of the informants.
Notes
1 This was the topic in a PhD dissertation by Laura Helene Højring (Højring,
2019). Four types of habitation typically available to homeless – a night shelter,
hostel, permanent housing with social support, and social housing – were studied
to understand the different kinds of social framework these habitational contexts
offers in the everyday lives of the inhabitants.
2 The study was funded by the philanthropic fund Realdania and by Innovation
Fund Denmark.
3 The collages are the researcher’s interpretation – as is also the case in all other
qualitative research. We find it a quality of the collage technique that this fact
becomes even more evident.
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5 Walls and islands
Exploring perpetual configurations
of carcerality through architectural
anthropology
Runa Johannessen and Tomas Max Martin
Walls and islands are foundational elements of architecture and anthro

pology respectively. The wall is the very first architectural gesture, whereby
a dwelling is fashioned, sheltering an inside from an outside. The island is
equally fundamental to anthropological science as the ur-fieldsite: Islands
provided a vivid spatial premise for the holism and pristineness upon which
the discipline of anthropology and the relativist understanding of the
human condition was firmed up (Candea, 2007; Marcus, 1995).
Walls and islands offer archetypical boundaries between domestic and
nondomestic domains by sheltering the home from the public or the wild
and providing habitable land and a safe haven from the sea. Yet we want to
point to the social fact that walls and islands not only protectively frame the
domesticity of homes and communities. Like all barriers and boundaries
that seek to manage the flux and fixity of social life, walls and islands hold
an intrinsic and particularly brute violent potential in their capacity to
forcefully domesticate people against their will through exclusion and en
closure. Human and nature made boundaries enable powerful people to
push others behind walls or off shore into a darker space-time of peripheral
abjection, confinement and immobility. This spatial push-factor is bom
bastically pronounced in border walls (Brown, 2010) and widely and subtly
implemented in urban infrastructures through nudging, gating, zoning and
other forms of ‘dark architecture’ (Easterling, 2014; Graham, 2009). Yet,
we suggest that prison walls and penal islands are the most vivid mani
festations of this confining power, which, despite the acceleration of more
insidious surveillance-based forms of control (Zuboff, 2019) remain potent
and prevalent as the basic, hard, and core structures of carcerality.1
Our exploration takes its point of departure in, on the one hand, the
realization of a brand new prison wall around the new correctional facility
Anstalten in Nuuk, the capital of the former Danish colony of Greenland –
representing this vast arctic country’s first ever encounter with ultramodern
perimeter security; and, on the other hand, the highly charged proposal
for establishing a deportation centre on the small island of Lindholm in
Denmark – fuelling affective public debates about immigrant threats and
Walls and islands 91
instantiating age-old discourses of quarantine and intentional harm. To
explore the carceral forces of walls and islands, we follow carceral geo
graphers’ inspiring work on the place-based dynamics of incarceration
(Moran, 2015; Turner, 2016) and seek to add our distinctly anthro
pological and architectural perspectives to this debate. To us, architectural
anthropology fuses an architectural inquiry into materials, structures, sur
faces and atmospheres and the fashioning of multisensory environments,
with an anthropological inquiry into the current conditions and possibilities
of everyday life that draws on the experiences of people and the vitalities of
non-human agents. We posit that this open-ended inquiry sheds new light
on the ways carceral spaces are conceived and organized. Our inquiry
combines our respective scholarly positions in architecture and anthro
pology as we swap and share disciplinary archetypes in the anthropology of
walls and the architecture of islands. In line with this anthology’s ambition
to move beyond the standard anthropological critique of how the built
environment may index and implement technologies of power and form
social life, we apply an architectonic critique that grapple with the atmo
spheric, aesthetic and affective, yet visceral, forces of walls and islands and
their propensity for violence (Kenzari, 2011; Weizman, 2017). We thereby
also subject the affirmative streak in standard architectural scholarship,
which continues to associate architecture with a ‘will to well-being’, to
critical questioning.2
We are particularly concerned with the ways that the spatial protocols of
carceral walls and islands are key to contemporary sovereign practices
across The Danish Realm. The prison wall in Nuuk took form as a new
high-tech boundary of the progressively caring welfare state, aiming to
confine the most dangerously deviant prisoners to a supposedly normal life
behind bars. Almost concurrently, Lindholm Island was invoked as the very
same welfare state’s regressive defense of Danish normality through an
archaic form of spatial control. Since then Minister of Immigration, Inger
Støjberg, in 2016 explicitly declared that it should be a “tough life” and as
“untolerable as possible” to be on tolerated stay, a series of ever more strict
polices was introduced (Skærbæk & Klarskov, 2016, author's translation).
Two years later, Lindholm appeared as the apotheosis of this strategy.
Støjberg said that she was “pleased” about the solution of a deportation
centre on the island, “with which we send the signal that they do not have
a future in Denmark” (Udlændinge- og Integrationsministeriet, 2018,
author’s translation).
The exploration of these two cases shows how walls and islands are not
contrasting forms of incarceration (human versus nature-made, archaic
versus modern, intensively vertical versus expansively horizontal, etc.), but
rather co-presently affined in interlaced sovereign practices of exclusion.
We thereby propose that carceral walls and islands – and the accompanying
practices of ‘walling’ and ‘island-ing’ – are two distinct spatial means for
shared carceral ends, namely to produce normality of the centre by
92 Johannessen & Martin
physically and symbolically fixating deviance in a spatially amplified per
iphery. Both Anstalten and Lindholm deploy a basic spatial protocol of
managing deviant exclusion as a means to furnish normality. However, the
two interlaced spatial protocols are in each instance differently coded (i.e.
the ‘instructions’ for how they should function differs; Easterling & Hirsch,
2014). The architecture of Anstalten is conceived as modern and humane,
supporting resocialization of the incarcerated by offering an artificial and
approximated normality inside the wall. The spatial protocol of Lindholm
is conjured up as an instantiation of engineered abnormality, where aus
terity and literal isolation is supposed to motivate the formally deported
migrants to ultimately leave Denmark (Magnussen, 2018). In the following,
we will present the two cases from the vantage point of their architectural
and discursive conception. We posit that architecture is enlisted to under
state the carceral force of the wall around Anstalten by emphasizing its
formal task of enclosing-cum-enabling normality within. In the case of
Lindholm, on the contrary, the spatial condition of the island seems in
strumental for overstating the expression of carceral force and isolation as
an intentionally harmful end in itself, emphasizing total exclusion.
Walls
The new correctional facility in Greenland, Anstalten in Nuuk, is presented
as a significant change in the country’s penal history. When the Greenlandic
criminal justice system was modernized and formalized by the Danish co
lonial government after the Second World War, it was significantly oriented
towards rehabilitation with a clear reluctance to imprison offenders.
Greenlanders have therefore served their time in open institutions geared
towards treatment, education and social reintegration. Yet, for the first time,
it is now possible to deprive people of their liberty in a closed institution in
Greenland. The Danish and Greenlandic governments have wanted to build
Anstalten to discontinue the politically problematic and human rights vio
lating practice of sending particularly dangerous Greenlandic offenders to
serve indefinite sentences in Denmark. With the opening of Anstalten, these
prisoners, who cannot function in the open institutions, can remain in
Greenland. Moreover, Anstalten is a central element in the reform that in
principle enables Greenland’s government to take full sovereign control of
the justice sector. The Greenlandic prison service (as well as the judiciary and
the police) is still governed by the Danish Ministry of Justice, but with the
opening of Anstalten, Greenland now has the infrastructure in place to
monopolize and wield lawful carceral violence against its citizens as it is
becoming for a liberal democratic state.
The renowned Greenlandic approach to criminal justice (Lauritsen,
2014), which emphasizes non-carcerality, is thereby seen to mutate, but
also to persist – at least discursively – as notions of ‘prison’, ‘punishment’
and ‘cells’, for instance, continue not to apply to this new institution. Yet,
research-based scrutiny of the actual carceral practices have shown
how total institutional harm have in fact been part of everyday life in
Greenland’s strained open correctional institutions (Engbo, 2018;
Lauritsen, 2014). So, Anstalten might be less of a rupture and more of an
infrastructural update of carceral practices, but one element stands out as
manifestly new: the wall.
Greenlandic institutions have had different forms of perimeter fencing,
but the wall around Anstalten is the first ‘real’ prison-like wall that is
formally tasked to produce a total institutional regime, and behind which a
‘normal’ life of work, education, worship, family life, leisure, etc., can take
place while incarceration is concurrently and securely produced. As the
director of the Greenlandic Prison and Probation service stated, when
the new Anstalt was opening:
The wall, that encircles the closed part of Anstalten will become a very
visible manifestation of the fact that we in Greenland incarcerate
citizens. The wall will remind us of the objective of the Anstalt in
another way than what we are used to.
(Kriminalforsorgen, 2018, author’s translation)
Figure 5.1 Perimeter wall of Anstalten.

Photo: Fængselsforbundet.
But what do you actually face, when you face a wall? Drawing on the
creative and inspiring volume by Horvath, Benta and Davison on ‘Walling,
Boundaries and Liminality’ (Horváth, Benţa, & Davison, 2018), let us to
consider what a wall is.
A wall is a separation, which creates division, loss and interdiction – most
notably signified by the prison wall or the border wall. But walls also offer
protection and enable intimacy and security – as in the city wall or the wall
of the home. A wall has to be taller than a human being and somewhat
insurmountable, in order not simply to be a fence or an obstacle. It has to be
vertical, hard and have a capacity to block. This ability to block affords the
wall time-spatial qualities. A wall thereby has a form of agency by way of
producing distance – people are pushed apart by walls, they cannot move
together or towards each other, cannot see or hear each other. In that sense
walls charge space with distinctions between home and world, inside and
outside. But walls may also encourage agency. They invite people to tinker
with them. They lend themselves to be used as a medium or a canvas. And
they can prompt counter-actions of scaling and tearing down.
Etymologically words referring to walls in many languages draw from
notions of strength, fortress and palisades. Walls are also referred to
through terms that denote the process of building them (like ‘maur’ in
German), emphasizing the importance of the process of ‘walling’ itself.
Interestingly, the old Nordic word ‘vegr’ (like ‘væg’ in Danish) has a dif
ferent meaning – probably referring to ‘tricks’ or ‘ruse’ and possibly relating
to the practice of catching fish by making dams and traps.
This double meaning of, on the one hand, to make walls that keep ene
mies out, and, on the other hand, to make walls that trap fish in, is parti
cularly interesting in relation to prison walls. It has namely been common
knowledge that the 8,000 years old walls of Jericho, in present day
Palestine, were the oldest known walls in the world, most likely built to
encircle the city for protective-cum-ritualistic purposes. But in the mid-
1990s archaeologists excavated the mysterious complex of Göbekli in
Turkey, 400 miles North of Jericho, of considerably older origin, which is
now considered the world’s oldest walls. These walls were not made to keep
people out, but – archeologist believe – to keep demons in. Akin to the
etymological links between walls and traps, the walls of Göbekli were built
to enclose and confine dangerous gods to protect society against evil
(Horváth et al., 2018). So, we may presume that the practice of walling in
and walling out; of building walls to exclude and, not least, to enclose has
been a signifying trait of settlement culture for some time. In Greenland,
however, the enclosing wall is a relatively new appearance.
In line with a global trend to bring prisons up-to-date and fit-for-purpose,
the Danish Prison and Probation Service launched a massive construction
program in 1998. This major investment, unparalleled since the mid-19th
century, resulted in the building and opening of Enner Mark Prison (2006),
Storstrøm Prison (2017), and ‘Anstalten’ in Nuuk (2019). This building
project has been significantly dedicated towards not only new legal re
quirements and security concerns, but also architectural innovation aiming
to make the new prisons habitable and spatially, materially and functionally
modern and efficient. In some jurisdictions, like the US and the UK, new
prison designs are directed towards crude incapacitation of prisoners in
low-cost ‘warehouses’ (Jewkes, 2019) or punitive deterrence in super-
maximum-security regimes (Moran, 2013; Reiter, 2016). Scandinavian
states are often seen to promote a more ‘humane’ approach to imprison
ment and to experiment with progressive architecture (Moran & Jewkes,
2015). The new carceral infrastructure in Denmark and Greenland is
thereby tasked to both improve the state’s ability to incarcerate offenders by
modernizing the security infrastructure and to spatially facilitate ‘the
principle of normality’. This penal principle stipulates that deprivation of
liberty is the punishment in itself, while rights to healthcare, education,
family life, etc., should be available to prisoners in order for them to lead as
normal a life as possible during incarceration – supposedly supporting their
rehabilitation and ability to lead a life without crime.
The major architectural innovations that underpin these conflicting aims
include: campus-style layouts to increase a sense of village-like normality;
flexible housing areas to separate prisoner groups; new materials that en
hance homeliness and access to nature and light; and, last but not least,
enforced perimeter security to enable mobility inside (Hoffmann, 2018;
Kriminalforsorgen, 2000).
Anstalten’s architecture is supposed to implement these ideas, but is also
seen to contextualize them, geographically and culturally, to Greenland.
Most notably, Anstalten is decorated by local artists – not only the wall
itself, but the entire colorcoding is also selected to resonate with the locality
in the sense that walls and surfaces are painted in nuances akin to local
moss and lichens to connote Greenlandic nature. More technically, the
architects have for instance come up with a way to tilt the cell windows so
that all prisoners get ocean views to enhance ‘access’ to nature while
avoiding prisoner-to-prisoner contact and communication. The architects
have also tried to ‘hide’ the many barriers between sections and units in the
stairwells to decrease the sense of manifest spatial control and thereby
lessen the invading institutional feel of the place and, in turn, the “morti
fying” effects of total institutions (Goffman, 1991). Furthermore, a lot of
energy has been put into integrating the buildings in the sloping landscape
to ensure that prisoners can look over the new wall and into the landscape
from inside.
In architectural language, this ambition of integration, comes out in the
presentation of the new buildings in statements like this from the jury of
the architectural competition:
The idea is to allow for a contrast between the buildings and the
landscape and exploit the strong encounter between the two to
Figure 5.2 Plan drawing, Anstalten.

Drawing: SHL/Friis & Moltke.
engender an aesthetic emphasis and experience in this clash. In this

way, the architecture does not mimic the landscape, but rather submits
to the grand scale of the hillside.
(Justitsministeriet, 2013, p. 6, author’s translation)
The question is: Does Anstalten submit to the natural landscape in

Greenland or does the institution and the new wall rather impinge on the
carceral landscape and transform it?
The spatial facilitation and localization of the somewhat conflicting aims
of normality and security has been central to the building of Anstalten. The
evaluation committee of the architect competition that selected the winning
firm stated: “What we have wanted to accomplish is a place that both lived
up to the openness and freedom manifested in the Greenlandic people and
lived up to the requirements of secure incarceration.” (Justitsministeriet,
2013, p. 5). The somewhat paradoxical logic is thereby to introduce a total
institutional regime – with all the potential pitfalls of mortification and
penal harm – to protect prisoners’ rights and enable normality. Aesthetics,
architecture, art, cultural sensitivity and geographical contextualization
have been employed to formally mitigate and affectively understate this
paradox. Yet, the new wall remains the most vivid manifestation of carceral
force and cannot but beg the perennial questions of whether incarceration
will inevitably only produce normality on the outside according to
bureaucratic rationalities and elitist sensibilities, and remain harmful and
excluding and anything but normal for the enclosed.
Islands
In late 2018, news about the tiny island of Lindholm went viral after its
sudden appearance in the Danish Government’s 2019 Finance Act, which
specified that a new deportation centre was to be established at the island
(Regeringen, 2018). A deportation centre is a detention-like facility, run by
Danish Prison and Probation Service, where rejected asylum seekers,
foreigners expelled by verdict, or foreigners on so-called ‘tolerated stay’, are
bound to reside while Danish authorities are waiting to be able to complete
deportation.3
As part of the 2018 centre-right led Danish Government’s mission of
relentless policies on immigration, poor living conditions in the deportation
centres were expressed as a necessary means to the ends of ‘motivating’
people to leave the country. The centres provide different degrees of de
tention and are placed either in old military barracks (Sjælsmark, Ellebæk)
or prisons (Kærshovedgård, Vridsløselille until 2018) in relatively remote
locations. The centres are surrounded by fences, some also with barbed
wire, and access is restricted. Amenities and activities are reduced to a
minimum. In present-day Denmark, these deportation centres are probably
the only type of facility where space is designed to create desolation and
anguish. As we have seen above, even prisons are designed with the well
being of the incarcerated in mind through applying ‘principles of normality’
to their spatial layout.
Still, the geography and history of Lindholm added a new dimension to the
discourse and practice of Danish immigration politics. While the Danish
People’s Party’s politician Martin Henriksen, after an inspection of the is
land, stated that “We want to make it as intolerable as possible for them, so
they go home” (Magnussen, 2018, author’s translation), the Radical Left’s
Zenia Stampe strongly condemned the plans in the opinion piece “Nej til
Alcatraz på Lindholm” (No to Alcatraz on Lindholm) (Stampe, 2018).
Meanwhile, some detainees in Ellebæk were desperately expressing that they
were being kidnapped by the Danish state, comparing it to Guantanamo
(Herschend, 2019), while another swore “I would rather kill myself than go
out there. This is not a joke. They are playing with people” (Færch, 2019,
author’s translation). The massive attention caught by Lindholm indicated
that the particular idea of a detention island was extremely evocative for its
supporters and opponents alike.
Figure 5.3 Approaching Lindholm in the ferry M/F Virus.

Photo: Runa Johannessen.
Islands induce particular historical imaginaries. The pieces of sub-

continental land surrounded by water that we call ‘islands’ has served as a
key spatial figure for social and cultural imagination throughout human
history. In the associated meaning of isolated sites, popular mythology cast
islands as idyllic paradises, holding promise of the pleasures of withdrawal
and solitude, while fictional islands like Plato’s Atlantis and Thomas More’s
Utopia have held a fervent position in literature as allegorical images of
civilization and societal formation. The island imaginary thus holds a broad
spectrum of both affirmative, dissenting and bleak ideas about the island as
a condition for life to unfold.
In order to understand the political impetus of the Lindholm proposal,
we look at discursive contexts connected particularly to islands used as sites
for forced isolation. We posit that there is an interference created between
these discursive contexts which is activated when designating carcerality to
a location like Lindholm. By the concept of interference, we allude to the
phenomena of constructive interference in physics in which superimposition
of electromagnetic waves forms a reinforced resultant wave. Like super
imposed waves, different ways of thinking about and making use of islands
are layered and corollary amplified.
Furthermore, we submit that what is activated and amplified is the re
pository image of an ‘outcast archipelago’, that is, the idea of islands as
ideal sites for abject bodies. We are intentionally leaning on other thinkers’
conceptualizations of punitive systems that are typologically bound to is
lands in our attempt to capture the features of the outcast archipelago:
Notably, the concept of the ‘carceral archipelago’, which Foucault used
metaphorically to describe the prisonization of society as a vast continuum
of technologies, systems and mechanisms of disciplinary power (Foucault &
Sheridan, 1977). Yet, the image of the archipelago can also be understood
in the more literal sense of the plural of geographical islands of forced
isolation, explored for instance by the geographer Alison Mountz, who
conceptualizes the global emergence of island detention of migrants as the
‘enforcement archipelago’ (Mountz, 2011).
What interest us in relation to Lindholm, are islands of forced isolation.
In the imaginary of the outcast archipelago, the geography itself (land
surrounded by water) is used to keep dangers away from the rest of society.
Within the outcast archipelago, we find historical quarantines (e.g. Ellis
Island), prisons and penal colonies (e.g Devil’s Island, Robben Island, and
Alcatraz), and asylums for society’s pariahs (e.g. San Servolo), but also
present day’s detention facilities for migrants (e.g. Nauru).
These places belong to different discursive contexts: historically, quar
antines limited the spreading of contagious diseases; prisons incarcerated
criminals; ‘madhouse’ asylums detained the ostracized; and contemporary
asylums confine asylum seekers and attempt to slow down the pace of
migration. Between these distinct discourses and fields of application,
there are interferences created by a combination of different histories,
mythologies, and politics. What appears to take place is the historical use
of islands as carceral sites materializing in the present as a spatial figure of
separating the dangerous ‘them’ from the innocent ‘us’: the excluded from
the included.
With Lindholm, several of these disparate rationales and purposes co
incide, blending fears of contagion and migration. Since 1926, Lindholm
has served as a restricted site for research and experiments into contagious
household animal diseases. At that time, there were significant and serious
outbreaks of diseases, and it was believed that isolation on an island would
protect against contagion. Although science proved this theory wrong in
1966 (it was found that many diseases are airborne), research activity on
Lindholm continued as the highly specialized laboratories, stables and
crematorium were already built and research practices well established.
However, in 2018 the Technical University of Denmark relocated its
virus research to mainland facilities because the island setting was too
expensive, dependent as it was on the running of ferries for deliveries of
everything from drinking water to transport of staff. The decommissioning
includes decontamination of the whole island and its buildings, followed by
half a year of quarantine.
Trailing the idea of interference between discursive contexts, Lindholm’s
particular history of virus research produces a metaphorical cross-over of
contagion when it is coupled with contemporary discourse on migrants: as
if the spreading virus is figuratively transferred from animal to human; as if
there is a need for isolation of certain bodies that comes with invisible
threats.
This is not a novel idea. The use of islands for containment of society’s
outcast has many precedents, also in Denmark. Between 1911 and 1961,
the islands of Livø and Sprogø served as closed institutions for ‘imbeciles’,
criminals, and antisocial and deranged men and women, from whom
society had to be protected (Kirkebæk, 1997, 2004). Most of those who
were deported to Livø and Sprogø, were from society’s lower classes.
In the burgeoning phase of the welfare state, these institutions were seen as
exemplary in the way they provided progressive and humane treatment of
those considered defect, dangerous and undesirable human beings, by placing
them in open yet still incarcerating disciplinary institutions. Beyond the goal
of disciplining the citizen as a conscientious worker, sterilization and cas
tration reflected an idea of social and mental hygiene through preventing the
spreading of ‘bad’ genetic material. For the rest of society, the islands func
tioned as disciplinary scaremongering (Kirkebæk, 1997). The objective of
ostracizing particular groups of people to ‘deserted’ islands continually
appear, only with different groups in focus at different points in time; the
migrant, the criminal, the mentally ill, or whoever is deemed unwanted.
Asylum territories on islands are proliferating around the world, from
Manus and Nauru in the Pacific Ocean, over French Mayotte in the Indian
Ocean, to Lesbos and other islands in the Mediterranean. According to
Mountz, these islands form an ‘archipelago of enforcement’ that “function as
key sites of territorial storage where nations-states use distance, invisibility,
and sub-national jurisdictional status to operationalize ‘graduated zones of
sovereignty’” (Mountz, 2011, p. 118). Although Lindholm is clearly part
of Danish territory, the link between Lindholm and other islands of exclusion
of migrants is significant. The ‘outcast archipelago’ conjure an image of the
island as capable of keeping the migrant in an exceptional state; stranded,
stored, captured and (possibly) outside of rights and jurisdiction.
Lindholm as a political proposition for the practical execution of
deportation policies escapes juridical, ethical and even financial rationality.
As we untangle the superimposed layers that constitutes Lindholm as an
island in the outcast archipelago, we discover that the dominant figures of
interference are enmity and danger, which work to reinforce rationalities of
separation and legitimize dehumanization of society’s unwanted.
The plan for Lindholm as location for a deportation centre was aban
doned by the subsequent government in 2019. We suggest that the use of
the archaic (and technologically outdated) figure of the penal island over
stated the expression of exclusion and isolation for the political practical
purpose of managing deportees. It was simply too complicated and costly to
carry out. Yet even if the project failed to be realized, it succeeded in
normalizing the idea of excluding the excluded by means of designing
intolerable conditions.
Conclusion
Walls and islands play different, interchangeable and complementary
carceral roles. The wall is high-tech, human-made and modern. The island
is low-tech, natural and archaic and they supposedly supplant each other
accordingly. But in contemporary sovereign practices their polyvalent
spatial force and deep symbolic power mesh and mix. The high-tech wall
powerfully shows that modern sovereign practices of lawful carceral vio
lence have come to Greenland. The re-vamping of the low-tech quarantine
island shows that Danish politicians may still apply the archaic pains of the
penal island to guard the autochtone Danes against new migrant threats.
Both these showcases are highly affective as they foreground the fixating
power of the state to protect the normal against the deviant.
The merging of architectural and anthropological perspectives have in
spired us to analyse Anstalten and Lindholm together to show how walls are
put up and islands put to use to deal with unwanted non-state transnationals
and intra-state transgressors alike. We point to the ways walls and islands
spatially load up, sharpen and fortify of the state’s weaponry and ability to
administer the monopoly of violence. The physicalist presence of these ‘loud’
spatial forms display powerful theatrics, but penal walls and islands do often
not work in terms of reducing conflict, managing traffic or successfully
cordoning off the good life. They rather risk creating the insecurity that they
propose to protect against as people push back or perish and as the ensuing
harm becomes socially and politically contagious. Penal walls and islands are
nevertheless strikingly popular and effective in producing the political sub
jectivity of those they encompass and exclude. This productive quality also
spurs subversive tactics that challenge our immediate fear of (or hope for!)
the intransigent separating qualities of walls and islands.
Thus, we conclude that the carceral idée-fixe of walls and islands that we
outline here also expresses a certain fragility. As Wendy Brown argues the
hyperbolic expressions of sovereignty of the new border walls “reveal a
tremulousness, vulnerability, dubiousness, or instability at the core of what
they aim to express” (Brown, 2010, p. 24). This fragility was apparent and
part and parcel of overstating the carceral force of Lindholm. Ultimately,
this charged and crude project of exclusion seemed too irrational and cost-
ineffective for a new centre-left government and at odds with a durable and
legitimated exercise of welfare state violence, which caused the project to
implode. In Nuuk, however, the wall still stands as a lauded manifestation
of how to square the circle of administering and promoting carceral
violence as welfaring care.
Notes
1 With Moran, Turner, and Schliehe, we define carcerality as fluid “forms of
confinement, be they state-sanctioned, quasi-legal, ad-hoc, illicit, spatially fixed,
mobile, embodied or imagined, and in which the scale of deployment of carceral
techniques and infrastructures demands critical attention” (Moran, Turner, &
Schliehe, 2018, p. 668).
2 Johannessen’s work on the Lindholm island was part of her postdoctoral fel
lowship within the project Spaces of Danish Welfare at the Royal Danish
Academy – Architecture, Design, Conservation, funded by the Independent
Research Fund Denmark.
3 Tolerated stay is a juridical term for a person without legal residence who cannot
be deported either because of the principle of non-refoulement or because the
home country denies entry. Tolerated stay is granted to persons excluded from
asylum on grounds of criminality, or persons expelled as they are considered a
threat to state security.
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Part II
Urban space and public life

Edited by Sten Gromark, Aina Landsverk Hagen,
and Marie Stender
Urban space has typically been regarded as a key meeting place and melting
pot of society, inviting people of various backgrounds to mingle and parti
cipate in public life. In a context of increasing urban segregation and social
polarization, it becomes crucial to scrutinize processes of inclusion and ex
clusion in the socio-material environment of public spaces in the city. The
following chapters demonstrate a wide range of cross-disciplinary strategies
for studying and promoting inclusion in urban space and public life.
As projected in this book, architectural anthropology can contribute a
critical interpretation of such socio-material dynamics. It can also act as a
complicit and interactive agent in the early stages and co-creative situations
of urban architectural conceptualizations. This role can be performed by
working with many different professionals to outline design orientations for
cities, public places, and urban dwellings or by making so-called silent
voices better heard, thereby potentially participating in the construction of
new inclusive urban spaces.
By taking these consecutive steps, the discipline is initiating a strong future
inclination for cross-, inter-, and transdisciplinary encounters. Such en
counters may amount to another kind of knowledge production emanating
from reciprocal academic and professional transgression. This reorientation
implies the application and adoption of a new set of unconventional modes
of inquiry, including new forms of additional figurative empirical material.
The following chapters present intriguing examples of what might be ahead.
In the opening contribution by Lisbet Harboe and Hanne Cecilie Geirbo,
Chapter 6, we are invited to take part in a cross-disciplinary dialogue
unfolding on the high hills of Medellin, Columbia, between an anthro
pologist and an architect. They are visually confronted with striking and
quite astounding infrastructural inventions, such as new public spaces and
unusual cable car public transportation, generated in a highly renowned
sample of progressive urbanism on the world level. This project is aimed at
empowering and strengthening the local identity amidst a disfavoured and
poor favela population that is both socially excluded and distanced to a
large extent. The authors demonstrate how narratives and built structures
106 Gromark, Hagen, & Stender
can be integrated into a mission to foster social cohesion in cities. Their
exchange promotes a reinforced mutual understanding of each other’s
perspectives. They argue in favour of working together in the field as a
starting point of new collaborative patterns of commitment, searching for
common ground and new modes of interaction between architectural
design practice and reflexive anthropological interpretation.
In Chapter 7, by Cicilie Fagerlid, Bengt Andersen, and Astri Margareta
Dalseide, we are invited to share reflections on how the political ambition
of promoting social inclusion among young people from underprivileged
suburban areas transforms into a radical reconfiguration of the conven
tional library space. The library is becoming a common living room for all,
inviting young children to run freely along discretely reorganized shelves of
books. For the regular visitor, this results in an ambiguous response and
reception. All unfamiliar new clashes of sounds and disturbing movements
in this sort of ‘cappuccino’ hybrid of library and activity house are observed
with surprise and wonder by interviewees. In this piece, the actual voices of
the involved local people are faithfully recorded to bring us an accurate
account of how the contradiction between learning by reading in solitude or
collectively participating in unexpected noisy cultural events, actually plays
out in the minds of those concerned. It is an informative study on the nature
of intricate relations between human acts and radically transfigured struc
tures. Building on cross-disciplinary fieldwork involving both architectural
and anthropological approaches, the authors demonstrate that, while
mixed-use arenas are designed to afford meetings between different social
groups, these hybrid libraries alienate and deter some users. This questions
the dubious political starting point, formed by the contribution of involved
architects’ strong design belief in interlaced and completely open spaces of
‘cross programmatic contamination’.
The demands for new modes of inquiry following the reorientation of the
discipline to go beyond academic borders necessitates the application of a
broader repertoire of unconventional methods. In Chapter 8, by Aina
Landsverk Hagen and Jenny B. Osuldsen, we are confronted with a com
bined operations research team. Acting to initiate a participatory planning
approach, in particular engaging young people in experimental pedagogical
situations, they present the practical experiences of a method of their own
design involving the researchers themselves in intense animated dialogues
with adolescents. The two authors reflect on the method from their re
spective anthropological and architectural perspectives and provide an in
credibly fast-moving report from the field of academic interdisciplinary
transgression and co-creative interaction. Working with a figurative self-
representation method, a visual laboratory procedure coined ‘splot’, they
discover radically new ways of promoting user involvement and commit
ment in co-design situations.
Chapter 9, by Lina Berglund-Snodgrass and Ebba Högström, introduces
and proposes the values of radically new modes of inquiry while using video
Urban space and public life 107
projections and film-making, promoting insight into three exceptional re
sidential and urban architectural situations involving immigrants and
asylum seekers. Introducing the unorthodox application of moving video in
learning situations underpins a better-informed discussion or formulation
of a strategy for fostering inclusion. The authors demonstrate that the
methodological strength of film-making rests in its ability to tell complex
and spatially interwoven stories that emotionally engage the audience. They
argue that architectural anthropology can enable transformative social
change in and through architectural practices that accommodate bottom-up
spatial responses that make a positive difference to people.
In the last chapter of Part II, Eli Støa and Anne Sigfrid Grønseth,
Chapter 10, offer a detailed account of two competition-winning multi-
professional teams acting rather like anthropologists in the context of a
prestigious cultural exhibition event, the Oslo Architecture Triennale in
2016. The teams’ unusual or, for some, even disturbing approaches regard
architecture not as a matter of mere buildings but more broadly as a rela
tional phenomenon affecting citizens’ freedom to move in the city and their
access to housing. They exceed the boundaries of the profession, inventing
new paths of architectural interventions aimed at the inclusion of recently
arrived asylum seekers in urban life, thereby also opening wider circles of
academic and professional modes of collaboration.
6 Interdisciplinarity on site
Exploring the urban interventions
‘Unidades de Vida Articulada’ in
Medellín
Lisbet Harboe and Hanne Cecilie Geirbo
“This is Medellín at night”, says Horacio Valencia, chief architect in

the public-private utility and hydropower company Empresas Públicas de
Medellín (EPM) in Medellin, Colombia. He points to an aerial photo em
bedded in the PowerPoint presentation. We are interviewing him about the
company’s role in urban development and have asked him to tell us about
the public spaces and community centres called UVAs – Unidades de Vida
Articulada (Units of Articulated Life). The aerial photo was taken during
the development of a master plan for the city’s urban lighting system.
Valencia draws attention to the dense congregation of light in the bottom of
the valley where the city centre is located: “If you see a point of light, you
have a guarantee that there is public infrastructure.” With a pointer he
traces the lights up the steep hillsides surrounding the city centre, showing
us how ravines, cutting across the hillside neighbourhoods, are visible as
dark areas in the photo. Then he draws our attention to dark patches far up
in the hills. When Valencia and his colleagues initially matched the aerial
photo with a map of Medellín, they found to their surprise that these dark
sites were the property of their own company. They were the sites of water
tanks placed high above the city centre to ensure water pressure. They once
were far away from Medellín’s urban districts but had been encapsulated by
informal settlements that grew as people fleeing the guerrilla wars found
their way to the relative safety of the city. The EPM team counted 144
of these dark spots in the hillsides. Through the mapping of public lighting,
the company stumbled across an important insight about their presence in
the city. They realized that they had many infrastructural sites in informal
settlements, representing unpopulated land in densely populated neigh
bourhoods. In response to this discovery, Valencia and his team visited the
sites and discovered something else. These unlit, fenced areas containing
water tanks served many places as frontiers between the criminal groups
that controlled the different neighbourhoods in the hillsides. Valencia
explains how they presented their discoveries to the board of directors as
opportunities for strengthening the presence of EPM in the city and con
tributing to community facilities and public presence in dense informal
110 Harboe & Geirbo
areas. This is how the development of the UVAs – public spaces with
community centres – started.
The story of how dark spots in an aerial photo sparked a process, which
by 2018 had led to the development of 14 public spaces with community
centres in the hillside neighbourhoods of Medellín, is well known. It is told
in lectures given by architects and urban developers in Medellín and retold
by scholars and journalists describing the transformation from one of the
world’s most dangerous places in the 1990s to a model city for social ur
banism (see for instance McQuirk, 2014). The story is much more than a
rendering of events in chronological order. It is told through different media
and for different audiences, forming a narrative that is an integral part of an
urban transformation towards equity and social cohesion.
In this chapter, we will show how this narrative is linked with the ma
terialization of UVA projects, and through this reflect on how to further
develop an architectural anthropology of urban space. We will emphasize
how both disciplines share a relational epistemology, and how they can
complement each other by tuning into sensing the material and the social
environments, respectively. We will discuss how this complementary epis
temological commitment can contribute to understanding how narratives
and built structures can be integrated in a mission to foster social cohesion
in cities.
Figure 6.1 The city of Medellín with cable cars in the foreground.
Photo: Hanne Cecilie Geirbo.
Interdisciplinarity on site 111
The material turn, with its attention to what the material environment
does, rather than what it represents (Larkin, 2013; Ingold, 2011; de Laet
and Mol, 2000), has sparked anthropologists’ interest in architectural
approaches (Stender, 2017). Architects have taken up anthropological
fieldwork methods to gain insight into how people experience built en
vironments. While a mutual exchange of approaches can be enriching for
both disciplines, there is more to be gained by going beyond the replication
of methodological practices to also exploring the epistemological commit
ments that underlie them. When architects and anthropologists expose
themselves to each other’s way of perceiving the world, we can move
beyond anthropology of architecture and ethnography for architects and
develop an architectural anthropology.
What we mean by relational epistemology is an understanding of
knowledge as gained by way of relations (Mosse, 2006). What the architect
and the anthropologist know about a place or a society cannot be separated
from the relationships with the people and places through which they have
generated this knowledge (Hastrup, 2004; Mosse, 2006). This relational
epistemology is manifested in the methodological training in both dis
ciplines. Architects and anthropologists alike use themselves as tools to
generate insight during fieldwork. Students of architecture learn to develop
a sensitivity to the material presence, practices, and atmosphere of a place
(Zumthor, 2006), while students of anthropology are trained to be sensitive
to human interaction and the social and cultural environment. In this
shared focus on the fieldworker’s sensitivity to the environment lies a po
tential for learning from each other. Stender (2017) argues that anthro
pologists can learn from architects how to understand the spatial and
material as part and parcel of what constitutes the social. Architects, on the
other hand, can learn from anthropologists a theoretically informed ana
lysis of social contexts. To unlock this potential, it is important to discuss
how we gain knowledge of places as architects and as anthropologists. The
authors of this chapter will contribute to this by reflecting on our joint
fieldwork in a research project.1 Here the architect is both a practising
architect and a researcher.
In this project, we have explored the transformation of urban environ
ments in Medellín, Colombia, such as public spaces, architecture, and in
frastructure. The team who did the case study of Medellín included a
political scientist (Kristian Hoelscher of the Peace Research Institute, Oslo)
in addition to the architect and the anthropologist. Here we focus on the
collaboration between the latter two. In August 2018, we spent nine days in
the field. We visited various public space projects, including five UVAs. The
visits included observations and informal interviews with citizens. Spanish-
speaking colleagues translated the informal interviews. We interviewed key
stakeholders in the fields of architecture and urban development, including
those with central roles in designing the UVAs. In addition, we have drawn
on information material published by EPM (Empresas Públicas de
112 Harboe & Geirbo
Medellín, n.d.) and previous studies of urban development in Medellín
(Maclean, 2014; McQuirk, 2014; Perez, 2019; Doyle, 2019).
Here we will focus on the narrative, the materiality, and the functional
programming of UVA projects in Medellín, and discuss how the UVA pro
jects have reinforced each other and added to a programme of urban re
generation aimed at promoting social cohesion in Medellín. Simultaneously,
our analysis is a reflection on how we developed our understanding of the
UVAs by allowing our epistemological and methodological positions as ar
chitect and anthropologist to interact and merge.
Creating connections across the city

In the opening vignette, Valencia tells a story about how water infra
structure offers an opportunity to establish relationships with marginalized
neighbourhoods as part of a broader programme of urban development.
This understanding of infrastructure as central in pursuing equity and co
hesion is reflected in urban studies literature. In their seminal work
‘Splintering urbanism’, Graham and Marvin (2001) quote the architecture
critic Herbert Muschamp who has described infrastructure networks as
“the connective tissue that knits people, places, social institutions and the
natural environment into coherent urban relations” (Perry, 1994, p. 1, in
Graham and Marvin, 2001, p. 43). Graham and Marvin explore the role
that infrastructure, such as electricity systems, telecommunication and
transportation, has in scaffolding social cohesion, but also note its potential
of causing fragmentation and inequality when infrastructural services are
differentiated according to geography and consumer segments. This dual
potential of urban infrastructure has caught the attention of anthro
pologists, and there have been several studies of how infrastructure estab
lishes and shapes relationships between citizens and the government in
different societal contexts (see Anand, 2011, 2012; Larkin, 2008, 2013; von
Schnitzler, 2008, 2013). We will contribute to this body of literature by
discussing the UVAs as an example of an integrated approach to public
space and infrastructure that uses narrative strategically to create connec
tions across scales in the city.
Social urbanism in Medellín

“Sometimes you need a very bad situation to pull out the best of a people and
a society”, the former mayor of Medellín, Aníbal Gaviria, told us in an in
terview. The crisis he referred to unfolded in the period from 1970 to 1990,
when Medellín saw an intense influx of citizens due to extensive domestic
mobility and displacement. Informal settlements grew abundantly up the
hillsides of Medellín. Criminal cartels controlled informal neighbourhoods,
and the homicide rate was among the world’s highest. The city suffered a
social, economic and political crisis. The shared experience of an intolerable
situation instigated collaboration between politicians, government em
ployees, architects and activists (Maclean, 2014; McQuirk, 2014; Perez,
2017, 2019). To stop the downward spiral of criminality and instability in
the city, a set of unified strategies and interventions, labelled social urbanism,
were developed and implemented. Social urbanism is characterized by in
terdisciplinarity and hinges on the working together of a variety of initiatives,
such as the increasing public investments and the availability of public ser
vices in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Particular emphasis is put on the
building of mobility infrastructure and public facilities, and on choosing
participatory approaches in local urban transformation projects (McQuirk,
2014; Perez, 2019).
At the core of social urbanism is the effort to mitigate inequality. The
former mayor, Gaviria explained it this way: “The biggest problem of Latin
America is inequality. It’s not violence. Violence is big, but inequality is the
root of violence, that’s why inequality is the first [issue we must address]”.
A spatial feature of the inequality in the city has been urban exclusion
reinforced by the division of the city into separate urban districts, distin
guishing between formal wealthy and informal poor neighbourhoods.
In line with this, Medellín’s social urbanism gives priority to projects that
enhance the connectivity of spatially and economically marginalized people.
The way Medellín has promoted social inclusion through transport
infrastructure is well-known among urban developers and urbanists. The
metro line running through the valley forms the infrastructural backbone of
the city. The metro connects the poor districts in the northern parts with
wealthy districts in the south, as well as connecting both north and south to
what is Medellín’s institutional and commercial city centre. Cable car sys
tems connect the urban residential hillsides, typically developed informally,
with the metro line and through this the city’s central parts. This made it
feasible for many more to commute to areas where they could make a living
independent of the economy controlled by criminal networks. The mobility
infrastructure not only constitutes a physical and practical connection
between poor and wealthy districts of Medellín; it is also a symbolic con
nection. The metro and cable car system is a visible expression of inter
dependence between previously disjunct districts.
Six cable-car lines were built successively, and in the meantime, the city
of Medellín started developing a series of strategically coordinated inter
disciplinary urban projects. These PUIs, Proyectos Urbano Integral (Integral
Urban Projects) included a wide range of singular projects. There were
infrastructural projects such as pedestrian bridges, pavements, walkways
and stairs; public spaces such as squares, parks, football fields and play
grounds; and public facilities such as school buildings, simple sports facil
ities, libraries and community centres. These projects were developed
through participatory programming processes, and are characterized by
high material and aesthetic quality. An important feature of the PUIs is that
public infrastructure and public space are treated in an integrated manner.
114 Harboe & Geirbo
These urban projects aim to contribute to connectivity and social inclusion
in spatial as well as infrastructural ways. In our interview, Aníbal Gaviria
emphasized this integration: “The most important public space in a city is
the public space of mobility.”
The operations of the utility company EPM (Empresas Públicas de
Medellín) is also characterized by social urbanism. EPM is a public-
private company wholly owned by the municipality of Medellín yet op
erating as a private company. In its unique hybrid role as a public-private
company, EPM also provides 30% of its revenues to social projects in the
city. Acknowledging that utility infrastructure is not merely a technical
matter but also a matter of belonging, security, identity, and other social
and psychological issues, EPM uses interdisciplinary teams when they
plan and implement water- and electricity infrastructure in the city. One
example of this interdisciplinary perspective is EPM’s decision to connect
households in informal neighbourhoods to the electricity grid. By con
necting them to municipal infrastructure, EPM contributes to the legali
zation of uncontrolled urban expansion. While this is problematic,
Valencia explained in our interview, the disadvantage is exceeded by the
benefit of acknowledging all inhabitants as citizens with a specific ad
dress. This way, informal households are connected and incorporated
into an urban community where they can enjoy privileges such as elec
tricity access but also can be expected to adhere to the rules and norms of
this community. Along with the mobility infrastructure projects and the
PUIs, the EPM policy also has to be considered as a social inclusion
measure in Medellín.
Urban development and utility provision in Medellín are framed within a
contemporary neoliberal city planning and management model. This model
has been much debated (Graham & Marvin, 2011; Harvey, 2006).
Professionals we interviewed in Medellín pointed out that the very poorest
citizens cannot afford public transportation such as the cable car, and that
this group has to pay for water use, yet at a reduced price. Within this
frame, however, Medellín takes innovative measures to radically renew the
neoliberal city model in order to repair inequality and social divisions.
Architectural anthropology on site in UVA de Los Sueños

The UVA de Los Sueños is located in the Manrique urban district of
Medellín. It includes an open public square surrounding the original water
tank. On the one side, the square offers recreational spaces such as a
lookout platform with a grand view of the Medellín valley, park elements
and playful water fountains. On the other side, built into the terrain and
designed as an integrated part of the hilly landscape, is the community-
centre-building with spaces for social and educational uses. UVA de Los
Sueños appears as a joyful and beautiful urban space, well designed and
with solid materials.
Figure 6.2 UVA de los Suenõs, located in the Manrique urban district.
Photo: Pepe Navarro.
The dark water tank sites represented available plots owned by EPM
themselves. Due to criminality and lack of security in these areas, access to
the sites for maintenance work demanded planning, contact with local
leaders, and a group of guards. The majority of the UVAs have been built in
poor and informal urban districts. With the UVA programme, the water
tank sites transformed from empty, dark and unsafe spots to well lit, gen
erous and activated places.
All the 14 UVAs follow the same general design concept as UVA de Los
Sueños: The main infrastructural element, typically a water tank, stands out
as a sculptural element. Built into the hillside is the community centre, while
a platform on the valley side provides for a spectacular view. With a shared
design concept between all the UVAs, their belonging to EPM can be dis
tinguished from other hillside community centres and parks, thus forming a
connection across the city. The architect in our research team noticed the
common design concept of the different UVAs and how this constituted a
city-wide connection. She pointed out how the water tanks stand out as
architectural sculptures defining each of the places and how water fountains
form generous attractions across generations. The anthropologist’s atten
tion was also drawn to the protruding water tanks. With anthropological
theories of infrastructure (such as Anand, 2011, 2012; Larkin, 2008, 2013;
von Schnitzler, 2008, 2013) as a lens, the anthropologist interpreted this
feature of the UVAs as an intended communication of how all citizens of
116 Harboe & Geirbo
Figure 6.3 Water fountain in UVA de los Suenõs.

Photo: Pepe Navarro.
Medellín are connected through water infrastructure. Moreover, the an

thropologist read the prominence of the water towers in combination with
the water fountains as a deliberate branding of EPM as a strong provider of
utility services and social services in the community. Hence, in the eyes of
the anthropologist, the design concept of the UVAs was one of many ways
infrastructure is used in Medellín to foster a sense of community across
social and economic divides. Through articulating our respective readings
of the same environments as we walked around in the UVA, we were able to
see more than we would otherwise have done. The joint explorations of the
UVA became a reference point in our further collaboration as it provided us
with a common ground of concrete experiences and examples to convey our
respective disciplinary perspectives.
In EPM’s view and within the concept of social urbanism, the UVA de
Los Sueños is not only a building and square with a set of functions but also
a catalyst of social change. Several elements of the UVA de Los Sueños, and
the other UVAs, play a part in influencing change. First, the programme of
functions gives people in the community the opportunity to learn, socialize
or exercise in attractive and safe environments. Community library, access
to computers, and rooms for rehearsing musical instruments are examples –
or a rhumba class for seniors that we encountered in one of the UVAs.
Second, the variety of uses entails that people of different ages and interests
can enjoy the same place and meet. This might scaffold a sense of
community across subgroups in neighbourhoods. Third, the UVAs provide
safe spaces in neighbourhoods where criminal networks are influential.
Valencia shared the story of a working mother of two boys who had ap
proached him in an UVA. She used to worry that her children might be
recruited by criminal networks after school when she was still at work.
Now her sons spend their afternoon at the UVA community centre, and she
was much more hopeful. Despite being anecdotal, the story indicates how
the UVAs can contribute to reducing the influence of criminal groups.
Participatory processes and stakeholder collaboration have been a core
adopted principle in planning and materializing the UVAs. Local grounding
was a delicate and essential process led by EPM. The functional programme
of each UVA was developed based on local participation to provide what
was missing and desired in the neighbourhood. While the design concept is
common for all the UVAs, the programme of functions differs.
As a catalyst of social change, the UVAs are normative spaces where the
visitors are met with EPM-branded signs that display the rules for
appropriate behaviour. The presence of rules and recommendations for
behaviour is also noticeable in public transport, where signs and loud
speakers are used to guide the travellers. When we travelled by metro and
cable car, we were struck by the absence of litter. We asked a woman who
sold bracelets from a booth by the cable car station about this. She ex
plained that people in Medellín are particularly disciplined. Moreover,
travellers tell each other off for breaking the rules, and this keeps people in
line. The team was subject to such collective disciplining when we unin
tentionally jumped the queue of people waiting to enter the cable car. Our
fellow travellers looked sternly at us when we moved from the outer to the
inner line in a bend, instead of sticking to our place. Being trained to use
the breaking of norms, intentional or unintentional, as a source of insight
into culture, the anthropologist used this incidence to reflect on the UVAs
as sites of explicit as well as implicit social control. When she shared this
with the team, the architect added a different dimension to the discussion.
She had paid attention to the material and aesthetic quality of the UVAs,
and started contemplating the significance of high material and aesthetic
quality in creating public spaces that influence people to behave with care
for the built environment and other people. Due to Medellín’s history of
violence, trust in public urban space as an open and socially inclusive
space for different people and groups has not been much present and
needs to be actively cultivated. The high quality and even elite architecture
of the UVAs, as well as other new public spaces, shows a commitment
from the city authorities to include all districts in urban regeneration.
Moreover, the material quality in combination with good maintenance
contributes to safe urban public spaces that encourage different people
and groups to meet.
Professional urban actors in Medellín, often with architects in the lead,
share a clear strategic approach to urbanism, planning and urban
118 Harboe & Geirbo
development. In this strategic approach, narratives have a function. The
opening vignette exemplifies this, where Valencia tells us a visual and verbal
story of how a photo of Medellín at night triggered a successful initiative
for social change. Both the architect and the anthropologist in our research
team were intrigued by the story and inspired to explore the UVA projects
on site. Valencia’s story also provided an example of how the narrative is
used in mobilizing resources internally in EPM. His team presented the
visual-verbal story to the board of directors, who saw the potential of the
unused sites. They also detected an opportunity for strengthening the pre
sence of the company in an underserved customer segment. In continuation
of the UVA project, the narrative contributed to unite the different dis
ciplinary sections in the company, such as infrastructural engineering,
economy, architecture, anthropology, and sociology in joint efforts to make
it work.
The architect in the research team sees in the story a combination of beauty
and function. In urban and architectural projects, narratives are used for their
capacity to generate a shared understanding and common goal, commu
nicating better across different actors and groups than written descriptions and
architectural drawings. As in Medellín, narratives may forward a shared un
derstanding of a project as contributing to equity, safety and development in
the neighbourhoods and the city, continuing through phases of materialization
and use (Harboe, 2012). The capacity of narratives to instigate a sense of
community across diverse groups is also well known among anthropologists,
for instance through multivocality (Turner, 1967), which is the ability of one
object, or narrative, to trigger many different associations. A pertinent ques
tion is who is invited to shape these narratives – the designers or the citizens?
And further, do the grand narrative dominate other, parallel narratives? The
story of Medellín’s trajectory from violence-ridden and segregated to safe and
inclusive is the dominating narrative of the city, reiterated by authorities and
people with influential positions in the city. The story has a seductive appeal
that causes it to travel widely, and visitors to the city are likely to arrive with
this narrative as a lens. A critical approach, looking for muted narratives, is not
undue. However, the grand narrative of Medellín should also be read in light
of the historical context of the city. A dominating narrative that invites mul
tivocality but mutes conflicting stories, accompanied by public spaces that
foster integration through social control, might be preferred to the risk of
reverting to distrust and segregation. Such preference was indicated by people
we randomly encountered on the metro, in the UVAs, and on the street in
Medellín, who expressed satisfaction with how the city had evolved.
Concluding remarks
In the case of the UVAs in Medellín, the narrative is an integrated part
of working with infrastructure and urban space in an effort to create
social cohesion. The story of how closed off areas constituting
neighbourhood borders fraught with danger were transformed into gen
erous common spaces mirrors the overarching narrative of Medellín’s
transformation from a dangerous city to a city of stability and optimism
characterized by increasing equity and social cohesion. This way, the story
provides a lens that each UVA can be seen through, and importantly, a
frame that people using the UVAs can read themselves into. The archi
tecture of the UVAs, with its generous programming and high material and
aesthetic quality, substantiate this.
Arguing that “the most intriguing contribution to be expected from ar
chitectural anthropology lies in combining anthropology’s current material
turn with an architectural approach to materiality”, Stender (2017, p. 28)
emphasizes how anthropologists can learn to regard the spatial and mate
rial surroundings as “part and parcel of what constitutes the social”
(Stender, 2017, p. 33). Simultaneously, architects can learn from anthro
pologists’ methods for understanding social contexts. Building on this, we
will argue that the potential for these disciplinary understandings to merge
constructively, rather than to merely complement each other, lies in
working together in the field. This way, architects and anthropologists can
guide each other’s attention and share their interpretations, and through
this enrich each other’s experience of the same environment. The way the
authors merged their different disciplinary perspectives on the form of the
UVAs is an example of that. The anthropologist Holbraad (2011) suggests
that we strive to listen to things itself, and not only to what people say
about things. Building on this, Stender (2017, p. 32) raises the question of
how we approach what the built environment itself might be doing or
saying. Through working together in the field, we have found that archi
tectural anthropology expands the capacity for asking new questions to the
built environment, or to ask old questions in new ways. In this way the
anthropologist’s use of casual interaction with people as a source of insight
into cultural practices was productively merged with the architect’s sensi
tivity to the material presence, to formulate a query about how materiality,
functional programming and narrative can work together to design spaces
that promote social cohesion.
When architects and anthropologists work together over time, they will
go through several cycles of exchanging perspectives and building upon
them, and gradually incorporate the perspective of the other in their own
practice. We do, however, argue that the most important aspect of ar
chitectural anthropology is what is shared between anthropology and
architectural research: The relational epistemology, where knowing
cannot be distinguished from the relations through which you have
generated this knowledge (Hastrup, 2004; Mosse, 2006), and, following
from this, the training in using all senses as a tool for generating
knowledge (see Geirbo, 2018).
We find that our practice of interdisciplinarity on site gave us access to
new ways of knowing urban environments, and in the future, we wish to
120 Harboe & Geirbo
explore this in more depth. We would also like to broaden this approach by
investigating how we might include practitioners, stakeholders, and citizens
in explorations on site.
Note
1 The project is named ‘Learning Flexibility – Complexity, Innovation and Inter-
Urban Knowledge Transfer’, and is funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
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7 Engaging with mixed-use design
The case of the urban library in Oslo
Cicilie Fagerlid, Bengt Andersen, and
Astri Margareta Dalseide
At half past two on a late summer weekday, the library is slowly becoming
more crowded as pupils from the nearby schools trickle in. I can hear a
baby crying, a lady saying “salaam” and youthful female voices speaking
quite loudly from the stage area in the middle of the room. The younger
pupils are quieter, trying to hide away in the inner corner, hunched around
a table, sipping slushies. Some twelve meters away from me, a librarian is
explaining the intricacies of book borrowing by machine to an elderly
woman. More pupils enter the room and head straight up the internal stairs
to the laughter and joyous noises of their peers. Now the sum of noises
surrounding me reaches a level that makes me feel the weight of all seven
hours of work in my day so far. From my big, comfy, second-hand recliner,
I can see every sound emitter. Thankfully, I am surrounded by six pen
sioners also in sofas and recliners, all of whom are silently turning
newspaper pages, except for the one likely sleeping (architect’s note from
cross-disciplinary field work at the Furuset Library, 19 August 2019).
Contemporary public libraries are complex places, serving the private,
professional, and civic requirements of people of all ages and backgrounds
simultaneously (Aabø & Audunson, 2012). In several countries, politi
cians and academics have increasingly emphasized libraries as meeting
places (Aabø & Audunson, 2012; Jochumsen, Rasmussen & Skot-
Hansen, 2012; Johnson & Griffis, 2009) or as “critical forms of social
infrastructure” that provide “the setting and context for social partici
pation” (Klinenberg, 2018, p. 32). This also holds true for Norway and its
capital, Oslo. The Norwegian Library Act from 2014 states that “the
public library should be a meeting place and arena for public debate”
(Kulturdepartementet, 2014). Correspondingly, the Municipality of Oslo
hired the Dutch interior architecture firm Aat Vos to refurbish its branch
libraries. Vos’s projects accentuate libraries’ “third place” character (Aat
Vos, n.d.a, n.d.b), the term used by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg (1989)
for local community spaces distinct from both home and work. The
meeting place function is particularly emphasized at the branches in the
ethnically heterogeneous and socioeconomically disadvantaged neigh
bourhoods of Furuset and Stovner, discussed in detail below. In addition
Engaging with mixed-use design 123
to Vos, the Norwegian architect firm Rodeo participated in the library
redesign at Furuset (Rodeo Architects, 2017).
This chapter explores how an increased use of continuous or open floor
plans in libraries as well as the incorporation of mixed-use spaces, which
have become the physical expression of the meeting place paradigm,
transform library life. “Mixed use” stands in opposition to “the principles
of functionalism”, which result in the separation of library uses
(Hoppenbrouwer & Louw, 2005, p. 967). As a popular idea among ar
chitects and urban planners for some time (e.g. MVRDV, n.d.), it has also
been examined in academic scholarship (e.g. Filion, 2001; Manaugh &
Kreider, 2013). Rodeo’s description of its strategy when planning the li
brary redesign at Furuset illustrates the concept of mixed use: “The initial
aim of the project was to collect a number of municipal public activities
under one roof” (Rodeo Architects, 2017).
Library leaders argue that mixed use of the library space widens the
horizon of visitors who initially enter, for example, to read a newspaper but
stumble upon a book launch with a leading author. Visitors do report this
kind of serendipitous usage, but not as frequently as they complain that
events and noise disturb their intended errand or that inconsiderate passers-
by distract them from the event. Our findings suggest that the public’s in
terest in and benefit from these libraries dominated by mixed-used and
meeting spaces are – at best – ambivalent (see also Audunson et al., 2019).
Research strategies
This chapter draws on anthropologist Fagerlid’s two months of participant
experience and observation at Furuset Library in 2012 and ten months at
the same library, refurbished and renamed Fubiak, as well as other Oslo
library branches, including Stovner, in 2017–2018.1 Anthropologist
Andersen and architect Dalseide undertook a shorter period of joint field
work visits to Fubiak combined with observations and interviews with re
sidents in the surrounding neighbourhoods in the summer and autumn of
2019. In sum, we interviewed or talked to more than one hundred library
visitors aged 15–88, members of staff and middle managers, and social
workers and police officers working at Furuset. Through engaging atten
tively with the environment, a huge variety of different and at times in
congruous library usages became apparent.
Dalseide and Andersen’s project was to study the many arenas and
localities at Furuset. Dalseide examined relevant planning documents,
like site and location plans. Inspired both by the REAP methodology
(Taplin, Scheld, & Low, 2002) and the architect’s interest in materials,
building heights, topography and so on, Andersen and Dalseide mapped
and recorded Furuset’s physical and social environments. In addition to
their own readings of these spaces, different strategies – such as ob
servation of use, a survey to residents,2 conversations and interviews and
124 Fagerlid, Andersen, & Dalseide
readings of documents – were used to generate knowledge on how the
residents and visitors perceived and used areneas like Fubiak. Document
analysis has also been important in order to understand what the
architecture firms were assigned to design and what they themselves
expressed as design goals and methods when planning and designing the
refurbishments.
The library as a mixed-use meeting place in a segregated city

The dualism between the affluent, ‘white’ West Oslo and the disadvantaged,
‘immigrant’ East Oslo is well-recognized in the Norwegian capital and
evinced by research (e.g. Wessel, 2015). Furuset and Stovner in the Grorud
Valley in East Oslo, both score among the lowest areas in Norway in terms
of life expectancy, level of education, and literacy and numeracy; they have
high school dropout rates, levels of unemployment, traffic injuries and
noise, and poverty (Ljunggren, Toft, & Flemmen, 2017, pp. 370–376).
Furuset is often associated with gangs and criminal activity that takes place
in public spaces. While the police do not view the area as “dangerous”,
some local residents feel unsafe after dark (cf. Andersen, 2012). To remedy
this situation, since 2007, Oslo politicians have turned to “area-based in
itiatives” in eastern parts of Oslo, including Furuset and Stovner (Andersen
& Biseth, 2013, p. 9). In implementing these initiatives, planners view the
establishment of “meeting places” as a key tool to facilitate interactions
between neighbours. These interactions are presumed to increase local so
cial cohesion and result in the “integration” of ethnic minorities into
mainstream society, particularly the job market (Andersen & Brattbakk,
2020). Though the origin of the “meeting place” concept in Norwegian
urban planning strategies is difficult to pinpoint, planning authorities have
nevertheless considered it a useful tool in eastern areas like Furuset since at
least the 1990s (Johnsen, 1999).
In 2016, Furuset Library became a multifunctional locale, “co-
organized” by the youth club and volunteer centre (Rosten, Hagen, &
Tolstad, 2019, pp. 19–20), forming Furuset Library and Activity House
(Fubiak). Fubiak is described as “a strategic arena” in the area-based
strategy at Furuset (Arkitektur skaper verdi, n.d.). Explaining the ideas
behind Fubiak, the architects from Rodeo observed: “There is a need for
meeting places, localities for happenings and arenas for integration. In brief,
places where people can meet and where things happen […]. The library at
Furuset is one example of such an arena” (Rodeo Architects, 2017).
Similarly, in 2018, Stovner Library was relocated from its old, rundown
locale next to the Stovner shopping centre to the top floor of the newly
remodelled mall, where it was baptized a “social library”. It is worth noting
that prior to its relocation and redesign, Stovner Library was a slightly run-
down yet popular place for many Stovner residents (Andersen, Brattbakk,
Dalseide, Mæhle, & Ruud, 2018).
Figure 7.1 Furuset Library before the 2016 refurbishment.

Photo: Cicilie Fagerlid.
The idea of Norwegian libraries as meeting places and arenas for events
and social activities gained strength with the 2014 amendment to the
Library Act. Interior architect Aat Vos’s subsequent revamping of Oslo
branch libraries resulted in the removal of internal walls and sectioning
shelves higher than hip level and the allocation of the events area to a
central position in a practically entirely open space. The libraries have be
come airier, and assorted seating facilities invite to prolonged stays. The
continuous floorplan and mixed-use space are most thoroughly im
plemented at the Furuset and Stovner branches, where the entire – though
substantially reduced – literature collections are placed on wall-mounted
shelves. Serving as both an activity house and library, Fubiak also contains
multipurpose rooms of various sizes that can be reserved without fee for
music, dance and exercise classes, parent and baby activities, language
training, lectures or studying. Some of the rooms have transparent walls so
that the activities in session can be observed from the library room, en
couraging the onlooker, according to the architects’ plan, to engage with
someone or something new. “The need for imperfection” is, according to
Aat Vos’s blog (Aat Vos n.d.b), an essential idea of their work. The ar
chitect explains that “the strength of the imperfect is that people feel
safe. Informality has a tendency to bring people closer to each other”
(Arkitektur skaper verdi, n.d.). According to the interior architects, they
have succeeded because
Furuset House is now a library that dares to stray far away from the
classic white-walled environment and demands to be enjoyed longer
than planned. This public space is a home away from home that invites
you to stay, to meet people and to enjoy. The Furuset House is now a
cultural hotspot in an Oslo suburb.
(Aat Vos, n.d.a)
The result of the redesign at Furuset and to an even greater extent at

Stovner is fanciful design, great publicity, overwhelmingly positive media
coverage and huge increases in visitors (see Arkitektur skaper verdi, n.d.).
But nowhere do library users of all ages and backgrounds complain more
about noise. While more people are spending more time in both branches,
some former users are travelling elsewhere, and others are avoiding the
local amenities altogether.
“Who can imagine that the youth of Stovner have the brains
for studying?”
We suggest that the politico-material restructuring of the library as primarily
a social infrastructure in socioeconomically disadvantaged and ethnically
heterogeneous East Oslo is counterproductive to the library’s traditional
quality as a “complex” (Aabø & Audunson, 2012), “heterotopic”, “con
tradictory” and “transboundary” place (Engström, 2019, pp. 47–50). More
precisely, the social emphasis in open floorplans is detrimental to the library’s
potential to bring together different people with dissimilar and, at times,
incompatible needs. The mixed-use design and the increased noise that it
creates are unfavourable to the library’s function as a quiet place for well
being and reading. This result is a political paradox because Furuset and
Stovner are areas where facilities that afford tranquillity and study en
vironments helpful for social mobility are most needed; in Furuset, around
40% of adults have only a primary school education, in comparison to 10%
in the West End neighbourhood of Slemdal (Ruud et al., 2019, p. 44).
Maintaining a quiet space in the library is arguably crucial to creating an
environment conducive to activities that allows residents to further their
education and improve their socioeconomic position.
Astrid, 47 years old and from nearby Furuset, and Torbjørn, five years
older and residing in Stovner, are both teachers in immigrant adult edu
cation. As they regularly pursue further education, both Astrid and
Torbjørn try to use the library for reading and writing term papers. They
also attend literary events and debates in their spare time. They are,
moreover, concerned about their adult students and the students’ “second
generation” children, who are typical users of the Stovner and Furuset
Libraries. We contacted Torbjørn after reading the frustration that he aired
on his Facebook wall when attempting to study at Stovner Library:
No quiet space, no reading room. But a cosy corner, literature forest,

bar stools and a sound volume at the level of a central city coffee bar at
lunchtime. For who can imagine that the youth of Stovner have the
brains for studying?
(Torbjørn, aged 52, Facebook, February 2019)
Figure 7.2 Fubiak – with its open space – invites children to run.
In our conversation shortly afterwards, Torbjørn and Astrid compared the

different effects that “having books all around” as in “a classic library” and
“the big open space of Furuset and Stovner” have on users’ behaviour.
Astrid likens the two branch libraries to Espresso House, a slick
Scandinavian Starbucks-style coffee house chain that somehow conveys, as
a witty friend once remarked, a sense of “sitting in the midst of capitalism”.
Astrid’s critique thus appears harsh. She elaborates:
I think Espresso House is delicious. One just wants to enter and have a
coffee. So, it isn’t only a critique. But it is something about the
intentions here. And if it is only Espresso House and no reading room,
then that’s different. I’ve been taught that in libraries one should be
quiet. Bookshelves remind you that this is a library. But when the
library no longer looks like a library, then you’re no longer reminded
that this is a place where we should read. […] Kids like to run in an
open space. It’s an invitation to run!
(Astrid, aged 47)
Astrid emphasizes that as a child she too had to learn how to use the library
and to handle library books: “It isn’t care to say that anything goes. Care is
to guide and help people.”
Sofia, seventeen years old, came to Norway from East Africa through
family reunification four years ago. She studies for long hours, weekends
included, in the popular twelve-seater “quiet room” at Fubiak. If the tiny
quiet room is full, “there’s no point”, and she must go home “and listen to
daddy’s noise” or travel to quieter libraries elsewhere:
Because in the library outside the quiet room, it is noisy. Bad, to be

honest. I won’t lie about it. It ought to be the kind of library that is
quiet. If there is an event, that’s nice, but to do it simultaneously with
the library [functions], that’s not so smart. It might be smart, in a way,
because those who come for the event suddenly, one day, change their
mind and start to read. I haven’t met anyone who started reading
because they came here, but it can happen. I wouldn’t have started
coming to the library if my teacher hadn’t taken me that day. I wouldn’t
have had as good grades. I didn’t know about the library before.
(Sofia, aged 17)
Sofia talks about how she, like many others who stay at home – as un
employed or “school drop-outs” in small, overcrowded apartments at
Furuset (Ruud et al., 2019) – was “depressed, with many negative
thoughts” before she discovered the library. In such cases, it is better, she
reasons, to go out and perhaps become acquainted with new people at
Fubiak. She adds, “but it’s bad, too. So many come [to the library] only to
sit”. They may even encounter unsavoury people; recently, a stabbing oc
curred right outside the library entrance. Sofia further remarks, “I used to
know some of them. They were so kind, but they didn’t know right from
wrong.” Like Astrid, Sofia stresses that at the library, “there ought to be
limits or stricter rules”. Sofia epitomizes thus the immigrant population’s
concern for and success in education (see also Kindt & Hegna, 2017) as
well as Torbjørn and Astrid’s worries, and Astrid’s point about how im
portant it is to instil appropriate library and study comportment into
younger generations. Sofia’s analysis of Furuset encapsulates to what extent
“social libraries” and the “concept of mixed use is … ambiguous”
(Hoppenbrouwer & Louw, 2005, p. 968).
Sofia therefore illustrates the importance of libraries though also the
crux of our argument about “social libraries” in a disadvantaged area.
With sufficient space for quiet concentration, she, like Torbjørn and
Astrid, would contribute positively to an inclusive yet regulated library
atmosphere. Instead, they retreat, leaving the space to noisier activities
and those who “come only to sit”. Gradually, the library space changes,
alienating and deterring former and potential users in search of peace.
“This place is worse than a nightclub,” lamented a local university stu
dent on Fubiak’s Facebook wall in May 2018. “I do not know why they
call it a library. Perhaps the person who designed it has never been to a
library?”
Sofia, Torbjørn and Astrid are not exceptions. Young people miss li
brary order as much as older ones. Many of those we talked to associate
the “classical” library structure with mild but persistent compulsion.
Jamila, aged nineteen, reminisces about Furuset, before it was redesigned,
that “we had to leave with three books. We were sort of forced. I loved it!
I was looking forward to it”. Now, smartphones, social media and tele
vision series replace reading in her and many others’ lives. Jamila and her
friends Erwin and Nisrin, gap year students who occasionally use the li
brary to improve their grades to gain access to university, point to a si
milar change in emphasis from books to screens in Oslo’s libraries. They
remark that before there were fewer people at the library, but they came
there to read; now it has become a “place for loitering” for the many.
“The library was the library”, Jamila says. Erwin adds: “Now it is more,
‘oh, we can be at the library, hang around there’.” An elderly Furuset
regular regrets how the library has become “an all-purpose room”. “In
our society”, she says, “where there’s so much information and noise that
distract, one ought to have a place to, literally, rest in one’s own thoughts
and experiences”.
The perception of library space is however subjective, with features that
disturb or annoy some being highly appreciated by others. Neither age,
class nor ethnic background seem to correlate with attitudes towards and
perceptions of the new libraries, as exemplified by Liv, a recently retired
pharmacy technician and labour unionist, and Ola, a former economist on
long-term sick leave. Liv regularly attends the book club, the knitting café
and various literary events at Furuset. While listening to a local rapper
before a Meet the Author event she expressed a sensation that “even at
Furuset something is happening! Culture! Oh, my!”. Ola travels forty
minutes by bus and metro to Furuset where he spends whole days and
evenings. The library’s life, noise and momentary outbreaks of chaos, which
may disturb others, amuse and intrigue him. “The physical conditions are
very good”, he exclaims, further noting that compared to “big and airy”
Furuset, he finds other libraries “too narrow, compact and quiet”. At
Furuset, he even saw someone bicycle inside during staff-less opening hours.
With a calm, perhaps slightly amused voice, he insists that he personally
does not find such incidents unpleasant. Neither Liv nor Ola require the
library for calm and concentration, instead attending in part for its
entertainment value.
Figure 7.3 The open floorplan of Fubiak, with the make-shift event area at the centre.
Complex and changing library space

Contemporary public libraries are “super-diverse “(Vertovec, 2007),
“hyper-diverse” (Tasan-Kok, Kempen, Raco, & Bolt, 2013) and unusually
“multivocal and polyvalent” (Bender, 2002) places. They simultaneously
serve the private, professional and civic needs of people of all ages and
backgrounds (Aabø & Audunson, 2012). In addition to the regular news
paper readers, young students and book borrowers, the unrestricted access
and supervised, safe space of libraries attract the homeless for warm rest,
eastern European Rom skyping home on free WiFi and minor drug dealers
finding protection from rivals (for some similar observations from Sweden,
see Beutgen, Lundgren, Fjelkegå rd, & Patel, 2020). The library space thus
caters to exceptionally different needs and holds different meaning for
people in diverse life circumstances. Over the last 30–40 years, Norwegian
library architecture has increasingly tried to accommodate this tre
mendously varied usage in the library’s physical form. Previously a quiet
and slightly stern fortress of knowledge and Bildung dominated by tall,
narrow shelves, the architecture now signals a democratization of access to
information (Gullestad, 2003). Rows of computers, cosy sofas and long
tables replace the increasingly trimmed collections. Stand-alone shelves are
truncated to enable a view (and video monitoring during staff-less opening
hours) of the whole library room.
The public’s interest in the library as a meeting place appears however to
be ambivalent. A North European survey among library users and non-users
ranked the library’s functions as a meeting place and arena for debate as the
least important out of twelve possible legitimations for upholding a public
library service. At the same time, more than half of the respondents using the
library reported having had unplanned exchanges with acquaintances or
strangers there (Audunson et al., 2019). Our observations and conversations
with library visitors confirm these contradictory tendencies. Undoubtedly,
the patrons of Oslo Libraries constitute a highly heterogeneous user group in
terms of age as well as socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious background.
Brief encounters occur, particularly around the printer, in the children’s
section and the newspaper corner. Many people, perhaps particularly those
who feel lonely, say they find such ephemeral exchanges highly meaningful
(Fagerlid, 2016, 2020). The dominant pattern in Fubiak, however, was that
visitors tend to keep to themselves. Local youth would often greet each other
yet still practise a social or socio-spatial avoidance. As two teenage girls
sitting by the entrance explained to us when we asked them why they did not
walk over to the staircase where the other teenagers were congregating; the
other youths belonged to a different group with a lifestyle our two inter
locutors considered different from their own. Sofia said she knew most of the
youth at the youth club at the first floor, she would however “never come to
the library to just sit up there.” Furthermore, in response to our survey, few
people living in the adjacent neighbourhoods responded that they visited
Fubiak. Such observations make it challenging to argue that the redesign of
Fubiak works as intended. Open floor plans and mixed-use space might
make people see and hear each other, but not necessarily make them talk to
each other. Furthermore, social activities in an open floor plan necessarily
eclipse other essential aspects of the library, including being a unique place
for quiet coexistence (Fagerlid, 2016, 2017, 2020). The fact that Norwegian
libraries are diversifying their activities and accentuating the social aspects of
their services at the same time as political and architectural trends are
leaning towards opening up and spatially integrating or desegregating
different uses presents a quandary.
Concluding remarks
In Oslo, a restructuring of library space has taken place, where the physical
separation of activities has been succeeded by an “intermingling” (Rodeo
Architects, 2017) of different activities, so that sound replaces quietness, and
sociability replaces concentration. Through political decisions, planning
strategies and architectural changes, the library as “social infrastructure”
(Klinenberg, 2018) slowly displaces the library as infrastructure for culture,
knowledge and information. As “mixed use” is said to be “a mantra in
contemporary planning” (Grant, 2002, p. 71, quoted in; Hoppenbrouwer &
Louw, 2005, p. 968), there are reasons for scholars to critically examine this
concept and the designs informed by this “instrument” (ibid.). The mixed-
used design is certainly favoured by some. Ola preferred Fubiak to the more
“narrow, compact and quiet” types of library. Yet while many people do use
and enjoy Fubiak, some react negatively to its hustle and bustle, and others
avoid it altogether. While these mixed-used arenas are designed to afford
meetings between different social groups, serving, as Grant (2002, p. 80) has
noted, as “a means to social integration”, we have demonstrated that the new
libraries alienate and deter users in need of quietness and concentration.
From a policy perspective, favouring a mixed-use design, thus seems coun
terproductive. According to many of those that we met, there was, para
phrasing the architect Aat Vos, something “imperfect” about the library.
However, there are reasons to be optimistic. The most recent rumours from
Furuset suggest that users and librarians will be heard in their wish to re
introduce sufficient separation of activities, thus making it easier to live with
difference (Peterson, 2017) or at least for people to engage in different
activities without bothering others.
Notes
1 Fagerlid’s fieldwork in the Oslo Libraries was part of her postdoctoral fellowship
within the Archives, Libraries and Museums, digitalization, and the Public Sphere
(ALMPUB) programme, financed by the Norwegian Research Council.
2 Unfortunately, the survey had a low response rate: 205 respondents from a po
pulation of 10,091.
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Routledge.
8 Urban youth, narrative dialogues,
and emotional imprints
How co-creating the ‘splotting’
methodology became a
transformative journey into
interdisciplinary collaboration
Aina Landsverk Hagen and
Jenny B. Osuldsen
“I am from Tøyen”
The first time I, a social anthropologist, approached city youth as a pro
fessional researcher, I was terrified. And with good reason it turned out. We
had gathered 40 kids from the age of 10 to 18, to ask them what they
wanted in their neighbourhood Tøyen in Oslo, Norway, as a means to
make it a better place to live. It was not a success. One young boy just
looked at me and said “are you saying that Tøyen isn’t a good place to grow
up?” I immediately realized I had asked the wrong question. And then he
added: “People ask me where I am from. When I say I am from Tøyen, they
say, “no, where are you really from? And they won’t give in until I say
Somalia. Or Iraq. Or Pakistan. Why should I care?”
The majority of the kids we meet in our research on urban development
and participation (Brattbakk et al., 2015) are of multicultural background,
they are born in Norway, most of them have grown up in Oslo, in these
neighbourhoods and yet their stories tell us they are not allowed by others
to belong here. And then we, the adult professionals, landscape architect
and anthropologist on commission from the municipality, come in on top
of that and ask them how they want to change their neighborhood, into a
better place to live. They refused. They refused to cooperate and through
this act of subversion they refuse the world that deny them their kind of
belonging. That’s what they are really telling us.
This experience made us stop, and reflect on our own work, position and
methods. What is important to these urban youth in their everyday lives?
How can we find out without alienating them and their everyday experi
ences of belonging in urban spaces? How can urban planning processes
include their perspectives, embodied knowledge and experiences, when
designing public spaces?
136 Hagen & Osuldsen
We know that very few belong to one place only, even though this is
requested by a lot of people (Rosten, 2015). To be a human being in the
world is to be in continuous movement (Ingold, 2011) rather than your
identity being firmly connected to the identity of a place, in the way that
Norberg-Schulz’s (1980) ideas about genus loci, ‘a unity of place and
identity’ emphasizes (Møystad, 2012). We see spatial belonging as also
relational belonging, like Lefebvre (1974/1991) realized: Space is being
constituted by social relations, rather than “its territorial, physical, and
demographic characteristics” (Fainstein, 2014, p. 1).
An emerging collaboration with landscape architect Jenny B. Osuldsen
enabled me, the anthropologist, to connect these insights with the work and
thinking of planners and architects. I introduced her to the methodology of
‘splotting’ (Tolstad et al., 2017), a simple mode of inquiry where we use
drawing and words to map places where one feel one belongs, without
privileging one place over others. A pen and a piece of paper is all you need
to splot. This chapter presents the story of an interdisciplinary collabora
tion (Fokdal, 2020) emerging between a landscape architect and a social
anthropologist, inventing, testing and experimenting with new methods and
approaches together.1 It is a story of continuing dialogues. In this way it is
also a story about how architectural anthropology can be done, in practice.
What do you do? Where to start? We start with the stories, the narrative
dialogues and a visualization method called splot.
Later Jenny realized the acronym could incorporate the notions of space,
people, learning, observation, and tracking (SPLOT), all integral to explore
within the framework of this methodology (Hagen & Osuldsen, forth
coming). After the initial confrontation with the youth in Tøyen we started
to ask different questions. Questions that were not about ticking a box or
fulfilling a task for a research contractor. Yet, we still struggled with what
we had discovered, to articulate it to each other and to find use for it in our
respective disciplines:
Aina (anthropologist): People clearly connect with many places at once,

and over time. This is true also for inhabitants in
cities, as they move through urban settings and
make meaning and experience what we can call
‘temporal belonging’. To get a grip on what this
meaning making consists of, is difficult. People’s
stories are so diverse.
Jenny (landscape architect): Atmosphere, character and identity of public
space is difficult to explain in physical terms
and even harder to make a design that people
feel belonging to.
The concept of ‘temporal belonging’ as an integral and positive act of

claiming ownership to common, urban realm, where you spend time in
The ‘splotting’ methodology 137
Figure 8.1 A young girl drawing her ‘splot’.

Photo: Karoline Hjorth.
everyday life, challenge classic urban theory, where urbanity is connected to

the identities of ‘the stranger’ (Bauman, 1991) and the non-places of
supermodernity (Augé, 1995/2008). Belonging can be endured ‘out of time’,
and as such defy understandings of linear temporality and the singular self
(May, 2016). The narrative about oneself usually incorporates a travel in
time and space, like one of the youth in Oslo describes: “The nice thing
about splotting was that it brought me back to my childhood.” Building on
a positive psychology approach and appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider &
Whitney, 1999), we choose to focus on what feels good and strengthen
these traits in collaboration with others, rather than dive into the challenges
and problems. This works especially well with youth that are deemed
‘trouble’ by others, a trait that plays out in public space regularly. We
discovered that as people construct their multifaceted and multidimensional
selves, they repeatedly construct a sense of space(s) that encompasses this
diversity within and between us. Learning from the interaction with our
young participants, our questions aim straight for the heart and does not
take their perception of belonging for granted. So, we ask: where do you
feel good? What places do you carry in your heart? A paper and a pen, and
some simple instructions. People are ready for action.
The splot is almost a comical opposite to the architectural rendering. In
every architectural competition, regulation plan and student work, an illus
tration of atmosphere is included, a visualization. This representation of vo
lume, materiality, the recognizable (connected to belonging) and seasonal
factors, are integral to ‘sell’ the project to a jury, teacher or the public – the
latter is usually illiterate when it comes to plans and sections. A rendering is
supposed to, simply put, portray where it is ‘nice to be’. A global industry of
rendering producers has emerged the past decades and contributes to the fact
that architecture and renderings have turned into a sort of similar ‘global
aesthetic’. Or rather, they have such a real-life quality to them, that they are
tricking the viewer into appreciating an ideal place where everything is generic
and unrecognizable, “people are happy”. The messy realities of trash, conflict
or poverty, is wiped out. Scholars within environmental architecture have
shown how architects’ preferences diverge from the public, probably due to the
architectural training that focus on aesthetic standards (Devlin & Nasar, 1989;
Gifford et al., 2000). This creates problems when architects and planners are
unable to vision what people prefer when designing a public place.
***
I, the landscape architect, was some weeks later invited to join in on a
workshop with youth in Tøyen, to test a new methodology for involving
users in participatory activities. I teach a third year studio course in land
scape architecture on how to design public spaces. Here people’s use of and
feeling of belonging to public spaces are integral parts of the curriculum. In
Norway, landscape architects work with all types of landscapes and en
vironments between the buildings; planning, designing, or maintaining our
common ground, such as urban spaces, streets, roads, and parks. The
Norwegian Planning and Building Act (2008) regulates the planning pro
cesses and the processes of building applications for public spaces and user
participation is required by law. Particularly the environment children and
youth grow up in and “the aesthetic design of project surroundings” are to
be taken into account (Planning and Building Act, 2008, section 1.1).
The desire for public involvement is to better understand the users’ needs,
knowledge and requirements in the design process. The challenge is to
create involvement and to catch the personal stories about ‘good sites’,
translate the reflections and use the information as a tool for designing
more inclusive and better places. Another challenge for future landscape
architects when designing urban areas with a diverse population is that
the students are predominantly majority Norwegians of middle class
background, many from rural, or small towns in Norway, about 70–80%
female and most of them youth in their mid-twenties and with few visible
markers of ‘difference’.
Aina: We struggle with finding methods on participation in urban

development that produce data material, or rather ‘traces’ of
inhabitant’s perception of their current and future surroundings,
that will actually be used by public officials. We don’t get results
that speak the planners’ ‘language of power’.
Jenny: We haven’t been too successful applying methods for participation
in our design processes. So why not try a different angle, with
dialogue as core of the method? And let’s focus on young
professionals and youth as users, that both can make a difference
in the long term perspective.
A tool for participant listening

Here is a story of a sailboat and two young women with very different
background, yet both grew up in the same country, Norway. We put to
gether a group of teens with a group of students in landscape architecture.
Future planners and designers. Most of the students have not interacted
much with kids of a transnational background, or users of public spaces in
general. We train them in participatory observation and fieldwork methods,
using the splot as a dialogue object, a sort of visual interview guide. The
students met the teens in a classroom and started to engage in conversation.
One of the students drew a sailboat in her splot, as she grew up in the south
of Norway, on the coastline. She explained how she loved being on that
sailboat, that’s a place she felt good. The young girl from an urban inner-
city area in Oslo just responded with a “wow”. That is exotic. Diversity is
everywhere. We all have it in us, even though it doesn’t always show on the
surface.
Splotting is both a mode of inquiry, and a concrete visualization tool
created in collaboration to strengthen the ability of anthropologists, ar
chitects and all disciplines in between to engage in what we call participant
listening (Hagen, 2014). Our initial intention was to test the method on
Jenny’s students at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences at Ås
(NMBU) to see if it could be used as a dialogue object in transferring
people’s stories of everyday life and belonging, to eventually become a
design parameter. One of our struggles in this endeavour was to figure out:
What do our disciplines have in common, so we can bridge our work and
collaborate?
Jenny: When I was introduced to the student’s curriculum, there was too
little focus on the user. Landscape architecture is, like anthropology,
a holistic endeavor, emphasizing the many layers to a site and aspire
to have a humble take on public space to include ‘everybody’ in
everyday life.
Aina: When I was studying the Tøyen area, I was introduced to the
concept of socio-cultural site analysis (Ruud et al., 2007) as a mode
of inquiry, where you do a 360-degree investigation of a limited area
in a city to look for diverging interests regarding place, images of
place and use of places. It was an epistemological eye-opener for an
anthropologist used to doing topic-focused ethnography in urban
settings.
The splot and how to do it

We have defined the splot method as the process and time it takes to draw a
heart, representing your own heart, on a piece of paper, before drawing the
wobbly ‘splot shape’ around any number of miniature drawings or key
words that answers the question “where do you feel good?” – and then to
share the thoughts and reflections behind this simplistic drawing. Every
individual creates and defines their own splot and choose how and how
much they would like to tell others. It aims to expose personal, not private,
stories of temporal belonging, envoking positive affects to transient ex
periences in urban spaces. The inspiration for the wobbly shape came from
previous anthropological research on collective creativity among architects,
where we found that even experienced architects in the company Snøhetta,
(where Jenny is a partner), are afraid of drawing a circle, or ‘the first line’, in
fear of being critiqued by peers (Hagen & Rudningen, 2012). But to draw
the first line also gives you power. To find a form that can be
described and subject to instruction, but never be perfect, was therefore
decisive for inventing the method as a drawing exercise, as a way of
transferring power between the design expert and youth.
The heart in the middle of the splot shape is the reminder of the focus of
the task: Your own emotional gravitation. The process is open-ended, as
you can draw or write names of concrete places, or associations that remind
you of a place, including abstract experiences like reading books, listening
to music, be alone or with others – allowing for a disarray of words and
sketches of no hierarchical or prioritized order. It could also be an activity,
like soccer, that transforms every soccer field into a good place, regardless
of where it is located. The stories emerging from the splot don’t presuppose
a linear structure or hierarchical logic. There is a generosity for more places,
rather than the one place that is the only good or qualified place to
belong to.
This gives the method immense flexibility and opens for both the concrete
and abstract in the conversation. We have witnessed the positive effect of this
particularly when working with children, youth or adults that struggle in
communicating abstract notions like space, place, identity and belonging. This
is also the case in design processes where it often is hard to transform the
abstract into physical form. Let’s hear another story to explore this further.
The moment of magic and finding eutopia – the good place

Meet Wisdom, as we called him. We met in a classroom in Hersleb high
school in Grønland. He was 30 minutes late and his body language was
screaming, I do not want to be here (not an uncommon first reaction when
we work with youth). Then we got him into the splot exercise. And
he melted. We melted. We started to share stories. That is what we call ‘the
equalizer effect’ (Tolstad et al., 2017). When we discover his passion for
music, his love for his mum, the importance of Islam in his life. And he
discovers us. He gets curious about our passions, music, books. And then
the stories that are important to us emerges. In a moment of serendipity, my
colleague, local artist and pedagogue Nina Vestby asks him to embroider
his splot on a small piece of canvas, stitching his transnational identity.
Vestby introduced an additional layer to the paper and pen approach, she
calls it ‘narrative embroidery’ (Vestby, 2020). Here we ask the participants
to transfer their personal splot shape to an embroidery canvas. They choose
the colour of thread and start the process of translating meaningless form
(the splot) to meaningful, identity-dense visualizations. No rules. This
engulfs us all in a ‘slow space’, defined by the rhythmic movement of the
thread and the needle, where young men like Wisdom and landscape
architect students both seem to thrive. The personal stories and dialogical
reflections follow. This is when the magic of slow space and safe space takes
hold. And this is one of the more surprising findings from experimenting
with this tool. It is the young, restless boys who just keep on going with the
needle and the thread. Defining their splot as their narrative identity. They
don’t want to go home, they want to sit there – in that slow, meditative
space and talk about everything and nothing. What matters.
To splot someone, provides an immediate gate opener into the subjective
world of others. In our repeated engagements with youth of minority
background from urban areas in Oslo and students of landscape archi
tecture we see how the narrative dialogues that naturally emerges through
asking each other “where do you feel good”, leaves an emotional imprint. It
has an immediate affectional dimension. People share their personal stories.
Figure 8.2 Transferring the splot from a piece of paper to an embroidery canvas.
They are moving each other, engaging with each other through stories of
everyday life encapsulating both solidary sameness and radical difference.
We learned quickly that the method has to include everyone present,
including the facilitator, interviewer or researcher, bringing their personal
splot into the conversation. This way both parties may learn something
new; what one has in common and what is different. It also has this
equalizer effect, building both relations and trust, breaking down barriers
between professionalism and amateurism.
Jenny: It is a crucial task for a designer to get people to stop, linger, dwell
and feel safe in new, outdoor spaces. People watching is maybe the
number one activity we should design for. As designers we have a
social responsibility to create beautiful, everyday landscapes where
people feel good and want to belong.
Aina: The need to find, define or recognize ‘eutopias’ (from Greek εὖ
τόπος meaning ‘good place’, in Bauder 2015), places where we feel
good, instead of searching for perfect utopias that we will never
reach, is pressing. Particularly in deprived neighboorhods in dense
inner-city areas.
The students’ understanding of what participation is, and what public space
can be, is rapidly expanding in these meetings with youth. The applied
methodology enables reflection of one’s preconditioned understanding and
prejudices, while also being a tool for building new mental models for all
involved (Kaplan & Kaplan, 2009). How do I understand the world and how
do I learn something new, that makes me see the world in a different way?
For architects and planners to be able to plan for inclusive and diverse public
spaces, they need access to a broad range of information on its current and
potential users, including social and cultural phenomenon (Tolstad et al.,
2017), but also to this phenomenon of temporal belonging. But we wanted to
find out if this mode of inquiry can be more than a dialogue object. Could the
findings be used in the design process of urban spaces? Would the students
make use of the splot methodology in their assignements?
The reflection and theorizing

The second time I, the landscape architect, was invited to test the newly
invented splotting methodology, was at a co-creative workshop with the
landscape architect students and local youth in Tøyen. The students had
been introduced to splotting in a lecture and testing splotting 1:1 at the
campus in rural Ås, in the outskirts of Oslo. The students were open,
positive and curious towards the method and the area in downtown Oslo,
where they were going to do the seminar assignment. Aina, the anthro
pologist, had a contact in Tøyen, a young person with a broad network that
had promised to gather young users of the area in the age group between 16
and 19 years. We had spotted a location in the area where we could meet
up. All the students were well prepared, brought their own personal splots,
sketch books and noted down questions in case the dialogue with the youth
would halt. 30 minutes in we realized. None of the youths showed up! The
influencer had decided not to come and shared this info on her personal
Facebook page. Aina explained to the students that unexpected things like
this is part of doing fieldwork (you cannot control the field) and we changed
the focus of the workshop. This incident made us realize that the insights
we got from testing and improving this applied method, would be useless if
we didn’t start to address another more pertinent question: How to get
young people interested and involved in these creative processes to raise
their voice about public space in the first place? We needed methods to find
out what aspects of urban space are relevant to them.
***
This is a general challenge in urban planning and research that requires
participation. In order to create inclusive public space, we need to com
municate with a diversity of inhabitants and what architects call ‘users’. But
what if people are not interested, or not even showing up, like these youth
in Tøyen? Many planners tick off the box after having tried and often failed
to get in touch with the locals, or ‘silent voices’ of a community, as if the
intention is enough to call it participatory design. Our lack of interaction
with youth, when we obviously failed to make it relevant to them, forced us
to reflect further. How effective are our methods and questions, and do they
sometimes work against the intended purpose of assembling people, stories,
threads and embodied knowledge, to transform insights into design form?
Carr et al. (1992) argue that if we understand how meanings are created
and why people form relations to specific settings or areas, it can offer us
directions for design and management policies for public spaces:
“Individual connections emerge in a number of ways – from a person’s life
history and personal experiences, from a tradition of use of an area, and
from special events in a place” (Carr et al., 1992, p. 239). Places are created
in relations, through sensemaking and movement (Feld & Basso, 1996;
Ingold, 2011), and thus as fluid and relationally conditioned as people’s
complex and compound identities.
Designing and place making is a continuous process where the analysis of
site, context, uses and program is synthesized and transformed into a new
physical form. The representation of the design is often shown as a concept
with a series of graphical diagrams. The more technical information is often
shown in plans, sections, text and diagrams. The visualizations of the plans
are often translated into atmospheric renderings to show the sense of the
place so it’s easier for everybody to relate to and sense a place to be with
trees and buildings, a place at late night, with snow in January or a rainy
afternoon in the fall.
Jenny: The students transform sketches, notes and stories into a new design
narrative, using all information available. We still have not seen too
many of them transferring the splot-information to actual design,
but it is often referred to in the reflections from the students’ design
process. They comment on the dialog with the youth, the stories of
the place or the notion of belonging to a place. This is good!
Aina: Drawing a simple sketch as a representation of a place as architects
do, was a new tool for me as social anthropologist and forced me
to make visual narratives to communicate ideas.
This is exactly the co-creation process and tool swapping acitivity that we
have come to realize defines architectural anthropology. Drawing as a
technique can help us reach new analytical understandings (McNiff, 2008),
and is a central tool for landscape architects. Introducing drawing to an
thropologists give us a shared instrument for collective engagement and
multisensory dialogue (Knight et al., 2016). We can thus facilitate for cog
nitive mapping of a humans’ life in addition to a specific area, like we do in a
socio-cultural site analysis. Introducing the anthropological documentation
tool of field notes on top of the splotting methodology for the landscape
architect students to describe in words their findings, surprising observations
Figure 8.3 Landscape architect student in action together with pupils from a school
in the neighborhood, using their personal splots to make a common
splot for the new programme for Schous plass in 2018.
Photo: Wanda Nathalie Nordstrøm.
and reflections for further study, helped in the processual development of the
projects they have been conducting as part of the seminar.
Co-creating processes and possibilities

Many describe heights, hills and viewpoints as good places to be, where one
can orient oneself and get an overview, while others describe the work
bench or hammock as the good place, all resonating the theories of Juhani
Pallasmaa on the atmosphere of places as an immediate and intuitive feeling
that people have (Tamari, 2016). Through years of testing and trying, we
have realized that more important than bringing substantial information
that can be used as evidence of peoples’ needs and wants, the splot method
gives us the simple portrayal of an assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980),
the complex web of what is of emotional importance in people’s everyday
lives. Existential questions like where do you feel good are the core of what
it means to be a human being. It speaks to our abilities to always and over
and over again find good ways to live our lives, together with others in all
its variety. Such questions bring us closer to the creative aspect of being
human and our common need for meaningful co-existence – and
co-existence is a core issue when designing for behavior in public space.
Can the architect get a hold on something other through these experimental
methods than what they get from their more conventional methods? What
would that ‘otherness’ be?
Jenny: By introducing a social anthropologist to the students, it was

important to let Aina lead the process focusing on interview as a
tool to get information about belonging. Through splotting the
students became aware of themselves as users with preferences to
belonging and to be prepared to share their own stories.
Aina: I needed to articulate the tacit knowledge on how to document
participant observation through field notes to the students. It seemed
to provide the students with a tool that engaged them into deeper
reflection, although the inner anthropologist in me screams in terror
of reducing the precious inarticulate methods we learned in university.
Creativity is a fundamental capacity in human beings, and the methodology

of splotting is a generic tool to get creative processes going, through dia
logue and sharing. This resonates with the way that we see planning, as a
process of assemblage, of pulling together. Transforming participation into
actual co-creation or co-design (Sanders & Stappers, 2008), implies that a
diverse group of people work together on a topic, without pre-defining the
resulted outcome. The utopia portrayed in architectural renderings made by
professionals in design and planning is a stark contrast to the eutopia of the
splot, a simple hand-drawn diagram made by amateurs. The drawing is a
storyteller, a representation for short memory images (Rogers, 1964) of
physical or mental conditions. We see it as one method of many, a process
on the way, a collective work in progress. It is a tool for dialogue more than
a game changer.
Aina: So, how do we conclude? There seems to be many dilemmas,

challenges, pitfalls and potentials with this method and the inter-
disciplinary exploration it inspires. Anthropologists love dilemmas,
ambiguity and paradoxes, so this gives energy to our further work.
As it is inherently co-creative, I really don’t know what impact and
outcomes to expect, even though each interaction with participants
and this mode of inquiry bring new insights.
Jenny: The findings from any method processed into a design tool, is a lot
about decision making, testing form, materials, proportions and
a holistic design. The constant process of reinvention push us
further – and splot help us to push further based on the stories that
humans dare to share. This we all can learn from.
Note
1 The methodology is developed within research projects funded by The Research
Council of Norway, Dam Foundation and Save the Children Norway.
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9 What makes spatial difference?
Conceptualizing architectural
anthropology through filmmaking
Lina Berglund-Snodgrass and
Ebba Högström
Filmmaking constitutes an inquiry and form of representation that cap

tures, creates, and transmits emotions. Due to these characteristics, it has
long been used as an effective device for advocacy purposes such as pro
paganda and conveying information from the state (Sandercock & Attili,
2010). Since the 1920s, film has purposely been used in urban planning for
advocating to the general public the possibilities of social change through
expert-governed architecture and urban planning solutions. For example,
advocating the benefits of the post-war New towns (Huntley Film Archives,
1960), the need of demolition of perceived rundown urban areas
(AB Kinocentralen, 1957), or for advocating the benefits of future archi
tecture and planning solutions as for example exhibited in international
housing exhibitions (Leacock, 1952). While this movement, which has been
referred to as “town-planning cinema,” (Ciacci, 1997) celebrates the ar
chitect as an ‘almighty’ expert, this chapter presents an alternative and more
inclusive trajectory of using film in urban planning and design (see for
example Peterson & Farsø, 2017; Sandercock & Attili, 2010). Using film
in design processes can bring forward the questions that – in our
understanding – an architectural anthropology specifically seeks to address,
i.e. what architecture and for whom? To us, film-making as a methodology
in this context implies a mode of inquiry that understands architecture
beyond the building project and that directs the attention to what archi
tecture does in concert with its human and non-human inhabitants, and the
affective dimensions of spatial practices. By attending to these possibilities,
filmmaking comprises a transformative potential of what (spatially or
socially) could be otherwise (Sandercock & Franz, 2010).
A significant challenge to such an architectural anthropology concerns
the representation dilemma since important parts of human experiences
don’t lend themselves to be represented through the means of architectural
drawings, sections and plans (Burns & Kahn, 2005). Film holds the po
tential of both capturing and conveying a wide range of experiences as well
as acting as a forceful device that provokes attention and engagement by its
150 Berglund-Snodgrass & Högström
audience – also in an architectural context. This chapter seeks to contribute
to the formation of an architectural anthropology by bringing forward the
potential in film-making for identifying different ways spatial difference can
be made. We will empirically illustrate this by three key dimensions of such
practices; storytelling, emotions, and identification.
Conceptualizing architectural anthropology and the

potential of filmmaking
It is our belief that the potential in architectural anthropology sits between its
interest in people and their socio-cultural practices and meaning-making, its
interest in spaces and places and their productive and relational potential, as
well as its interest in social transformative change, e.g. change and/or con
testation from the bottom-up (Sandercock, 2003) or collective emancipation
(e.g. Friedmann, 1987). Coupling architecture with anthropology, enhances
in our view the notion of reflexivity in architecture. When using the term
‘architecture’, we here refer broadly to the making disciplines of architecture,
including urban planning and design. The focus is to develop knowledge that
embraces the ways in which space hinders or supports spatial practices, as
well as the ways in which people’s spatial practices make places emerge and
subsequently develop meaning from them. In addition, this knowledge is set
in motion in future-oriented practices that target social transformative
change, which is hinged upon the creation of possibilities for each and every
one of us to form an active part in decisions that concern our living en
vironments (Nuñez‐Janes, 2016). Here we position ourselves with the post
modern objective of developing pluralism in ways of knowing and
prescribing future(s) in architecture, so as to enable more just outcomes
(Friedmann, 1987; Huq, 2020; Sandercock, 2003).
To enable social transformative change through architecture, i.e. en
abling change that makes a positive difference to people in their everyday
life, knowledge of how space, place and people interact must be transmitted
to the actual agents in this making, but also find its way to engage politi
cians, urban planners and other stakeholders. To convey the agency of the
spatial dimensions and/or the feelings of for example belonging, exclusion
and indifference which humans develop over time and by everyday spatial
practices, is however not so easily done. This requires a form of re
presentation that not only does justice to the sensory elements of the in
quiry, but also demands attention of, and engages the public and those in
decision-making positions. While there have been experiments with forms
of representation (e.g. mental maps, collages, diagrams and drawings)
(Stender, 2017), this chapter will demonstrate the potential filmmaking
holds. By setting out this proposition, we recognize that we owe our pre
decessors in visual methodologies a great deal (Pink, 2012; Rose, 2014;
Ruby, 1995). These ethnographers and geographers highlight the possibi
lities to visually capture and convey a wide range of experiences, while
What makes spatial difference? 151
recognizing ethical questions related to space, place and people, e.g., a si
tuational ‘care ethics’ (Lawson, 2008; Sandercock & Attili, 2010). We
consider film-making as a mutual learning process, where the role of the
film-maker is not to ‘discover a story’, but to – in concert with others – tell
stories of the complexity and interwovenness of human life (Sandercock &
Attili, 2010; Skjælaaen, Bygdås & Hagen, 2020). Such a practice is per
formative and “help[s] to enact the world that they describe” (Law, 2009,
p. 249) and thus “mak[e] things visible” (Rose, 2014, p. 27). By bringing
together the dimensions of storytelling, emotions and identification in film-
making, we argue that a potential for social transformation through ar
chitecture unfolds. To illustrate this potential, we draw from examples of
films that master students in urban planning and design produced between
2017 and 2019 in a studio course organized in the intersection between
anthropology and architecture. The course objective was to interrogate ev
eryday life situations in an architectural context of life in and between the
buildings, to deepen the student’s knowledge of architectural experiences,
and to use such knowledge as point of departures for socio-spatial propo
sitions with social transformative potentials. The students chose ‘what and
where’ to inquire, and the teachers provided methodological guidance to
their investigations including ‘going out in the field’, analysing, identifying,
and telling stories, as well as guidance to shooting and editing film. In the
following sections, we will present these films and discuss them in relation to
the three dimensions of film making. We will conclude the chapter by
highlighting the ways in which the film-making in our examples make visible
an array of architectural responses that can make spatial difference to people.
Storytelling
In any form of communication of anthropological experiences, storytelling
constitutes a neglected but key dimension (Maggio, 2014). In filmmaking, the
content in storytelling is understood as a story, told by combining images, text,
sound and moving images (ibid.). A story can consist of a core story and
multiple minor stories embedded in the core story. The plot comprises the se
quence of events that is put together to form the stories. In the film literature,
there are vast categories of different forms of plots (e.g. classical plots, mini
plots, antiplots) which can be open-ended, comprise internal conflicts, multiple,
parallel events and characters or contain a grand story that subordinates all
events into one explanatory rationale. While the classical plot resembles the
storytelling of the ‘almighty’ architect,1 the other examples of plots are more
aligned with the epistemological position of architectural anthropology.
Storytelling comprises furthermore a relational dynamic between the
people involved, the storyteller(s) and the spectator(s), but also the entities
who take the role of characters (Maggio, 2014). The politics of voice and
the issue of authorship is here of pertinent importance, which requires
careful reflection of research design and methods, authorship and
ownership, trust and reciprocity (Ruby, 1995; Sandercock & Attili, 2010).
This points to the need of recognizing that symmetrical power relations
never will manifest, instead striving to accommodate such should be the
guiding facet. Storytelling constitutes a collaborative learning endeavour
where the storyteller and the entities who take the role of characters are
mutually engaged in the process, as are the future spectators.
In the documentary film, The people’s house as a meeting place, produced
by Daniela Edvinsson and Felicia Torffvit (Edvinsson & Torfvitt, 2017), we
are invited to partake in daily activities at the Swedish Social Democratic party
remnant institution, the so called “People’s House” (Folkets hus) in a Swedish
small town. The core story concerns the ways in which the institution operates
both as an enabler and an inhibitor of societal togetherness and civic identities.
The institution operates in such ways through its symbolic representation of
embracing and equalizing individuals in society by referring and welcoming
“the people,” and through its built fabric comprising a two-storey brick ar
chitecture located centrally in the town. The building is organized in two floors
and a basement, framed in the film as ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’. The film
begins by welcoming us ‘upstairs’ through a major entrance hall from which
the library, two restaurants, a cinema, and a large hall utilized for theatre,
concerts and other community activities are accessed. The spaces are portrayed
as full of life of all ages where for example elderly people host folk dancing
events in the major hall, people dining their lunch in the restaurant, or reading
newspapers in the library – all appearing familiar with the spaces and with
each other. Thereafter, we are introduced to the ‘downstairs’ which is accessed
Figure 9.1 At People’s House the elderly meet every week for dancing, not aware of
what is going on in the basement of the same building.
Photo: Daniela Edvinsson & Felicia Torffvit.
Figure 9.2 In the basement of People’s House, the people involved in the integration
project are playing table tennis and learning to bike. Above their head,
elderly people are dancing.
Photo: Daniela Edvinsson & Felicia Torffvit.
through a separate entrance next to the main entrance, and thereafter wel
comed to its open spaces with moveable chairs and tables as well as its intimate
spaces with heavy brown leather furniture. Here children run around, and
women sit and laugh. We notice posters on the wall highlighting this as a
religious and politically independent space, but also posters that call everyone
to clean up. We are informed that downstairs constitutes the location of the
so-called “meeting place” – a municipal integration project. Here are ‘newly
arrived Swedes’ welcomed with the local council’s ambition to initiate
processes of integration. The corridors in the basement with low headspace
and limited daylight serves the emancipatory purpose of women learning to
bike, and the simple kitchen constitutes the first professional space for ‘newly
arrived Swedes’ who are responsible for organizing nibbles and coffee to the
visitors. The activities downstairs are portrayed in the film to be surrounded by
the daily lives of people pursuing their everyday activities – a mother who
swings her child in the park or a bored youngster – but who maintain emo
tional distance to the activities in the basement suggesting that they are aware
of the meeting place but it doesn't concern them. The downstairs represents
a place of community and empowerment at the same time as it appears as a
place of alienation to the society in which it is embedded.
The plot of the film concerns the different civic identities (e.g. immigrant,
refugee, citizen, people) and the ways in which they are performed through and
in concert with the architecture. It also concerns the implicit and for the audience
perhaps disturbing matter that ‘the downstairs’ and ‘the upstairs’ never really
meet. How is integration performed in a building that hosts activities that take
Figure 9.3 The spatial organization of the People’s House. A is the assembly hall
where the elderly meet to dance. B is the basement premises where the
integration project hosts their activities. Arrow 1 is pointing to the stairs
in the main entrance which leads to the assembly hall, while arrow 2
shows the entrance which leads to the premises in the basement.
Drawing: Andrea Gimeno Sanchez.
place in parallel, in different spaces separated by walls and floor levels? This
dualism and parallel sensations of both community and conflict, which the ar
chitecture and participating subjects perform, is particularly well brought to the
fore through the storytelling techniques of filmmaking. It allows for telling the
story of conflicting albeit simultaneous experiences of togetherness and aliena
tion, through the ways in which it moves between spaces within the building,
and its ability to juxtaposition the sense of conflict with the sense of community
that is performed within and through the building. At the same time, the story
comprises hope, where the conflict between the two floors as well as between the
downstairs (i.e. the integration project) and the perceived alienation towards the
society which it is embedded – appears in the film as solvable and possible to
change. An example of this is a scene where the women leave the basement and
proudly walk in the adjacent park, or a scene where the manager states – by
recognizing the institution’s historical function – “everyone is welcome here.” As
a spectator, one is compelled to intervene, take down a wall, or schedule events
in somewhat different orders. This points to the social transformative potential
of storytelling – through its specific ability to develop multi-layered plots of
events through careful use of sound and moving images.
Emotions
In every human activity, emotions play a role. Emotions is a situated social
practice that connects the body, the mind and the social in tandem with
material and spatial situations and constitute something people do in spe
cific social and cultural contexts (Davidson, Bondi, & Smith, 2007; Prestel,
2017). By referring to ‘doing emotions’, we direct the attention towards the
subjects and their specific settings. In the repertoire of visual methodologies,
film-making is particularly powerful in representing and evoking emotions.
Spectators are immersed into an emotional landscape by the means of the
story told in close collaboration with the film media (i.e. moving images,
sound, rhythm and speech) and feelings such as fear, joy and thrill are
evoked as they engage emotionally in the story. Such feelings could also be
evoked in the film-maker during the film-making process. However, if
emotional engagement is “an inevitable and necessary aspect of doing re
search” (Bondi, 2007, p. 243) somehow emotional aspects of the reflexivity
remain to a great extent neglected in existing literature.
In the documentary film, At your neighbour’s house, produced by Victoria
Alstäde, Sofia Hjort and Oskar Mikaelsson (Alstäde, Hjort & Mikaelsson,
2019), we are invited to a Syrian family that live in two apartments in a
residential block in a Swedish small town. This is the home for the extended
family Alheeb after having fled the Syrian war. In this story, mixed emotions
like sadness and gratitude, loss and hope, frustration and adaptability are
evoked. All of them are deeply caught in a web of memories of a lost past,
expectations of a better future and a confusing present. These emotions are
played out in two different architectures – the Swedish rental apartment and
their Syrian house. “We all gather here,” says Hazeem, one of the adult
brothers, while showing us the living room in one of the apartments. “Here”
refers to one of the family’s living room, but also to the two ordinary two-
bedroom apartments from late 1960–early 1970s. Each apartment consists of
two bedrooms, one kitchen, one living room and a balcony. They all move
easily between the two apartments and the stairwell and the courtyard be
come part of their living space. The adult brother, Firas, shows us the other
living room which is furnished with a sofa, three armchairs and a television.
An oriental rug covers the floor and a small coffee table is placed in the
middle of it. The seating is placed along the walls “so there will be room for
my guests,” as Hazeem puts it. Sometimes we notice the adjacent buildings
through the windows, sometimes the blinds are drawn closed. The story
directly concerns the interior life where the family is cooking and eating,
talking, and laughing, where the kids always are present around them.
Through the use of a subjective camera position, we experience and feel the
warmth, lively and vibrant atmosphere inside the family’s two apartments.
This kind of apartment was designed to suit a typical Swedish nuclear family
consisting of two parents and two children, which the family adjusts to better
accommodate their way of living. No major spatial reconfiguration is needed
as the rooms are relatively spacious and generic, also demonstrating their
adaptability to new contexts. The key is the door to the stairway leading to
the courtyard and to their other apartment. The courtyard acts as the med
iating space ameliorating the transformation of the two-bedroom flat to a
Figure 9.4 The surrounding residential areas is viewed from inside the apartment. Inside
we notice ongoing activities in and with the space. Stills from the movie.
Photos: Victoria Alstäde, Sofia Hjort and Oscar Mikaelsson.
four-bedroom flat. Through the spatial practice performed between the two
apartments, a new spatial relationship emerges. The rationalistic and func
tionalistic residential block is turned into a series of new connections through
the courtyard, resembling the spaces of their Syrian ‘liwan’ house.
After four years in Sweden the Alheebs haven’t made any Swedish
friends: “I try to meet and talk to them, but unfortunately, they don’t want
to,” says Hazeem. He and his father describe their home in Aleppo, the
“liwan house” – a traditional Middle East house sheltered from the street,
centred around a generous inner courtyard with a tree in the middle.
Hazeem draws the layout and we see the space for the kids to play, the
many living rooms as well as the covered terrace, the ‘liwan’, that opens up
to the courtyard. In such a house, Hazeem tells us “you see women sitting
together talking, you see men gathering and perhaps playing cards, and all
the children are playing with each other.” We sense his emotional attach
ment to the place as Firas states how he misses his house, his bakery, and his
neighbours. At the same time, Firas emphasizes that he is emotionally at
home in Sweden too since almost all his relatives are here. This also is
reinforced in the film by their younger sister Suhaila who states directly into
the camera that ‘home is where her parents are’.
Figure 9.5 To the left the plan of the Syrian Liwan House where A is the ‘liwan’ –
the covered terrace, and B is the courtyard enclosed by the more or less
private rooms. To the right the residential block where the Syrian family
now lives. C marks the two apartments that house the extended family,
D marks the connecting courtyard.
Drawing: Andrea Gimeno Sanchez.
Throughout the film, we engage in conflicting and parallel emotions

which are spatialized and juxtaposed. The warm and vibrant interiority of
the Syrian and the Swedish homes is set against the confusing and ambig
uous exteriority; the view from the window of the elusive and reticent re
sidential area, or dangerous and shocking surrounding shown in the film of
the Syrian home in total ruins. As a spectator, one identifies with the
warmth and openness the family transmits and acknowledges the affor
dances of the liwan house. At the same time, one wishes them to find friends
to socialize with in their new country. The story’s emotional practice pro
vokes questions of agency. For example, what agency do architects have in
making a social difference in a society which is ambiguous in its role in
welcoming newcomers? What agency do the architecture and design enact
for making it possible to live together – as an extended family, or in a local
community? The film provokes these ‘bigger’ questions while simulta
neously evoking emotions of sadness, joy and hope as one is immersed into
the lively discussions when the family gathers around the kitchen table.
While we as spectators struggle with our emotions regarding the characters’
past and present situations, the modernist architectural interior organiza
tion appears able to fit new contexts of living together regardless of its
inhabitants’ mixed emotional practices – it may just be a matter of claiming
the Swedish 1960–1970s version of the core of the ‘liwan’ house – the
courtyard. The everyday spatial practices performed by the family is an
example of such claiming, but it also comprises a potential for design
interventions that better accommodate the social component in these
practices.
Identification
To identify oneself with other people’s life situations is crucial for developing
empathy and solidarity. It is furthermore foundational to constructive dia
logues between parties in urban planning contexts, and engagement in
common causes, may they be political or social (Sandercock & Attili, 2010).
Empathy with others is therein a fundamental trait which urban planners,
who have ambitions to develop planning interventions that make a difference
to a community or a local context, must possess. An important starting point
here is to recognize and acknowledge similarities instead of differences, in
what perhaps appears at a first glance as ‘foreign,’ or merely as a disparate
life situation. Such a starting point can instead generate and evoke recogni
tion, empathy, and solidarity. To recognize and render something familiar in,
for example, everyday life ‘doings’ (Högström, 2017) opinions, emotions,
choices or life situations, is crucial for processes of identification to take
place. Film, with its combination of moving images and sounds, is especially
powerful in paving the way for engaging “with individual subjectivities and
with individual bodies in space and the sociality between them” (Rishbeth &
Rogaly, 2018).
In the documentary film, Our meeting place: the E-hall Emmaboda,
produced by Emma Bäcklund and Marcus Hellberg (Bäcklund & Hellberg,
2017), we are invited to identify with the struggles of wanting and fighting
for something and with the companionship of a cross-generational com
munity. The film begins with a man that is introduced as Alexander saying:
“one has to fight for it, if one puts it like that.” He speaks about ‘E-hall’ a
venue for skateboarding located in an abandoned industrial area in a
Swedish small town, a place he developed and is responsible for. Alexander
is in his 30s, wears street clothes and a knitted hat, and loves skateboarding.
We learn that his objective is to give the opportunity to people of all ages to
skateboard or perform kick-biking. We are introduced to the story by
following two boys in their pre-teens moving through the small town with
their kick-bikes. The camera takes us over railway tracks, through com
mercial buildings, into an abandoned industrial area. Via an outdoor steel
staircase and door, the boys enter a three-storey typical industrial building
from the 1970–1980s, clad with sheet metal with few windows. In a
theatrical manner, lights are lit, and we are introduced to a big open space
filled with ramps of different sizes and shapes of various levels of difficulty,
graffiti inspired wall paintings and a sofa to chill in. This is the ‘E-hall’, a
meeting place for a group of adults, teenagers and children to skate and
kick bike, as well as learn from each other, united by the love and en
gagement for skateboarding. Alexander comes here every day to care for the
place and the members of this community. Yet, he has limited support from
the municipality which is putting pressure on his engagement. As this
narrative unfolds, we recognize the pleasure and satisfaction he gets from
running the facilities. At the same time as we are applauding their joint
achievement, we acknowledge that Alexander is losing his engagement. As
it is cumbersome to run such a place on a voluntary basis, we ask ourselves
what will happen to this community if he stops?
The film opens up several possibilities of identifying and recognizing
what architecture does in tandem with the people inhabiting the space, e.g.
by identifying with the thrill and joy the boys experience when skate
boarding across town, to be part of an urban subculture and hang out in an
old industrial venue, to share the same interest across generations regardless
of age and life situation. The film also presents the possibility to identify
with lacking ‘things to do’ at a certain age in a small non thriving town, but
also the joy of moving between the ‘greyish’, quite cold early spring out
doors of such indifferent environment to the warmth and welcoming
atmosphere inside the ‘E-hall.’
The performative character of the ‘E-hall’ – that if this specific activity
stops the space will no longer exist – is well portrayed through the film. This
‘minor architecture’ (Stoner, 2012) is recognized as a crucial partner for the
skateboarding subculture to emerge. Even though the place hinges upon
the engagement and creative force of Alexander and his group, we start to
recognize that it shouldn’t be in any other way. This place is so intertwined
with its conditions, activities and people so it appears in the film that if the
council would respond to Alexander’s cry for help by constructing a skate
board park somewhere close, this particular space would disappear. Even
though Alexander speaks about the need for help, we sense that there is an
undertext of threat if the council would take over the responsibility. So, how
can one appreciate the transformative potential here? Entangled with points
of identification in the film, which comprise an intricate web of contra
dictions of independence, creativity, and ‘sub-enculturalization’ is played out.
What perhaps would make most difference to the community is simply to
give recognition of the work they put in and its importance in the local
community. The film as a form of inquiry and representation paves
the way for making not only an anthropological, but also an architectural
response of recognition, by having brought forward the story itself – ‘see us’ –
where ‘us’ also incorporates the recognition of the spatial setting of the rough
steel-clad building and the run-down industrial area.
Figure 9.6 The two boys’ journey to the E-hall, passing a run-down industrial area,
entering through pre-fabricated steel stairs and expanded metal landing
a dark and empty E-hall, turning on the lights and the starting to ska
teboard in the place which they call theirs. Stills from the movie.
Photos: Emma Bäcklund & Markus Hellberg.
Developing spatial agency through architectural

anthropological filmmaking
We have now elevated three dimensions central to film-making in archi
tectural anthropology – storytelling, emotions and identification – and ex
plored them in films produced by urban planning students. By enabling
emotions and identification through storytelling techniques, we have de
monstrated that it is possible to tell complex and spatially interwoven
stories that open up spaces for social transformative change within the
context of architecture. By social transformative change we refer to changes
that make a difference to people in their everyday lives and which includes
people’s experiences of and in space as its point of departure. Social
transformative change, is not necessarily about engaging in new construc
tions, it is rather about paying attention to what makes spatial difference,
and could include making minor adjustments to the existing, or giving re
cognition with no specific material change. The films inform us of the im
portance of developing ‘spatial agency’ (Awan, Schneider & Till, 2011), as
well as the different ways the everyday life of people produce spatial dif
ferences. We have seen examples of this in films where spatial agency can be
transformative in a material sense (e.g. adjusting the built fabric). This
could include, for example, the yielding capacity of an ordinary Swedish
apartment for being adjusted to a multi-generational family’s way of living.
Spatial agency can also be transformative in a more immaterial sense (e.g.
use, memories, symbolism, expectations) where existing spaces are trans
formed into emancipatory spaces through new functions. Here we are
thinking of the rough empty industrial hall finding new purpose to the
skateboarding community. Another example of what makes spatial differ
ence that is elevated in the films is the context of where the buildings are
situated. For example, the central location of the People’s House enabled
the immigrant women to literally step into public life, whereas the journey
through the partly abandoned industrial landscape for visiting the skate
boarding hall contributes to forming the identity of a skater.
We have demonstrated that film has the potential to act as a device that
can transform what architecture could or should be (Berglund-Snodgrass &
Högström, 2018), which resonates with the call for ‘other ways of doing
architecture’ (Awan et al., 2011) that is better equipped to respond to ur
gent societal issues of our time. The potential of film-making sits in the
understanding and learning about spatial situations where people, spaces
and places interact and make meaning. Thus, for enabling social transfor
mative change that makes a positive spatial difference to people in their
everyday lives, it becomes crucial to find ways to engage – not only the
practitioners of the making disciplines – but also the politicians, civil ser
vants, and other stakeholders, those who have the political or adminis
trative power to not only initiate but also lead process of changes. Through
its ability to speak directly to its audience’s cognitive processes, and its
ability to convey spatial experiences in ways that make more justice to the
architectural settings than what photos and drawings do, film-making
constitutes a methodological device that has potential to pave the way for
such an ‘other way’ of doing architecture.
Note
1 An example of the ‘almighty architect’ is the main character, Howard Roark, in
the film The Fountainhead (1949) based on the novel by Ayn Rand from 1943
with the same name.
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10 ‘After Belonging’
A study of proposals for
architectural interventions for
arrival of refugees in Oslo, Norway
Eli Støa and Anne Sigfrid Grønseth
After Belonging invites architects and other professionals from around the
world to engage in a debate concerning our changing condition of belonging
and the contemporary transformation of residence.
(OAT’s call for interventions, 2015)
This chapter explores two proposals for intervention exhibited at After

Belonging, part of the Oslo Architecture Triennale (OAT)1 of 2016. Both
proposals involved architectural interventions in relation to a specific site: the
Torshov asylum-seekers’ reception centre in Oslo, Norway. The proposals
were authored by two teams, RuimteVeldWerk (RVW) and OPEN trans
formation (OT), the first based in Brussels, Belgium, the second in Bergen,
Norway. Our interest stemmed from the research project ‘What Buildings
do’,2 which investigated the effects of the physical environment on the quality
of life for asylum-seekers in Norway. The research demonstrates how the
architecture of reception centres became an instrument of exclusion (Hauge,
Støa, & Denizou, 2017), due not only to the features of the centres them
selves, but equally to how the accommodation system maintained a state of
‘arrival in between’ (Thorshaug, 2019). However, the research left us with
questions regarding how relations with local communities outside reception
centres affect processes of inclusion or exclusion. This was what the RVW
and OT teams explored through their proposals to the OAT in 2016.
Rather than approaching the issues of inclusion and exclusion from an
academic perspective adopted in our research, the two teams merged ar
chitectural and anthropological approaches in practice. Recognizing that
architecture and the built environment can often be seen as enforcing
exclusion, RVW and OT explored how architecture might enhance in
clusion instead. Here, architecture was not perceived as a matter of
buildings alone but was understood more broadly as a relational phe
nomenon affecting citizens’ freedom to move in the city and their access to
housing. As such, we regard the teams’ working processes and resulting
interventions as blending materiality (architecture) with processes of ex
ploration (anthropology).
‘After Belonging’ 165
While recognizing refugees’ particular circumstances in having escaped war,
social and family ruptures and fragmentation, and in facing the uncertainties
surrounding asylum and resettlement procedures (Kissoon, 2010), both teams
saw a need to treat refugees as fundamentally equal human beings.
Acknowledging a need to engage actively with asylum-seekers’ current life cir
cumstances and experiences, both teams conducted close observations of places
and buildings, as well as interviews with their residents. Based on this, they
adjusted their approaches and searched for new forms of architectural practice.
The chapter discusses how transformations in belonging are conceptualized,
described and objectified by the two teams. We also consider what characterizes
the architectural and processual interventions, how these interventions are seen
to interplay with one another, and how the two proposals merge academic re
flection with professional practice. Based on this, we reflect on how this study
can further develop an architectural anthropology (Stender, 2017) of everyday
urban life and senses of belonging, particularly in the field of migration and
refugees. We argue that the study sheds light on how architectural anthropology
has relevance not only as a fruitful contribution to an academic discourse, but
also as an approach that may further develop professional architectural practice.
Architecture and belonging: theoretical perspectives

Having done research together on the interplay between housing, belonging
and well-being in the particular context of Norwegian asylum-seekers, we,
the two authors, share perspectives on the relationship between architecture
and materiality, as well as senses of belonging and well-being (Grønseth &
Støa, 2020). Importantly, in its engagement with materiality like buildings
and outdoor spaces, we see architecture as constituted by an inherently
relational quality that exists between practice, materiality and the social
environment (Ingold, 2007; Larkin, 2013).
Although built and constructed by materiality and technicalities, houses
and spaces are imaginaries that interact with meaning-making and world-
shaping (Strauss, 2006; Salazar & Graburn, 2014), being related to everyday
‘being with others’ and the experience of ‘lived life’ (Grønseth, 2013). This is
a view that includes the physical, the psychological and the social, being
inspired by a phenomenological understanding in which materiality and
images are perceived and experienced as constituting senses of belonging,
self, home and well-being, as well as estrangement, discomfort and illness.
Not only do migration and movement challenge and offer new senses of
belonging and well-being, belonging itself appears to be dynamic and flexible.
Understanding belonging as a sense of being as well as becoming (Leach,
2003), the term comes to reflect the human condition, as it extends to the
struggle to fight alienation, discrimination, injustice, degradation, and social
suffering. Moreover, the concern with belonging, including degrees of aliena
tion and marginalization, is also triggered by an acknowledgement of citizens’
different levels of access to the city. This again depends on the individual’s
166 Støa & Grønseth
ability for movement and participation, in which perceptions and experiences
are directed and regulated through the materiality of urban spaces.
Within architectural discourse, the concept of place attachment, defined
as an affective bond between people and certain places, strongly connotes
involvement and the sense of belonging (Hidalgo & Hernández, 2001).
While the term may be said to draw on rather static notions of rootedness,
identity and ‘dwelling’, it has recently been further developed through the
concept of place-making, understood as dynamic and strategic processes
involving several actors, both professionals and non-professionals. Through
material interventions, social activities and interpersonal relations, place-
making creates personal connections with specific places (Teder, 2018). In
the context of migrants, the idea of place-making thus makes possible a
stand on belonging that is both pluralistic and inclusive.
While place-making and processes of belonging are shaped by materi
ality, the complexity of the role of architecture in this context is what OAT
2016 aims to explore.
After Belonging: engaging with festival, competition and the

architectural teams
Since its inception in 2000, OAT has become a major architectural institution in
Norway, the largest architectural festival in the Nordic countries, and has made
its mark as an important international stage on which to discuss and disseminate
architecture and urban planning. In the fall of 2014, OAT published an inter
national open call to curators for the event to be organized in 2016. In
December 2014 a jury selected the ‘After Belonging Agency (ABA)’ as Chief
Curators for the 2016 Triennale with the theme of ‘After Belonging: A Triennale
in Residence, on Residence and the Ways We Stay in Transit’. After the call was
launched in the fall of 2015, 127 teams took part in the competition, and five
winners were selected by an international jury in January 2016 (NAL/OAT,
2016), two of them for their proposals for the Torshov site in Oslo.
In the period from February to November 2016, we carried out eleven
interviews with team members, the architectural firm commissioned as
‘reporter’ for the Torshov site, the jury, and the OAT organizers. In addition
we conducted informal conversations, e-mail communications, visits to the site
and the exhibition itself, and collected written material about the two projects.
The OAT curators: a call for a broader approach to

architectural practice
The curators of ‘After Belonging’ raise questions about how processes of
globalization and migration, and new ways of understanding residence,
have created what they call a ‘transforming condition of belonging’ and a
‘crisis of belonging’ (Blanco et al., 2016, p. 12). They emphasize that their
use of the term ‘after’ in the title of the Triennale does not mean looking
Figure 10.1 Torshov asylum seeker reception centre in Oslo, Norway.

Photo: Eli Støa.
back to something lost that needs reviving, but rather refers to a search for
or pursuit of new and changing ways of belonging in contemporary society
(ibid., p. 23). They question how movement and temporality influence and
affect our environment of residence and public spaces:
What we are trying to examine is how we establish relationships in

communities and alongside territories considering the contemporary
conditions of circulation of population, things, information, images,
and knowledge. We believe that these transformations are redefining
what we conventionally understand by belonging. In a certain way,
belonging and architecture have been many times associated with ideas
of permanence, enclosure, and stability. We are trying to see how those
concepts are being redefined.
(Korody, 2016, referring to the Chief Curating Team ABA)
While acknowledging that much of the circulation of goods, images and

individuals is fuelled by a demand for greater freedom, opportunities and
access (such as work possibilities and tourism), the curators stress that not
everybody moves on a voluntary basis. Moreover, they observe that “cir
culation also promotes growing inequalities for larger groups, kept in
precarious states of transit” (Blanco et al., 2016, p. 13). In our interview
with two of the curators, they emphasized that the refugee situation was
essential in this context, but instead of examining the situations of the re
fugee camps in Turkey or Lebanon, they wanted to explore the implications
of the refugee situation within the Northern European city of Oslo.
The curator team emphasized the urgency of architects engaging in
pressing social challenges such as the huge numbers of asylum-seekers ar
riving in Europe in 2015–2016. They also expressed a wish to expand
forms of architectural practice in order to “regain relevance for the analysis
and transformation of the architecture at stake” (Blanco et al., 2016, p. 22).
Both the curators and the representatives of the jury saw the proposals from
RVW and OT as demonstrating particular sensitivity to how architectural
expertise can be used to connect asylum-seekers more fully with the city.
The winning team proposals: Modes of Movement and

Open Transformation
The team RuimteVeldWerk (RVW) was founded in 2013 as an Antwerp-,
Leuven- and Brussels-based interdisciplinary collective dealing with the urban
environment and its users. The team consisted of four architects and a psy
chologist. Being concerned with issues related to minority populations in public
spaces, RVW told us that they aimed to trespass on architectural boundaries in
order to rethink the architect’s role. They explained that, by implementing ar
chitectural strategies or scenarios as layers onto urban contexts, they activated
and intensified social networks and made socio-spatial frameworks negotiable.
In their winning proposal, RVW employed an intervention strategy they call
‘Modes of Movement’ as they explored how asylum-seekers might participate in
the cultural, social and economic life of the city. ‘Modes of Movement’ invited
refugees to find places or atmospheres within Oslo’s public spaces with which
they might connect. By confronting the collection of sites and being exposed to
them, RVW aimed to enhance asylum-seekers’ sense of belonging while at the
same time increasing their visible presence within the city. The proposal was
explained as being “an instrument to absorb and (re)present the city through a
subjective reading and become a platform that not only (re)produces interactions
between the asylum seekers and the citizens of Oslo, but also facilitates these
connections” (Ruimteveldwerk, 2016, p. 375).
The ‘Modes of Movement’ intervention was initially manifested as a City
Guide platform. However, during the process, this was transformed into
the form of a ‘Stack of Playing Cards’ that presents a series of public spaces
selected by asylum-seekers: shelter/housing, health/administration and cul
ture/sports. As part of their research, RVW visited the Torshov reception
centre several times and on one occasion spent three days there in order to
increase their understanding of the asylum-seekers’ situation. The City
Guide platform was meant to serve as an instrument for asylum-seekers to
find their way around Oslo. Creating the platform, Norwegians and earlier
generations of migrants were also approached and asked to contribute to
the Guide in complementary ways.
The team OPEN transformation (OT) started in Bergen as an interdisciplinary
team consisting of two architects and a sociologist, in response to the OAT 2016
competition call. Using the concepts of bnbOPEN, OPENhouse and
OPENhousing, the project explored how to transgress the divide between ‘us’
and ‘them’ both symbolically and practically by renewing the ways in which
Norway receives asylum-seekers. They conducted mappings among local re
sidents at Torshov and interviewed people with special expertise on asylum-
seekers’ situations, including the asylum-seekers themselves. OT proclaimed a
vision in which asylum-seekers might freely choose places to live other than the
reception centres without losing their social and economic welfare benefits.3 To
do this, the team developed a prototype of a digital platform, an app called
bnbOPEN, to facilitate access to accommodation offered by the local popula
tion. OT also envisaged shared arenas that could facilitate encounters between
the local population and the newly arrived asylum-seeker through OPENhouse.
Such arenas might, for instance, be an expansion of an already existing library, a
municipal meeting house or other buildings and could provide, for instance,
open-access web, a café, a repair garage, yoga classes and exchanges of skills
that may contribute to an open meeting arena. OPENhouse should be de
signed as a tool-box of useful functions adjustable according to local needs
and to be anchored in the local community and the neighbourhood’s various
agents of co-operation. Finally, through the concept of OPENhousing, OT
sought to challenge the hegemony of market forces in the housing sector.
Figure 10.2 RVW installation with a table showing a map of Oslo and stacks of
playing cards.
Photo: Istvan Virag.
Figure 10.3 OPENTransformation concept drawing showing its three strategies.

Illustration: OPENTransformation.
Here, they investigated alternative housing models to those dictated by the

current dynamics of the real estate sector, thereby aiming to present the ar
rival of migrants and asylum-seekers as an opportunity to “re-imagine
housing policies and regulations in Norway” (Søiland, Klepsvik & Hagen,
2016, p. 361).
From ideas to interventions

While the curators focused on concepts such as identity and belonging, the
teams were more oriented towards practices and interventions to stimulate
‘integration’ and how to create connections between newcomers and local
communities. They questioned distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and
dealt with how to engage with and include refugees in urban spaces and
everyday spatial practices on an equal basis as local residents.
Both together and separately, the two teams expressed ideas and values
they sought to communicate through interventions such as ‘movement’,
‘making connection’, ‘opening up’, ‘participation’, ‘reciprocity’ and
‘equality’, all of which spoke of identity and belonging. From such ideas,
both teams stretched their interventions beyond buildings and material
structures to speak more about the networks, applications and entries that
provide possibilities for new belongings and identities.
Movement: making connections
RVW emphasized how movement is essential for integration, as well as for
a sense of belonging:
You cannot belong without being able to move freely. […] Belonging
depends on contacts. … a need for free movement, to make connections, to
be visible. […] Movement is not only moving around in the city, it is
creating contact, making connections visible. Then you belong. In some
countries, asylum seekers are not admitted to the city center, free movement
is not allowed. Integration is about making connections to the local.
(RVW, March 2016)
The proposed stack of playing cards was meant to be a practical tool allowing
people to give their reasons for connecting, and not only to obtain information:
We do not want make a book or booklet. This becomes too static. Our idea
now is to present the guide as a stack of playing cards […] It is much more
flexible. Each card [52] presents a place with photo and a brief text. The
place can also be located on a map. The point is, the card can be used as an
excuse to make contacts, the asylum seeker has to ask someone where the
place is. […] In addition, the cards can be played with. Playing cards are
something most people can relate to and know how to use.
(RVW, May 2016)
The stack of playing cards illustrates the changeability and instability of be
longing, as it relates to a selection of current urban spaces, as well as access to
and the quality of health and welfare services. Forced migration instils a feeling
of being torn away and discarded, while paradoxically also being thrown open
to new possibilities and connections. As such, we understand RVW’s ideas and
interventions to be in line with Cresswell’s (2006) argument that mobility in
volves both the body and society, as well as the city and its infrastructure
(Graham & Marvin, 2001). Moreover, the intervention suggests that belonging
is related to cultural continuity, not to be understood as being attached to places
alone, but as something dynamic and connected to routes rather than roots
(Appadurai, 1996). The stack of playing cards captures how living and dwelling
are conceived as a mobile habitation of time and space, not as fixed and closed
structures, but as supplying an opening and a movement in what constitutes our
senses of belonging.
Opening up: equality, reciprocity, participation

OT stated that they preferred the term ‘opening up’ to ‘integration’ and that
integration and belonging are about “providing access to public spaces”,
“being able to participate”, “[using] one’s own capacity and knowledge”
and “being able to be part of society”: “It [OPENHouse] has to build on
local involvement […] It’s a lot about reciprocity, which means that
Norwegians are not there to provide help but because they want to get
something in return” (OT, August 2016). OT explained that their three
strategies are stages in a process of integration, starting with living close to
locals in temporary accommodation (bnbOPEN), followed by providing
arenas for social encounters in a larger context (OPENhouse), and then
finally being offered permanent housing on similar terms to the local po
pulation (OPENhousing). They saw in the concept of ‘opening up’ a
statement acknowledging that it is more about ‘us’ than about ‘them’:
How can we make a concept that makes the Norwegians open up? I would
have loved to use more time on creating social arenas […] For me, how
people meet has been the most important issue […] as a process towards the
more permanent, to normalize the situation for the asylum seekers.
(OT, September 2016)
The question of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is connected with discussions about how dif
ferent levels of outsideness and insideness affect place-making processes (Teder,
2018). This further relates to place attachment and belonging, as these require a
degree of insideness. However, too much insideness on the part of some groups
may lead to the exclusion of others. As such, ‘belonging is a measure at once of
inclusion and of exclusion’, as Scott (2016, p. 24) has pointed out.
OT’s focus on opening up in terms of providing places and arenas for
participation and making use of “one’s own knowledge” goes beyond the
usual categories such as ‘labour migrant’, ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum-seeker’ and
towards belonging based on reciprocal and mutual humanity, rather than
classifications and distinctions associated with the ideas of assimilation and
integration. This echoes a view of identity and belonging as being created in
the course of social life, rather than in an ‘ethnos’ that is often designated as
an indisputable ‘biological fact’ (Baumann, 1997, p. 213). Thus, OT’s in
tervention suggests a human disposition for connecting in everyday life and
creating future visions that includes new senses of belonging and identity
that embrace the other as part of the self (Grønseth, 2013).
“You can’t solve anything by building buildings”

Being given the challenge to create interventions that may support processes
in which refugees might gain a sense of belonging in their new country and
city, both proposals argued that this could not be answered by merely
building a house.
What is architecture? The city is architecture – all is about architecture.

[… Architecture] is a method. It is a process of examination, which can
serve as a starting point for a building, a program, or some participa
tion. [… We] want to add layers of activity to the architectural model
or map. Movement takes place in physical spaces […] We don’t think
you can solve something by building buildings.
(RVW, March 2016)
Instead of thinking of architecture as buildings, therefore, the two proposals

approach architecture as a mode of inquiry, much like the anthropology-by-
means-of-architecture proposed by Ingold (2013). Architecture here, rather
than built entities, becomes a tool for exploring cultural possibilities
(Lefebvre, 2002). The proposals thus represented alternatives to the ma
jority of suggestions for resolving the ‘refugee crisis’ that architects and the
building sector in general presented in 2015 and 2016. Mostly these sug
gestions consisted of design proposals intended to improve the life situa
tions of the newcomers and to support the integration process by means of
‘high-quality’ shelters and temporary structures (e.g. Schmal et al., 2017).
Although the teams advocated a broad approach to what architecture is
or should be, there was a certain ambivalence, especially on the part of OT,
expressed in an underlying presumption that all architects basically dream
of building something:
We were afraid that architecture was not present enough in our proposal;
our project was more tuned towards a reflective process. […] Architecture is
important, but it can also play a larger role. In a way, what we do is a kind
of exploration that can work as a starting point for architecture. Ideally, we
would like to build something in the continuation of this.
(OT, April 2016)
In their original proposal, OT floated the idea of building a pavilion as part of

OPENhouse. The fact that the jury advised against this was due not only to
limitations of time and money, but also because it was not regarded as essential
in order to create the discussion they were aiming at. Ideally, however, OT
hoped to be able to build something in the aftermath of the Triennale, perhaps
together with architectural students: “We would like to engage architects and
are a bit afraid that there will be too much focus on the app” (OT, April 2016).
The ambivalence voiced by OT was also present in the jury’s discussions on the
submitted proposals. While one of our interviewees appreciated the projects
including a sophisticated architectural discussion and regarded the winners as
having interesting architectural ideas, others were more sceptic:
There were several tough discussions, mainly regarding the under

standing of the role of architecture. Several proposals were character
ized by a lack of understanding of their role as architects. They don’t
know what their contribution is. You have to know what your
competence is as an architect. […] Architects should improve their
skills to build.
(Jury member, August 2016)
In reviews of After Belonging, moreover, a similar scepticism was ex
pressed, not particularly related to the two proposals for the Torshov site,
but rather to the whole event. The lack of ‘new architectural ideas’ was
interpreted as a sign of the profession’s experience of powerlessness and
lack of identity (Brochmann, 2016) as well as of “an underlying academic
fear of architecture in itself” (Braathen, 2016).
In line with current debates (e.g. Awan et al., 2011), RVW and OT share
an activist approach to their role as architects. They both have a social
commitment and see participation in OAT as an opportunity to have a say
in public. Both teams question the understanding that the role of architects
is limited to designing buildings. Rather than just presenting ‘new archi
tectural ideas’, they are entering into a larger debate on urban space and
housing. They see the exhibition entries as a way to challenge existing
immigration policies limiting asylum-seekers’ senses of identity and be
longing, and their links with the larger society. This reflects an approach to
architecture and urban spaces as not just autonomous products and objects,
but as continuously changing entities entangled in and dependent on social,
cultural, economic and political contexts. It further sees materiality as being
agentive in itself, that is, as having the capacity to change everyday urban
life (Latour & Yaneva, 2009; Doucet & Cupers, 2009).
Concluding remarks: towards an architectural anthropology

of urban space and senses of belonging
Our aim in this chapter has been to explore how the RVW and OT proposals
perceived the interplay between architectural interventions and sociocultural
change with a special focus on the field of migration and refugees. More spe
cifically, we have looked at how both teams conceptualized and objectified
transformations in belonging by addressing asylum-seekers’ movements in urban
spaces, as well as their access to public arenas and housing.
It is becoming more evident than ever that architecture and urban struc
tures, such as the kind of accommodation and access to public spaces, can be
used to exclude people and control migration. The RVW and OT proposals
are examples of how perspectives from architectural anthropology may en
force architectural practice in its striving to make cities more inclusive.
Considering how both teams see architecture as a relational process which
may provoke public debates about social and political issues, indicates new
ways of practicing architecture. Hereby the discipline demonstrates similar
engagement and reflections, that are at heart of anthropology. Furthermore,
we argue that both teams not only expand their own practices but merge the
roles of academics and practitioners within the two disciplines. Launching an
endeavour to engage and reach out to marginalized others, here asylum-
seekers, it appears that the RVW and OT teams both run the risk of mar
ginalizing themselves within their profession. As they respond to new social
and architectural landscapes, we suggest that both teams are advocating new
modes of inclusion and belonging for asylum-seekers, while simultaneously
challenging their profession to develop new forms of architecture. This effort
both engages and inspires a mode of inquiry that has been put forward by
architectural anthropology, as it stimulates critical exploration of citizens’
experiences of urban lived spaces.
Notes
1 http://oslotriennale.no/en/
2 The project ‘What Buildings Do: The Effect of the Physical Environment on Quality of
Life of Asylum Seekers’ was funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the
Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) for the period 2012–2017. It was led by
the Faculty of Architecture and Fine Arts, NTNU. Other partners were SINTEF
Building and Infrastructure, and Lillehammer University College.
3 According to Norwegian immigration regulations, asylum-seekers lose the right
to benefits such as financial support if they choose to leave the reception centre.
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Part III
Processes of creativity,
participation, and design
Edited by Eli Støa and Aina Landsverk Hagen
What is an idea – and how are ideas part of the creative processes of architects
and anthropologists alike? As ‘master builders’,1 architecture is about meeting
the needs of future occupants, taking on societal challenges, and enchanting
audiences, be it juries, collaborators, clients, the media, or the public through
words, miniature models, sketched lines, and design choices into believing
that the impossible is possible and that the future is almost already here. From
the viewpoint of anthropologists, architects are powerful shamans of our
public and private spheres, with the buildings and landscapes they make, the
changing aesthetics they promote, and the materiality they invoke.
Nevertheless, architecture is not just about seducing an audience (or each
other) with innovative design concepts or stunning visualizations. It is also
about juggling the conflicting interests of clients, future occupants, commis
sioners, contractors, and collaborative domains, such as engineering and
construction work, or the ever more pressing demands of involving a diverse
audience as participators and severe environmental and social challenges.
A building or landscape is never one object or surface. Layers of functions
and structures comprise what appears to be a unity. The same applies to
organizations, institutions, collectives, or groups of people, as anthro
pologists are aware. Human beings are involved in a multiplicity of material
actors and phenomena throughout all phases of the creative process from
idea to construction and beyond. Different versions of the same object (e.g.
renderings, pilot buildings, and design concepts) coexist through relations of
practices and are simultaneously multiple and fluid. Thus, one should never
take them for granted, and this should also be reflected in our analyses.
Both researchers and practitioners frequently encounter dilemmas in dealing
with humans, materials, machines, physical and digital objects, software, and
organisms. The questions that arise in every social, relational, or physical in
teraction are crucial in shaping idea creation and the processes of designing,
building, and testing/using structures, landscapes, and public spaces.
The chapters in Part III address different phases of creating built spaces –
from the early stages of involving future user groups in the design and
178 Støa & Hagen
construction phases to the operation of completed buildings and public
spaces. The chapters are organized according to these phases, starting with
Chapter 11 by Ingrid M. Tolstad and Astri Margareta Dalseide. They
present examples of how perspectives and techniques from anthropology
and architecture contribute to reassessing and exploring existing and po
tential notions and practices of youth participation in urban development
processes. An emphasis is placed upon how methodological explorations in
the intersection of architecture and anthropology can introduce modes of
inquiry that encourage and facilitate creative capacities and the courage of
youth, expanding beyond the immediate context of participation.
Chapter 12, authored by Drew Nathan Thilmany, examines the an
thropological fieldwork and interdisciplinary design process conducted
within the Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects for a university building
in Toronto, Canada. Focusing on how anthropological methods and insight
become architectural design drivers within the project, the author explores
how the concept of ‘inclusivity’ emerged as a design dimension, became a
research object, and was transformed into a spatial concept that circulates
throughout the design process. This chapter illustrates how anthropology
can help solve complex design issues in practice.
Chapter 13, authored by Anette Stenslund and Mikkel Bille, discusses the
credibility of architectural renderings. The authors emphasize the need to
understand the complex social construction of renderings as a creative
process, where credibility is more dependent on how it feels than by what
one can merely observe on the rendering. They highlight how the rendering
of atmosphere leads to a transformation of feelings. In their chapter, they
illustrate how the atmosphere is embedded in the processes of rendering
itself and that the appreciation of atmospheric qualities determines the
correspondence between rendering architects and materialities.
In Chapter 14, Silje Erøy Sollien and Søren Nielsen analyse the re
lationship between the architectural design and a changing constellation of
actors in an ongoing, innovative, and collaborative housing development
process in a medium-sized Danish city. They describe how the building
cooperative meets many challenges, including a construction process set up
for certain types of professional actors and how a different client organi
zation must be developed to finance the project. Their analysis of the
process depicts how an architectural anthropological research approach can
unlock some of the ‘black boxes’ of the legal-financial structures strongly
influencing housing and building projects.
Finally, Chapter 15, authored by Ruth Woods and Thomas Berker,
presents an analysis of two pilot projects that failed to reach the set ob
jectives. They argue that one reason for the failure is that the projects fol
lowed the technical logic of testing and demonstrating the feasibility of new
sustainable technologies, while the building occupants were reduced to
passive recipients. The resulting open or hidden resistance towards new
technologies caused the pilot buildings to perform poorly. In what the
Creativity, participation, and design 179
authors call architectural anthropological navigation, pilot buildings should
instead become ‘lived spaces’, where outsider perspectives embodied by new
technologies and architectural solutions are combined with the occupants’
experiential knowledge. They call for pilot buildings that are designed,
implemented, and used as spaces where engineers, architects, and anthro
pologists become co-designers of future building solutions in collaboration
with future users.
Note
1 Etymologically, the term architect derives from the Greek arkhitecton: arkhi-,
chief + tekton-, builder (source: Online Etymology Dictionary, www.etymon
line.com).
11 Architectural anthropologists in
the making?
Paths to creative youth participation
in local urban development
Ingrid M. Tolstad and
Astri Margareta Dalseide
In recent years, Norway has seen an increased focus upon and demand for
user and citizen participation in urban development. A particular emphasis is
placed upon the importance and significance of taking the perspectives of
young people into consideration, for instance in terms of how children’s and
youth’s participation is required by law in all officially funded urban devel
opment projects through the Norwegian Planning and Building Act (Hagen,
Brattbakk, Andersen, Dahlgren, & Ascher, 2016). This legal implementation
of youth’s right to participate is in line with the UNs Convention on the
Rights of the Child, which states “that any child capable of forming a view
has the right to express views freely in all matters affecting him or her”
(Hodgkin & Newell, 1998, p. 149). However, despite this rising attention
towards the significance and applicability of citizen and youth participation,
actual participation beyond verbal input recorded in official reports is hard to
come by. The perspectives and input from youth rarely have any real impact
in planning processes (Falleth, Hanssen, & Saglie, 2008, 2010), and the
youth participation processes conducted often ends up as a means towards
allowing public officials to ‘tick the box’ for having listened to youth and
thus meeting their lawful requirements.
Participation in urban development is still largely based upon a market
and consumer logic, where the intended outcome of involving local citizens
or residents (as consumers) is to optimize the ability to deliver these in
habitants the built environment that they need and want. Many conducted
participation processes must thus be said to fail in the ability to account for
the ‘customers’ needs and desires. However, a more serious consequence
might be the lack of experiencing any tangible results in one’s local sur
roundings after repeated involvement in participatory processes. This might
lead to what we refer to as ‘participation fatigue’ (Hagen, 2017), defined as
“tiredness which often happens when people absent themselves from par
taking in the political and democratic processes due to unmet expectation/
empty promises and a non-responsive government” (Tshishonga, 2020),
making people, and especially youth, hesitant and unwilling towards future
participation. Simultaneously, the market logic of urban planning processes
implies an inherent reluctance towards allowing and facilitating for (youth)
182 Tolstad & Dalseide
participation, in terms of how it might interrupt the designated budget and
schedule for the planned project.
Drawing on experiences from a Norwegian research and innovation
project on the involvement of youth in local planning processes, this
chapter combines perspectives and techniques from anthropology and ar
chitecture towards rethinking and exploring existing and potential notions
and practices of youth participation in urban development processes.
A particular emphasis is placed on how the exploration and combination of
methodological approaches from architecture and anthropology brings
forth a mode of inquiry that opens up, encourages and facilitates the
creative capacities and courage of youth that moves beyond the immediate
context of participation.
The Y-House project

In the project “A Place to be Young: Methods and framework for in
novative participation in the development and establishment of youth
places (Y-House)”,1 researchers from the Oslo Metropolitan University
(OsloMet) along with practitioners have teamed up with eight Norwegian
municipalities and boroughs2 to explore and test how youth can be in
volved in the development of local youth places. The project’s approach on
methodological development is highly explorative, and unfolds in close
collaboration with (and drawing on experience from) specific local con
texts, and their local inhabitants and municipalities. We consistently work
with and through creative, visual, and tactile mediations, such as drawing,
embroidery, and photography. As elaborated on below, youth are given
training in ethnographic as well as architectural methods, which they apply
in the accumulation of knowledge integrated in their participatory activ
ities, and make use of maps, observational tools, interview guides and
physical models to understand and explore existing and potential built
environments. The Y-House project thus positions itself in the intersection
of anthropology and architecture both in terms of drawing on and com
bining the respective disciplines’ methodological approaches, and through a
shared ontological perspective concerning the relationship between people
and their material (and other non-human) surroundings. The youth that are
invited to participate in the project’s activities primarily range from 13 to
19 years of age, while young adults up to 25 have also been involved. These
youths are recruited in a range of ways, depending on various aspects
within the municipal context, related to local demographics, ambitions and
abilities to reach specific target groups, and the specific anchoring of the Y-
House project within the municipal organization.
While the composition of the project team has a leaning towards anthro
pology (such as the first author of this chapter), it also includes researchers
from disciplines such as psychology, history, human geography, and demo
graphy. The scope of the team is further widened by the involvement of an
Paths to creative youth participation 183
artist, a photographer, and an architect (second author of this chapter), who
take an active part in the development and implementation of participatory
methods. The co-creative action taken is here aimed both at facilitating or
ganizational change – in terms of re-organizing the ways in which munici
palities involve youth, and at empowering youth towards becoming local
architects of social change (Bastien & Holmarsdottir, 2018). The efforts made
towards achieving these aims are firmly grounded upon a perspective that
identifies and emphasizes the need to build, release, and facilitate for creativity
as a core competence in and for youth.
An ANT take on youth participation

Ontologically, our perspective is founded upon the notion that being a
human in the world is based upon the primacy of perception (Merleau-
Ponty, 1964), i.e. our bodily interaction with our material surroundings
through our senses. The act of sensing, through sight, smell, taste, touch
and hearing, can be thought of as “bodily ways of gathering information”
(Geurts, 2002, p. 3), and the embodiment of knowledge as “a process that
is integral to the relationship between humans and their environments”
(Pink, 2009, p. 24). This implies that the material contexts that we live our
lives within play a fundamental role for how we understand the world, and
for how we can live our lives within it.
Simultaneously, moving around in the world with our bodies, we in
evitably leave our marks, as when repeated movements leave traces in the
shape of pathways in the landscape. We also use tools and materials to
deliberately shape and change our surroundings, towards practical use or
aesthetic pleasure. Within what is often referred to as the material or post-
humanist turn, attention is thus turned not only towards the significance of
non-human entities, but also towards the interconnectedness and interac
tion between all kinds of entities – human and non-human alike. In Bruno
Latour’s terms, any thing or any one can (and should) be analytically ap
proached not in terms of their inherent qualities, but rather as “made to
exist by its many ties” (Latour, 2005, p. 217), i.e. through their relations
and connection with a range of others. According to Latour, connections
are established through the ways in which such someones and somethings
act upon each other, i.e. do things that produce effects in others.
This approach allows us to delve into the question of what youth par
ticipation in urban planning might actually entail. Latour (2005) refers to
actors that are tied into another actor-networks as participants in that as
semblage. In this sense, participation implies being connected into some
thing that unfolds through the effect one can produce within it over time,
thus contributing to the way it is being assembled. This further resonates
with the Norwegian word for participation as being ‘medvirkning’, which
translates directly as ‘co-effect’.
Participatory entanglements – facilitating creative
competence and courage
The methodological explorations presented here unfold in the intersection
of anthropological and architectural traditions and perspectives, in terms of
how they emphasize the sociality and materiality inherent in the inter-
connectedness and interaction between human and non-human actors. As
Culhane (2017) points out, ethnographic research operates beyond the re
searchers as such, and can be approached as the ‘entangled relationships’ of
humans, non-humans, natural, social and virtual environments – in its very
essence representing a co-production of knowledge. It thus contains a (co-)
creative aspect that goes beyond the premise of creativity as a fundamental
human capacity that enables people to “create the new, new forms of re
lationships and new forms of common life” (Carrithers, 1992, p. 70),
embracing our interaction with our non-human and material surroundings.
For architects, the exploration of an idea is in many ways not initiated
until that emerging ‘something’ makes its way from thought or conversa
tion into some kind of material form – i.e. someone starts drawing it. Not
until it has become something visible, tangible, touchable, can the creative
process move forward. As described by Hagen and Rudningen (2012), the
lines that architects draw are not merely something they sell to make a
living; the ability to turn these lines on paper into actual buildings and
landscapes holds a strong potential to affect clients and audiences.
Considering the element of power that thus resides in the initial material
conceptualization of urban development projects, inviting youth and other
citizens into the tactile exploration and physical materialization of a local
area’s imaginable possibilities clearly expands the notion of what it means
to participate in urban development.
In the Y-House project, we have consistently been exploring, developing,
and testing tools and methods that can enable youth to connect with and
into their local environments, communities and ongoing local planning
processes. This work unfolds in a shared creative space in which architects,
anthropologists and others draw, experiment, reflect, and not least laugh
(Morreall, 1991) together. A central aim has been to provide youth with
competence and knowledge that allows them to continue to expand and
explore the potential range of themselves as actor(-network)s and the tra
jectories they move along, also beyond the immediate scope of the desig
nated participation process. Such an approach has in part emerged as a
reaction towards traditional participation processes where asking youth
‘what they want’ tends to be the starting point, without first opening up
rooms for reflection and imagination that allow participants to explore
what might actually be possible and desirable within their local context and
beyond. We argue that this is required in order not merely to provide
‘thicker’ answers for municipal planners, but to enable and empower youth
as creative (local) citizens in their own right.
Conducting participatory work within a societal and educational context
that seems to emphasize convergent rather than divergent thinking (Akbari
Chermahini & Hommel, 2012) we have repeatedly met youth who in
various ways share how they ‘didn’t know they had ideas’. For us this
amplifies the need to focus on creativity, and the ambition to play a part in
building youth’s competence for creative thinking. Drawing on Ingold’s
notion that it is through meeting each other, or crossing paths, that the lives
of human and non-human inhabitants such as local youth, existing physical
structures, municipal planners, and prospective building projects become
“bound up with the other” (Ingold, 2011, p. 148), we might be said to
facilitate encounters, i.e. “multiple interface meeting points where some
thing different from something else meets that something else and some
thing happens” (Bateson, 1980, emphasis added). This resonates with a
fundamental understanding of creativity as a social process – as something
that is not located within people, but rather unfolds as entanglements be
tween us within specific social and cultural contexts (Sawyer & DeZutter,
2009; Amabile, 1996). In our joint practical methodological efforts as an
thropologist and architect, we are thus driven by the question of how we
can facilitate processes that releases youth’s creativity on several levels.
Below we present four sequential modes of inquiry that have been tested
out in the Y-House project and discuss the ways in which they might
contribute to creative youth participation in local urban development.
Mapping
The participatory sessions we facilitate are usually always initiated by use
of the SPLOT method (Hagen & Osuldsen, forthcoming) – an exercise
aimed towards establishing trust as we start working with a group of young
participants in the establishment of a local youth place. This has repeatedly
been followed by an exercise where the youth are asked to conduct an in
itial mapping of their local communities. Aerial photographs of the
neighbourhood are printed on large cardboard posters (A1) and laid out on
a table that the youth gather around, either plenary, or in groups. They are
provided with a box of pins in different colours and are asked to use these
pins and mark sites according to the pins’ color-coding. Yellow might
designate ‘places that we/youth like to hang out’, green ‘here we/youth do
sports/activities’, purple ‘places we/youth avoid’, pink ‘here there should be
something for youth’, orange ‘here youth are allowed to decide’, and a grey
flag pin ‘this is an important place because …’. The youth are then en
couraged to pin down their own ideas for specific locations in the neigh
bourhood.
Confronted with the clean map, the youth will usually start out by
finding out where they live and sharing this information with each other.
While reserved at first, the process of physically putting down pins (en
couraged by a ‘competent adult’ present) and seeing the map slowly
changing before their eyes, due to what they are doing, seems to heighten
their courage and increase the speed of creative interaction with the map.
They might start drawing on the map, becoming increasingly bold in what
they dare to imagine and wish for. This exercise inspires conversations
about how the area is internally connected, as well as exchanges of ex
periences, preferences, and new insights. Through interacting with the
physical map, the youth can thus encounter their local area in other ways
than they have previously done, allowing them to draw (new) connections
between their lived sociality and the surroundings they move about in. The
fact that the process becomes visible through tactile interaction with the
map, that they can observe in real time how they are making their mark on
it, seems to help them along in the creative process. Having something to
show and compare with the work of others seems to build courage, and
thus becomes a fruitful starting point for what is to follow. A colleague who
conducted this exercise in smaller groups than usual, with smaller maps
(A3) and with stickers representing fewer categories, could report that this
did not produce the same level of engagement and group interaction as we
usually experience. It would thus seem that both the size of the group
working together, the size of the map and the 3D effect of flag pins on the
map influences the creative potential of the exercise.
Figure 11.1 Youth marking significant locations on maps of their local area.
Trailing
After training the youth in ethnographic observation and interviewing, we
send them out into their local community to do ‘tråkk’, which can be
translated to trailing in English. In the initial training we emphasize how
to ‘turn on the gaze’ on surroundings that are familiar to us, the im
portance of reflecting about what it is that we are observing based upon
our own positionality, and the empirical richness that comes with coming
up with and asking good questions. The youth then go out in small groups
to ‘trail’ the neighbourhood. Depending on the size of the overall group of
youth, we might provide each group with a specific lens to go out and
explore their neighbourhood, such as a ‘food trail’, a ‘sports trail’ or a
‘public transportation trail’. They are asked to observe for a while, before
coming together in the group and form a set of questions based on what
they have seen. They will then conduct short interviews with people they
meet ‘in the field’. Before initiating an interview, we ask them to present
themselves, explain what they are doing, and to ask permission from the
potential respondent.
We then gather in a plenary session where they present their findings to
each other. In these sessions, we tend to experience well-reflected discussion
concerning what they have actually observed, what might have influenced
the results, and ethical conundrums they had to face. Having conducted
trails that required them to take on a different perspective or position than
their own, they also tend to bring back insights into what matters to bi
cyclists, parents with strollers or the elderly. Through the activity of
trailing, the aim is to not only accumulate context-sensitive and inter
subjective knowledge about their own localities but youth are also equipped
with skills as to how to acquire such knowledge.
This exercise resonates with how a part of architectural practice is the
inspection of the actual site where one plans to build, as well as the sur
rounding area. The focus is here on the materiality of what you see, hear
and smell – and otherwise take in with your senses. Forming an image of
what kind of place this is, and the context it is situated within, provides
input into the issue of what can and should be built there. An architect
would most likely start drawing out sketches or diagrammatic maps on
site, to provide a foundation for the creative process lying ahead. This
focus on the physicality of a place can trigger creativity in intuitive ways,
producing tactile, rather than verbal, ideas about what could and should
be there – and not. While we have thus far not asked the participating
youth to draw or sketch on site, being there and observing seems to make
it easier to turn on memories and references. The conversations between
the youth tend to revolve around what they see and not, and comparisons
made to other places they know of. This mode of inquiry thus seems to
open up a room of imagination about what might be, in itself a strong
prerequisite for creativity.
Scouting
All of the youth groups we have worked with in the Y-House project have
been on excursions to other youth places, in an exercise we here refer to as
scouting. After preparing them in advance, the visiting youth start out by
going around and observing the location in question, noting down their
observations and reflections along the way in a designated ‘excursion
booklet’. Based on their observations, they compose a short interview guide
used to interview local youth present. Asking questions related both to the
physical layout and the ongoing activities of a location, the youth thus
acquire an impression not only of the materiality of the house, but also of
how it is socially organized. Throughout the project period it has become
increasingly clear that this type of peer-to-peer observation and inter
viewing not only gives a much better insight into what actually matters to
local youth, but also contributes to more nuanced perspectives of what
aspects of the youth place in question functions well for the local youth and
not. This has perhaps been particularly noticeable when visiting a renowned
co-location and co-organization of a local library, youth club and volunteer
centre in one of the Oslo boroughs, which is repeatedly referred to by adults
as ‘the ones who have really made it work’, implying that it is something to
strive towards replicating in their own district. The youth who have scouted
these facilities have been more critical, for instance pointing out the interior
as being ‘too adult’, and that they would want their own youth area to be
more secluded from the rest of the house (using curtains or doors) providing
‘time off’ from adults.
Each excursion has been concluded with a shared summing up of and
reflection upon the findings they have made, as well as a brainstorming
of ideas for their own place. Here we have made use of a variation of the
SPLOT exercise, where they first gather all their findings in an ‘excursion
site SPLOT’, then transfer elements they like to a ‘home site SPLOT’
which is added on with new ideas they have come up with during the
scouting. Allowing the youth to experience and engage with other youth
places’ material surroundings and to explore the perspectives of those
habitually dwelling within them, has seemed to enable them to imagine
themselves within similar settings, to consider what elements from it they
would bring into their own youth place or not, and to inspire new ideas
about what they can create within their own context. In our experience,
scouting is one the most powerful tools for motivating youth to parti
cipate and to empower them to demand more. Scouting a different youth
place enables them to turn on the gaze and ignite imagination around
their home site in very hands-on ways. The feedback provided to the
(deciding) adults becomes stronger and clearer through the youth’s
realization of what is possible and what others have received, and that
these are things that they cannot merely wish for but also demand from
decision-makers.
Modelling
Facilitating for the youth to engage further with the potentiality of their
own youth place, they are given architectural foam board models of the
planned facility or of the existing location to be used, depending on the
local context. The youth work on them in groups, with free reigns as to
what they want to put into them, and how they want to modify them.
They are provided with colour pens, patterned paper, fabrics, photo
graphs, stickers, and little figurines that represent people that they can
use in any way that they want. The models are made to scale (1:50), and
the youth also get properly scaled printouts of the floor plans for some
of the places they have scouted. This allows them to make assessments
as to what there might be room for in a given part of the space, and to
play around with their placement. The fact that the references are rea
listically scaled seems to give the youth an even deeper understanding of
the architectonic aspects of the space in terms of enabling them to ex
plore and test the actual room of possibilities. Municipalities are often
concerned with communicating the realistic expectations that youth
might have for what they can participate in the decision of. The mod
elling work constitute a space for play and creativity in which youth are
allowed to think outside the immediate realms of the boundaries that
are outlined. Engaging with physical representations of not yet built
spaces with their hands and additional senses, places the youth in the
very intersection of what is and what might be – of what they can ob
serve and what they can creatively imagine. The high level of con
creteness involved in modelling seems to require more creative courage
from the youth than some of the other modes of inquiry do, as they
often censor themselves creatively due to fear of making mistakes or
‘destroying’ the model. This is juxtaposed with a sense of relief, con
fidence and pride as the model is finalized, as the tangible result of what
they have done is made visible to others, emphasizing an experience of
having made a contribution.
Continued paths for creative youth participation

The perspective that is presented here, promoting a methodological ap
proach to youth participation in the intersection of anthropology and ar
chitecture, aims at challenging the predominance of consumer and market
logic within urban planning. Rather than aiming towards and failing to
identify and meet the needs of residents as ‘users’, we argue for an approach
that facilitates for heterogeneous encounters that can produce effects in
unforeseen ways, flattening the landscape towards participation in its
broadest sense. In terms of youth participation this implies allowing, as
sisting and encouraging youth to explore and act upon their surroundings
and their own position within them based on their own perspectives as
Figure 11.2 Youth working on an architectural model of their planned local youth
place.
Photo: Astri Margareta Dalseide.
humans rather than as invited participants in (parts of) planning processes.

It also entails enabling the creative making and reshuffling of new and
existing human and non-human actor-networks, in ways that allow for
continued and sustainable interaction and co-creation.
The modes of inquiry that have been presented must along with the ex
panded arsenal of tools and methods for creative participation applied in
the Y-House project be considered a work in progress. Indeed, a funda
mental aspect of our methodological approach is the ongoing exploration
and adjustment of a toolbox that continues to be ‘in the making’. We
present others, such as youth, municipality workers and fellow researchers,
with tools in a specific form and descriptions of how to use them. We both
encourage and strive to enable our collaborators to continue the explora
tion and adjustment of these tools to their own specific needs and contexts.
The efforts to do so are in themselves grounded in a creatively aimed
combination of the anthropological practice of reflexivity and the archi
tectural nerve to draw the first line. We share reflections and ideas, verbally
and tactically, in preparation and execution of participatory sessions, and
exchange our experiences as we debrief a completed session together.
Through such interactions we learn how bringing a foam board model on
the table can awaken the youth’s motivation to participate, ‘finally some
thing is happening!’, as such tactile exercises adds an element of fun that is
not always prominent in participatory processes. It makes us realize that
not all exercises work equally well with all youth, and that taking them
through a variety of approaches increases the chances that the experience of
entering and exploring one’s own creative space is more widely distributed
within the group. Involving different age groups, it becomes clear that
working with scale is more suitable for the older youth, while the younger
ones get less out of working with specific references to scale. In order to
maintain the youth’s creative courage, we have learned that they benefit
from a present adult that can support them along the way. Based on these
shared insights, we can bring out our markers and re-sketch the toolkit
needed for the next session.
There is considerable variation in the extent to which the participatory
work we facilitate has an actual effect on the specific planning processes in
question. Some youth have played a major part in seeing their local youth
club being established and continue to be involved in the everyday running
of it. Others have seen their efforts dwindle as a project comes to a halt
due to political, economic, or practical issues, something which is far from
uncommon in planning processes that unfold over long-time spans.
However, we consider these participatory sessions to have potential ef
fects on several levels, whereof the establishment of the specific youth
place is but one. We see that building creative capacity and competence in
youth also holds the potential to make them more competent and
courageous as participants in their local communities (and beyond).
Having acquired a set of creative skills in the intersection of the social and
the tactile that can be actively applied in their becoming with society,
youth can – as architectural anthropologists in the making – make crea
tivity a foundational element in the processes of youth participation in
urban planning.
Notes
1 The project is financed by The Research Council of Norway, through their
program “Democracy, innovation and renewal” (FORKOMMUNE).
2 Five boroughs in Oslo (project owner Østensjø, St Hanshaugen, Alna,
Grünerløkka, and Vestre Aker), as well as Tromsø, Drammen, and Moss muni
cipalities.
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12 Questioning the shape of social
concepts
Transforming anthropological
insights into architectural design
drivers
Drew Nathan Thilmany
In 2017, I began my doctoral research studying how architects and building

occupants approach community development and notions of shared space
in architecture. Over three years, from 2017 to 2019, I conducted the
fieldwork for my dissertation within the Danish firm Henning Larsen
Architects.1 Within the company, I became the first anthropologist in the
Research and Development Department. From this position, my role was to
solve specific architectural design problems while developing anthro
pological components for the overall design methodology being practiced
by the company. This was accomplished by collaborating on active design
projects, where I represented the anthropological component of an inter
disciplinary and often international design process.
This chapter focuses on the first project I participated in at Henning
Larsen Architects, an approach I developed, and how I apply anthro
pological research to help develop architectural design tools within the firm.
When I joined the project, the design team was in the process of developing
a new building for the Science Faculty at Ryerson University, located in
downtown Toronto, Canada. The anthropological fieldwork I designed for
the project focuses on both the design team and current and former students
at Ryerson University.2
What I learned over the course of this project led me to frame what I do
within the company as questioning the shape of social concepts. Initially,
I found it very difficult to explain to my colleagues at Henning Larsen that
there is not a “one size fits all” solution to developing a socially-driven
architectural design process: unpacking the relationship between a design
concept and spatial experience requires investigating specific processes,
in specific places, with specific people. As I will demonstrate below,
communicating this idea through empirical material helps clarify how
anthropology can expand and qualify different elements of architectural
design by adding evidence, data, and narrative that informs the design
process and helps the team communicate the reasoning behind design
choices.
Questioning the shape of social concepts 195
You don’t know what inclusivity means to us
10 February 2017, 10:04 a.m.: “She basically looked at us and said, ‘As a
group of white Danish men, I don’t think you know what inclusivity means
to us here at Ryerson.’”
Clustered around an ink-stained table in the atrium of Henning Larsen’s
Copenhagen headquarters, David, Søren, and Nikolaj introduce me to one
of their current projects: the future home of Ryerson University’s Science
Faculty, the Innovation in Science Building in downtown Toronto. With its
proposed location at 202 Jarvis Street, the building will become the cam
pus’s southeastern gateway: a portal between the urban public realm and
campus life. With the intention of creating an iconic urban boundary and
modern science facility, the client has requested that the building exemplify
three core values: innovation, diversity, and inclusivity. David is mid-
anecdote, recounting a recent meeting with Ryerson University’s Dean of
Science: “I think we’re quite inclusive,” David brandishes one hand in a
ninety-degree arc, indicating the two-story office wrapped around the at
rium, “We don’t care if you’re black, white, gay, lesbian, man, woman,
trans: it’s not what’s most important to us. We all work together.”
“How did you respond?” I’m jotting notes quickly, my left hand
cramping up.
“Louis3 talked about transparency and space,” Nikolaj says, “but they
were not convinced.”
“Diversity is so important in Canada and the US – this hyper-focus on
external differences – it’s just not how we think in Denmark,” David ex
plains, “It makes it very hard to communicate with the client. What do we
do? Do I need to wear a shirt that says: ‘I’m gay’?”
Half-laughing, David throws his hands up in frustration.
Unpacking the design problem

Inside this discussion there is a tangible design problem: how can the team
create an inclusive building if they don’t understand what inclusivity means
to the people who will use it? Addressing this problem requires dealing with
a more fundamental issue: how does one sense inclusivity? Is it located in
labels, or in their absence? Can it be found in recognition, or anonymity? Is
it purely visual, detectable through contextual differences in melatonin or
identifiable sex characteristics? What spatial registers facilitate or impede its
manifestation? When, where, why, how, and to whom does it appear?
This dilemma opens a gap in the architectural design process that allows
anthropology to enter. Within this context, locating inclusivity is not a
matter of finding an ideal definition, but of sensory recognition: it is a
question of how inclusivity emerges as a phenomenon through embodied
human experience. As Merleau-Ponty argues, “It is a question of uncovering
the idea in the Hegelian sense, not something like a physico-mathematical
196 Thilmany
law, accessible to objective thought, but rather a unique formula of behavior
toward others, Nature, time, and death; that is, a certain manner of ar
ticulating the world” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. lxxxii). In other words,
I aim at inclusivity, not as an abstract universal, but as it appears or fails to
appear before particular individuals.4
Approaching inclusivity as a phenomenological essence

As an anthropologist, I tend to develop concepts through the study of
practice. The architects I work with tend to begin with the conceptual and
install it through the negotiation of shape and material. As I develop an
thropological components for Henning Larsen’s architectural design pro
cess, my intention is always to produce social insights that architects can
work with. In this context, I argue that phenomenology provides a theo
retical lens capable of generating data that bridges both disciplines.
Taking aim at the phenomenological essence of inclusivity shifts my
analytical gaze towards what Merleau-Ponty describes as “the sense that
shines forth at the intersection of my experiences and the intersection of my
experiences with those of others through a sort of gearing into each other”
(1945/2014, p. lxxxiv). From this perspective, inclusivity does not emerge
before an abstract or general body: the phenomenon is always perceived
through a specific body, at a specific moment, in a specific way. As an
analytical lens, this approach makes it possible to foreground both the body
and the spatial characteristics of an experience, because, to paraphrase
Merleau-Ponty (1945/2014), the body is always somewhere, being
someone: always placing and always placed.
I begin by exploring the conditions under which a phenomenon appears
and then work on elaborating the ways in which it can be absent. This leads
me to approach the emergence of a phenomenon as an event. Exploring
these events allows me to interrogate the conditions that allow the phe
nomenon to appear – to study how and why it emerges – a process that
helps me understand the ways in which a community or group recognize
something, in this particular case inclusivity, as itself.
A sense of nuance
“Do you want the official definition, or my personal definition?” Sitting in a
room skinned in fluorescent orange glass, feet scuffing orange shag carpet,
we’re two minutes into my first focus group in the Ryerson Student
Learning Center. Six people from different backgrounds, pursuing different
degrees, with different gender identities, look at me expectantly – and I
realize I’ve made my first mistake. “I definitely want to hear your personal
definitions – but, briefly, could you tell me what the ‘official’ definition is?”
The first thing I discover is that a complex and nuanced vocabulary exists
around inclusivity at Ryerson. While members of the design team at Henning
Larsen approach inclusivity as a singular concept that can be installed in the
design, the students I meet with have a complicated and articulate relation
ship with various definitions and approaches – when they assemble a per
sonal definition they do it in relation to perceived public definitions. These
are reinterpreted and modified through the lens of personal experience, al
lowing them to locate what they perceive as inclusivity in their own lives.
Although personal definitions vary, important themes emerge.
A sense of visibility
Several days later, I’m conducting a series of go-along interviews with in
dividual students. Saeed is walking me through 245 Church Street, showing
me the environments he encounters everyday as we discuss inclusivity.
Tiptoeing past the offices of Engineering professors, down the hallway that
made him “scared shitless” throughout undergrad, he’s telling me about
what happened last Saturday and why it was inclusive.
“‘Hey, Saeed! Whassup, whassup, whassup? And here’s a drink for you!’
and I’m like, ‘Sorry boys, I’m not drinking tonight.’” We turn the corner to
a slender concrete hallway, edging our way out of the atrium and into the
relative quiet of linoleum tile flooring and locked wooden doors. Saeed
lowers his voice, continuing, “He goes, ‘Why? Why not?’ ‘Man, I’m fasting’
cause the month of Ramadan, you know.”
A 25-year-old MA student in aerospace engineering, Saeed identifies as
Canadian and has lived most of his life in Thorncliffe Park with his parents.
Although his father emigrated from Pakistan in 2001, Saeed and his mother
weren’t able to join him until 2005, when Saeed was eleven. Saeed describes
Thorncliffe Park as a place that reminds his parents of home – a place they
feel comfortable. With a nearby mosque and recognizable foods in local
restaurants and grocers, it wasn’t until Saeed left the neighbourhood to
attend Ryerson that he encountered what he describes as overwhelming
difference:
I think that’s where things changed. As soon as I graduated from high

school and transitioned into university, my first class was a class of 670
students – it was a chemistry class. I was this one small fish in a 670-fish
pond, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Who am I going to be friends with?’
You know, ‘Who am I going to talk to?’
Within this context, Saeed became immersed in a kind of cultural diversity

he had never experienced before. The scale of these encounters made him
feel invisible – and it took moments where he was able to stand out as
himself, to be seen as an individual, for him to feel a sense of inclusivity.
These moments are the outcome of cumulative interactions, like the mo
ment when an unwanted beer becomes capable of transforming into a
conversation about the meaning of Ramadan. For Saeed, this is a moment
198 Thilmany
where he gets to stand out as himself – to break the confines of unspoken
stereotypes by articulating his own nuanced relationship to his faith – but
facilitating these moments requires certain conditions: “It’s almost like a
tap – when do you turn the water on and when do you turn it off? Right?
And to be able to know that you have to know how many people are
surrounding the tap.” For Saeed the number of people around him affects
what he discloses and how, indicating there is a numerical limit beyond
which it becomes difficult for him to “be himself” within a group con
versation. This limit indicates a line between enough and too much, a po
tential quantity capable of shifting the relationship between observation,
identification, and his sense of inclusivity. While this limit became apparent
with Saeed, I chose to pursue it further with other students.
A sense of scale
“How many is too many?” I’m talking with Mariana, who identifies as a
Venezuelan woman. She explains that although she was born in Venezuela,
she spent three years living in the Middle East with her family before
moving to Toronto to attend Ryerson. In two months, she graduates with a
BA in Creative Industries.
“More than four.”
We’re discussing what makes a group unapproachable – when an en
counter begins to feel oppressive or uncomfortable – looking for perceptual
boundaries that shift an experience from inclusive to exclusive. For
Mariana, a group feels inclusive as long as she knows at least one person
and the total number is less than five. This is an important theme among
Ryerson students: individuals generally feel comfortable joining three to five
people – as long as they know at least one. This line between comfort and
discomfort indicates two important elements of inclusivity: scale and re
cognition – the ratio of known to unknown others and the upper limit.
These characteristics represent a significant departure from the ways in which
inclusivity is perceived by members of the design team at Henning Larsen.
A sense of equality
“At first I was just like, ‘Well, I don’t see that as an architectural problem,
because, I mean, I don’t discriminate between sexes,’ so I would imagine
that the women and men are equal in the same space.” The air is dense, hot,
sweating against my skin. You can push it with your hand, its presence
emerging through the absence of ventilation, the accumulation of tem
perature and carbon dioxide weighing us down together. “But I can see it
from a science point of view, that if it’s becoming too gender specific, or
male-dominant, then it’s a good thing to tackle – but if it’s because women
don’t code, or find physics, or whatever, exciting – I don’t know if it’s the
architecture, but I’d like to find out.”
For David, the lead design architect and partner in charge on the
Innovation in Science Building, inclusivity is an inherent spatial quality.
Working with several other prominent Danish architecture firms before
coming to Henning Larsen more than ten years ago, David has been one of
the partners spearheading the company’s push into North America.
From David’s perspective, gendered positions exist equally in spatial
environments unless the space is modified specifically to privilege one group
over another. This emerges as an important theme among the design team
at Henning Larsen: space, as a medium, is inherently democratic, inherently
inclusive – space exists for everyone equally. What is placed in and around
space can modify these qualities, but without the intentional installation of
difference, the space is inclusive.
Perched on opposite sides of a circular table, David says: “You can tie that
back into inclusivity and making things safe and open and transparent – and
back to the idea of synergy. You know, the idea that it only really gets
exciting – I mean when you’re studying – it only really gets exciting when you
stumble upon the unforeseen.”
Here, a certain position begins to take shape. If space is approached from
the perspective that it exists for everyone equally, then by installing open
ness, transparency, and largeness – by reducing the walls and doors that
would appear to subdivide a design into opaque, incomprehensible terri
tories – an architect can allow a space to retain its inclusive character. This
simultaneously promotes spatial interconnectivity in a design – producing
what David calls ‘synergetic space’ – and intensifies opportunities for un
anticipated interactions, an experiential element David perceives as essen
tial for a good student life.
A sense of control
For the students I spoke with at Ryerson, an experience emerges as inclusive
when an individual is recognized as themself and a perceived difference
can be transformed into a shared understanding. Kayla, who identifies as a
29-year-old Canadian woman with Anishinaabe heritage and an auditory
processing disorder, explains: “When I think about inclusivity, I think
about the thing I had to work through.” For Kayla, a graduate of the
fashion program at Ryerson, inclusivity appeared through an encounter
with her professor during year two, when she began struggling intensely
with post-traumatic stress, social anxiety, and depression. Kayla explains:
We were in class at the time and she said, “Why don’t you take this time
to go to the clinic” – because we have a Ryerson clinic – “and see if you
can talk to someone about getting counselling here, or, you know, get
connected with that? You’ve already dedicated this time to being in class,
so this isn’t taking any other time out that you weren’t already expecting,”
like, “Why don’t you go now?” Which I thought was a fantastic gesture.
200 Thilmany
In order to facilitate this gesture Kayla needed to scale down her environ
ment, to step away from her classmates without drawing unwanted atten
tion. Encountering her professor in a controllable, modular workspace
made it possible for her to shift positions easily, allowing her to expose a
difference without fear of judgment from an unknown audience – and
transform it into a shared understanding of her personal condition. For
Kayla, the space became inclusive because she could install enough privacy
to disclose sensitive information without creating a sense of stigma among
her peers; if her classmates were not present or the space was being used for
something else, then the experience would not have stood out to her as
inclusive. Understanding how these factors influence one another when
Kayla tries to use the space is an important part of understanding how
inclusivity can emerge in classrooms on campus.
For the students at Ryerson University, a space becomes inclusive when
you can sense that your needs are being considered: the space somehow
reflects your identity back at you, allowing you to claim a place within it.
This can be done by facilitating recognition – being able to stand out as
yourself in specific moments and specific ways – but, as the following ex
ample illustrates, this can also be accomplished at Ryerson by labelling the
built environment.
A sense of recognition
The text is bold, white, loud, carving out space against the blue background
of the sign: “This is a women’s washroom. Everyone who identifies as a
woman, and/or trans [asterisk] person may use this space. At Ryerson we
respect everyone’s right to choose the washroom appropriate for them.” In
small dark letters, huddled together in the thick white border at the bottom
of the sign, the asterisk unfolds a set of labels, identifiers, potential containers
of personhood: “In this case trans refers to people who identify as trans
gender, transsexual, two-spirit, non-binary, genderqueer, and/or gender di
verse.” Adjacent to this textual territory, in the lower left corner of the sign,
is Ryerson University’s official logo, emblazoned in blue, white, and yellow.
It’s Friday morning and I’ve managed to recover from my initial mistake
with the focus group eighty-two minutes earlier. This is where I first meet
Mariana, who explains that her experience with inclusivity at Ryerson has
been radically different from her experience with inclusivity in other places:
Here in Canada it’s huge, like, I think it’s really big for them, for, like,
Canadians as a society, and that’s great. I think that Canadians are way
more advanced in that sense compared to, like, Americans, or
compared to Europeans.
Moments earlier, Lakeisha, Yahvi, and Mariana – the three participants who
all identify as women – spontaneously recited, in almost perfect unison, the
text from the new washroom signs. Their shared description showed a kind
of hyper-awareness, indicating some students know the tiny text in the corner
of the sign word-for-word and it affects their everyday perception of in
clusivity.
Like, I tried to explain that to my parents and that’s like, ‘What?’ Like,
for them it’s not common, like – of course in the Middle East you’re not
going to see any of that – and I think it’s something that is kind of like –
like, for us, I think we’re used to it and you go to a space and you, like,
yeah, you are – if you identify as a woman, then there’s no problem that
you use the women’s bathroom.
There is a consensus in the focus group that extends thematically

throughout the Ryerson community, cascading through interviews, ob
servations, go-alongs, and documents: the washroom sign, as a physical
object, is the primary example of creating inclusive space on campus. It’s
ability to make the space claimable – to communicate the recognition of
individual difference, even in the absence of others – allows people who feel
their identities are contested or challenged by larger cultural narratives to
place themselves within the community: to feel recognized and welcomed.
The consistent use of the sign as the good example also indicates another
important theme: at Ryerson, space needs to be claimed – it does not just
exist for everyone equally. From this perspective, inclusivity must be in
stalled in space.
A sense of anonymity
“A guy dressed as a woman in a men’s room? I wouldn’t care whatsoever.
Or a woman being a man in the same space – I couldn’t care less. But I
would certainly not like them to have to see signs on the wall.” Nikolaj
adjusts a pair of black frame glasses and takes a sip of water. As senior
project manager for the Innovation in Science Building, Nikolaj adminis
trates the design process and oversees the communication and alignment of
the project with the client. “These labels that say, ‘This is a toilet for men
and transgendered persons’ – that makes Europeans vomit, basically, be
cause that’s – I mean – putting up signs is simply not the way to deal
with it.”
For Nikolaj and the other members of the design team, the washroom
sign is an architectural paradox. Among the team, the sign is not perceived
as inclusive, but as exclusive – a perception diametrically opposed to the
context in which it is invoked by the client. If you approach space as in
herently inclusive, then labelling the environment becomes a way of redu
cing inclusivity by drawing attention to difference. For Nikolaj, the sign is
perceived as a way of separating individuals from the community – a way of
telling people that without this sign, you do not belong.
202 Thilmany
Transforming patterns of perception into architectural
design drivers
If I begin to unpack how these perceptions of inclusivity gear into each
other (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. lxxxiv), two distinct positions take
shape: team members at Henning Larsen appear to aim at inclusivity from a
position where space exists for everyone, while the people I spoke with at
Ryerson University appear to aim at inclusivity from a position where space
must be claimed. Each position has important implications for the per
ception of inclusivity as a phenomenon and for architectural design. As I
will demonstrate below, the position from which a person approaches the
phenomenon affects the ways in which it appears: a process that can lead to
different perceptions of the same space.
If inclusivity is approached from the position that space exists for ev
eryone, then the phenomenon tends to be perceived through large, open
environments where no one draws attention to individual differences – and
the space is already “mine” before “I” enter. Designing the Innovation in
Science Building to be perceived as inclusive from this perspective requires
folding these perceptual criteria into an evaluative rubric that can be used to
assess various design choices as the team selects different architectural
elements. However, if inclusivity is approached from the position that space
must be claimed, then the phenomenon tends to emerge in smaller, inter
active environments where individuals can stand out and be recognized –
and the space must reflect “my” identity and needs in order to be claimed.
In order to operationalize these criteria, they also need to be folded into
some kind of evaluative rubric – but here a challenge emerges: a singular
architectural design cannot appear inclusive from both perspectives.
Each of these positions can, however, be connected in a way that allows
them to inform one another. By drawing each position into relationship
along an axis, the perception of inclusivity can be re-conceptualized as a
kind of scale. At one end of the scale space exists for everyone: from this
position inclusivity is perceived primarily through larger, more open en
vironments that produce a sense of anonymity. At the other end of the scale
space must be claimed: from this position inclusivity emerges primarily
through smaller, more interactive environments that produce a sense of
recognition (Figure 12.1).
Diagramming positions and spatial characteristics along an axis makes it
possible for an individual or group to locate the relative differences between
their own perception of inclusivity and the ways in which it emerges for
others. In this sense, scaling inclusivity becomes a method for identifying
experiential differences and converting those differences into architectural
design parameters. Creating this scale requires a specific analytical shift:
phenomenological perceptions of inclusivity have to be transformed into
abstract concepts that can be taken up and used as evaluative criteria. This
process allows the design team to conceptualize their own position as one of
Figure 12.1 Scaling inclusivity.

Illustration: Drew Nathan Thilmany.
many positions, effectively formulating a new position from which other

positions can be identified and analysed in relation to one another.
While individual perceptions are never located at one extreme or the
other, the experience of inclusivity as a phenomenon can be clustered into
relative positions along the scale. In this sense, the team members at
Henning Larsen tend to perceive inclusivity from perspectives that are
closer to the position that space exists, while the students I spoke with at
Ryerson tend to perceive inclusivity from perspectives that are closer to the
position that space must be claimed. As an architectural tool, scaling the
analysis makes it possible for the design team to fold the built environment
into configurations designed to facilitate a sense of inclusivity among the
students at Ryerson University: a social phenomenon perceived through
different registers, by different bodies, in a different place.
The shaping of social concepts

In summary, this chapter provides an ethnographic map to guide future inquiries
into the spatial and social characteristics of concepts that drive the architectural
design process. This approach can be applied to create an interdisciplinary
process that brings anthropology and architecture together throughout the de
sign phases of a building proposal. Rather than being a methodology for
identifying a singular set of best practices in architectural design, it is a way of
unpacking the elements that shape the experience of a phenomenon in relation
to the built environment – for specific bodies, at specific times, in specific ways.
As an approach, questioning the shape of social concepts can be outlined
in six steps:
1 Identify the design problem and the phenomenon in question.

2 Work with the designers to understand how they perceive the phenomenon.
204 Thilmany
3 Work with potential occupants to understand how they perceive the
phenomenon.
4 Identify patterns of perception, focusing specifically on how perceptions
overlap or differ among and between groups.
5 Diagram key perceptual differences into an evaluative tool that can be
used with the designers to make informed choices about how the
intended phenomenon will translate into occupants’ experience of
the built environment.
6 Communicate how the tool was created using ethnographic material,
creating a narrative that allows the designers to understand how using
the tool will help facilitate the intended occupant experience.
Within Henning Larsen Architects, I have applied this approach to study

the emergence of disordered space and the shape of knowledge sharing in
addition to examining the shape of inclusivity. This process allows us to
generate anthropologically-informed design parameters and create tools we
use to evaluate architectural choices regarding materiality, scale, acoustics,
wayfinding, capacity, furniture, and building program.
In my experience, the creation of design tools is an extremely important
part of this process. When anthropology is presented to architects, the
discussion among architects afterwards often involves comments like, “but
those are just words.” Transforming anthropological findings with dia
grams and schematics that allow architects to think through the concepts is
what makes it possible for my work to enter the design process. Creating
these design tools is inherently collaborative, because anthropologists and
architects have to work together as a team to find forms and approaches
that allow knowledge to move between them.
At Henning Larsen Architects this project became a thirty-slide pre
sentation that I use to facilitate discussions around inclusivity, design, and
cultural translation. During the programming phase of the project, these
discussions led us to resize the proposed atrium spaces in the Innovation in
Science Building from large, open areas organized to produce a sense of
anonymity to smaller partitioned environments designed to facilitate a sense
of recognition. We were able to do this by manipulating the square meters
of each space, the material selection, and the arrangement of one space in
relation to another within the building envelope.
Does inclusivity have a shape? Within the context of this project, the
shape of inclusivity depends on your perception of space: the position from
which you approach the phenomenon. As this chapter illustrates, locating
differences in the perception of a phenomenon can be very useful in ar
chitectural design. However, it is important to note that the findings pre
sented in this chapter are specific to these people and this place.
Questioning the shape of social concepts aims at spatial experience from
the perspective that every phenomenon is perceived by an individual body
in individual ways. Investigating how a phenomenon is perceived allows
Figure 12.2 Ryerson University’s proposed “Innovation in Science Building”.

Illustration: Henning Larsen Architects (2018, p. 43).
themes that are relevant to design to emerge, but applying these themes to
an unrelated design would undermine the premise that each architectural
endeavour requires specific research and collaboration around the design of
a specific place.
Notes
1 Funding for this research was provided by Innovation Fund Denmark and
Realdania.
2 All interlocutors have been anonymized within the text except for Louis Becker,
whose position in the firm is public.
3 Louis Becker, Partner, Executive Manager, and Design Principal in charge of
North American Development.
4 For literature that approaches inclusivity as a psychological, cultural, archi
tectural, or organizational concept, see Có rdoba (2007), Ferdman (2014), Lees
(2008), Pless and Maak (2004), Price (2017), and Roberson (2006).
References
Córdoba, J.-R. (2007). Developing Inclusion and Critical Reflection in Information
Systems Planning. Organization, 14(6), 909–927.
Ferdman, B. M. (2014). The Practice of Inclusion in Diverse Organizations. In
Ferdman, B. M., & Deane, B. R. (eds), Diversity at Work: The Practice of
Inclusion. (pp. 3–54), John Wiley & Sons.
Henning Larsen Architects. (2018). [Entrance to Ryerson University’s proposed
Innovation in Science Building] [Architectural Render] in Henning Larsen
206 Thilmany
Architects, Concept Design Report: Ryerson University, 202 Jarvis St. Development
(p. 43). Henning Larsen Architects.
Lees, L. (2008). Gentrification and Social Mixing: Towards an Inclusive Urban
Renaissance? Urban Studies, 45(12), 2449–2470.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945/2014). Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge.
Pless, N. M. & Maak, T. (2004.) Building an Inclusive Diversity Culture: Principles,
Processes and Practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 54(2), 129–147.
Price, M. (2017). Un/shared Space: The Dilemma of Inclusive Architecture. In Boys, J.
(ed.), Disability, Space, Architecture: A Reader (pp. 155–172). Taylor and Francis.
Roberson, Q. M. (2006). Disentangling the Meanings of Diversity and Inclusion in
Organizations. Group & Organization Management, 31(2), 212–236.
13 Rendering atmosphere
Exploring the creative glue in an
urban design studio
Anette Stenslund and Mikkel Bille
Comment rounds FW: Re: PlaceAnonymous
From: Matthew <matthew@externalrenderingcompany.com>

Sent: July 3 2019 10:56
To: Evelyn evelyn@architect.dk
Cc: Stenslund <stenslund@fieldworker.com>
Topic: Re: PlaceAnonymous | 3D model + Render | Handover
Hi Evelyn,
Please find attached few updated previews.

Concerning the aerial view. This one is a bit tricky.
We started with a dusk view which now progressively switch to a
sunset view with your last comments.
This can be a problem when at the end everything is lighten: inside
and outside. It usually leads to quite “dull” or “flat” result. That’s why
we did two tests here.
One is a real dusk when light can only be artificial. It’s the better
solution to emphasize the inner light coming from the building.
The other one is a sunset. The last sun rays hit the ground and cast
long shadows. That’s the best we can do in order to keep the
building lighten from inside. Earlier than that will become day view.
And the building glazing will have to be darker than the façade.
I hope it makes sense. Please let us know which one we should go
with. (In our opinion the sunset one is nicer).
Thanks.
Kind regards, Matthew

208 Stenslund & Bille
The email extract from the commentary rounds between Danish architects,
urban designers and an Australian rendering company marks a central point
in the making of renderings for a new cultural hub in Copenhagen. After
receiving the email from Matthew (the external rendering specialist), the lead
architect, Evelyn, from SLA (an urban design studio in Copenhagen) turns to
her colleagues and collaborators:
Sent: July 3 2019 11:08

To: Lucy <lucy@collaboratingarchitect.dk>, Pete <pete@collabor
atingarchitect.dk>, George <george@collaborator.dk>
Cc: Stenslund <stenslund@fieldworker.com>
Topic: FW: Re: PlaceAnonymous | 3D model + Render | Handover
Hi all,
Please find update on VIEW B. I expect other views ticking in

tomorrow morning.
@Lucy Please see Matthew’s comments regarding the birdeye
view. We seem to want a bit too many things with the image, which
results in a flat image regarding the light. Feel free to give me a call
when you’ve taken a look at it.
Please submit your comments on the images in InDesign before noon.
/Evelyn
Comments from Lucy and other collaborators are then sent via WeTransfer,
where it is noted that, “View B is good, but we agree with you that there
should be a different light. The picture here looks like morning light. It should
be afternoon so there is light on the casting hangar.” Based on this input from
Lucy, Evelyn returns to Matthew with her recognition of selecting the bird-eye
View_B_Sunset due to the improved lighting conditions.
With this peek into the exchanges of creative ideas in the process of
producing renderings, this chapter explores the socio-cultural dynamics in
urban design that unfold between architects, designers and graphic artists.
The example above illustrates how questions are continuously raised about
what and how components should be present in the renderings “to depict
and present specific embodied regimes and affective sensory experiences to
appeal to clients and consumers” (Degen, Melhuish & Rose, 2017, p. 7).
Renderings are productions aimed to pitch a masterplan to an external
audience in the early stages of a design process, and throughout the con
struction process and by submission of tender, they serve as presentation
tools (Melhuish, Degen & Rose, 2016, p. 228). But as renderings aim to
Rendering atmosphere 209
Figure 13.1 View_B in preparation.

Illustration: Doug & Wolf, SLA and Arcgency.
appeal affectively, the question arises: What role does atmospheres play in
the creative process of rendering prospective urban spaces?
It has been argued that computer-generated images (CGIs), of which
renderings are but one kind, evoke urban atmosphere (Melhuish et al.,
2016; Degen et al., 2017). Attending to the way CGIs circulate as key
“interfaces” (Rose, Degen & Melhuish, 2014) in global, transnational
networks of people and places, Melhuish et al. (2016) investigate how they
serve as “vital platforms for communication and negotiation among pro
ducers and audiences” about cultural heritage and distinct urban identities
hereby paving the way to a new, digitally-enabled re-negotiated and post
colonial urban design aesthetic. Along the same lines Degen et al. (2017)
explore the aesthetic power relations that underpin CGIs as cultural pro
ducts, which in their study implies a premise of Western sensibility, even in
their attempts to be culturally specific. While in line with these views that
rest on perspectives from an Actor Network approach (e.g. Yaneva, 2009;
Rose et al., 2014; Melhuish et al., 2016; Degen et al., 2017), the analysis
here is guided by a phenomenological understanding of atmosphere as felt
and sensed and the token of how the human state of being resonates with
the surroundings (Böhme, 1993, p. 114).
Following Gernot Böhme’s (2017) emphasis on atmospheric archi
tecture, we challenge the visual representation of architecture in favour of
its felt and sensed property as atmosphere. Our focus on atmosphere in
rendering processes enables a perspective that, following Ingold, locates
Figure 13.2 View_B in preparation.

the creative process of making atmosphere through rendering practices not

in the mind of makers but in the common engagement with materials and
participating collaborators (Ingold, 2013, p. 22). We show how atmo
sphere is not only the effect of renderings on an audience, as Degen et al.
(2017) have shown, but acts as the kit that ties the whole rendering
practice together.
Decisions on proper ambient lighting in renderings, as illustrated above,
are of course not only a matter of taste or arbitrary opinions about what
might flatten or lodge an appeal of a rendering. The tangled affair of power
and profit is not to be excluded from aesthetic rendering. For instance, in
the rendering of View_B a minor battle was played out between on the one
hand the team of architects, who designed the building complex (the casting
hangar), and who would have it illuminated from the inside (best at late
afternoon or evening). On the other hand, the multifarious group of urban
designers who were responsible for the design of the outdoor area (the
building’s surrounding environment) who would like to have their con
tribution to be visible as well – preferable have it appear in daylight rather
than left in darkness. This conflict of interest between contributing colla
borators tips into the theoretical discussion of building architect’s decon
textualization of urban design (Grubbauer, 2014), and it opens a door for
studies of potential alliances between architects, designers and financiers
(Dovey, 2010; Røe, 2015).
Yet, rather than a prevailing sociological approach to classifying features
of disctinction, we pursue the process of rendering as a way of engaging
emotionally in architectural creation. Atmospheres are transformative by
nature – they mark and penetrate all who take part in the making of ren
derings including those who seek to learn about it, right from the colla
borating architects and designers to the anthropological fieldworkers. This
ability forces us to flag the need to move beyond clearly distinguished
disciplines of ‘architecture’ and ‘anthropology’ and to look at theory and
practice as ‘interwoven’ in Ingold’s sense of the term (Ingold, 2013). Just
like architectural ideas are not adequately understood to achieve their form
by the molding of a material supply (Ingold, 2013, p. 20), architectural
practices, likewise, does not serve the anthropological study as an empirical
supply to be molded by predefined social theory. This is the motivation for
our enquiry on atmosphere in rendering. The questioning of atmosphere
and aesthetics in design still receives less attention than more salient sub
jects of social power and distinction, but as we show the atmosphere is an
important and often underrated co-player in processes of developing urban
design, here illustrated by how aesthetics of lighting are guiding the ren
dering of atmosphere. The analysis enables us to suggest how architectural
anthropology can profit from taking a stern view on atmosphere as both
that which is designed, and as an analytical lens. Urban designers do not
merely create atmosphere through the application of personal taste or in
tellectual justified values but are enrolled in the atmosphere that grows
from the rendering practice itself.
We are here not so interested in the specificities of the redevelopment
project as such nor the companies and persons involved in the renderings.
Yet we are aware that it is nearly impossible to describe and show photo
graphs while offering the needed credits without the specific case and it’s
collaborating parties becoming identifiable to some degree. We therefore
credit collaborators but keep non-anonymous information to a minuímum.
Data was generated during Stenslund’s nine consecutive months of field
work in SLA – a renowned urban design studio with departments in
Denmark and Norway.1 During the fieldwork Stenslund participated as
observer in internal and external meetings, interviewed employees in the
studio and during walk-alongs asking for their re-enactments. At the start
of each design project the studio would usually seek to identifiy the at
mosphere of the given site under redevelopement. Quite formally they ar
ticulated the atmosphere as ‘the felt’ (det mærkbare) which would then need
to be complemented by ‘the measurable’ (det målbare) of a place, such as
scale or utility function. Lighting plays a crucial role for the atmospheric
effect of a rendering and the social rules of the participants in the design
process. This takes us on a journey from how the perspective and focus in
the rendering is negotiated through lighting, to the cultural appeal of light.
Yet, before turning to the empirical examples of rendering a prospective
site, we need to address the very nature of renderings and their atmospheric
properties.
What is (a) rendering?
According to Cambridge Dictionary (2020), a rendering (also: rendition), can for
instance be a performance in the sense of “the way that something is performed,
written, drawn, etc.”. Correspondingly it means “a translation of […] [a] piece
of writing into a different language or a different style” and additionally it de
notes “a work of art or performance that represents something”. Renderings
thus have a double nature as both objects (noun) but also denotes performances
“to render” worth exploring ‘anthropographically’. ‘Anthropography’ in op
position to ‘ethnography’ is a term coined by Ingold (2013, p. 129) in order to
describe a fieldworker’s sense for transformation processes (contained in the verb
to ‘render’) instead of ‘pure’ descriptive observation.
In architecture, renderings (noun) are detailed visualizations of design
solutions for prospect projects, and colloquial language during fieldwork in
the studio, suggests that renderings are often simply called ‘visualizations’:
“I don’t say rendering”, an architects corrected and carried on, “Of course
you can say rendering, but rendering is just a reminiscent term from V-ray –
a Rhino plug-in [for a visualization program] – and thus rendering is just a
way to talk about something, when it has received an extra treatment.”
Hence, when we asked about rendering, many, like this particular architect,
would understand rendering as a visualization, which is mirrored in some
of the quotes that we include underway. Yet, throughout our conversations
with the designers and architects it also becomes clear, that ‘rendering’
appears both as a noun and verb signifying a process when something is
done – or given an extra treatment, as noted. Moreover, for an outsider,
‘visualizations’ can mean almost any kind of image creating. We use the
notion of rendering then, as an analytical one to address how a rendering
(noun) must be atmospheric in itself in order to convince an audience about
how also a redevelopment project renders (verb) urban atmosphere – and
the atmospheric rendering (noun) envelopes the collaborating designers just
as much as it is targeted to envelope the adressees.
The renderings (noun) serve a communicative role throughout the entire
design process, but first of all they are created to win project contracts. They are
produced in the initial phase of the design process to convince the client that the
absolute best project proposal is revealed in and by the rendering. Renderings
thus need to be “thoroughly well worked out images that tell the client that this
is how [a project] will look like, and [the rendering] must look like reality”
another informant said, confirming that the room for translation is narrow and
not the perceivers’ obligation. While reflecting reality as well as possible, a
rendering also keeps the dialogue about a project’s specific solution on grounds
of principle as to avoid breeding too many specific expectations at an early
stage, such as geometry, proportions or choice of materials. This balancing act
between providing realistic impressions of a not yet realized project is upheld by
the focus on the atmospheric effect of the rendering. Renderings must seem
realistic, architects would tell us, but not in a factual sense in the scale of 1:1.
In the studio, good renderings rather would translate the design vision into an
image in a credible way allowing clients, developers and user groups to feel and
recall the overall atmosphere that a project seeks to create. In other words, the
rendering designers must make outsiders envision the vision. This is where
architectural rendering practice and anthropology share common grounds, in
that it is not about an objective state of the world but an emic, even phe
nomenological, lifeworld notion about what it feels like to emplace oneself in a
particular place in the city communicated via the rendering. One architect’s
comments on a specific rendering are telling for this, when he states:
The things that are green here are also green in reality – but this [issue
about colouring] is really up to the individual aesthetics of a company.
In principle, you could also make the illustration pink – pink tree
trunks and so. It can work just as fine and is not really an issue – it has
more to do with personal style and taste.
As the introductory example also illustrates, renderings are atmospheric

because they act as atmospheric expressions rather than being factual as
such. This means that what matters is how their felt presence take effect or
reveal themselves at an experiential level rather than how they look ob
jectively. Gernot Böhme (2001, p. 57) points out the difference between
factual fact and actual fact; Realität and Wirklichkeit in German. For in
stance, it may be that factually a room is a certain size, but actually it may
feel much smaller or bigger than it really is by measure. Likewise, in fact
there may be certain colours on the rendering but they may be perceived
differently due to their ‘effect’, and this actual fact is what we call the
atmospheric quality. So, whether the tree trunks are in fact brown, pink
or purple is truly a ‘real matter of fact’, but still it is inferior to their
atmospheric quality of the rendering, which is a question about their
phenomenal appearance to the addressee.
A transformation in the architecture businesses from mainly providing
functional solutions to becoming more experience-oriented (Klingman,
2007) chimes with this approach. In the studio it was not uncommon to
come across phone calls with customers broadly paraphrased like:
Yes, we understand that you would like this building removed, that
building restored, parking space suited for x numbers of cars and also
you ask for a solution to the noise nuisance over here. We can easily
find a solution to all of it, but can we please ask: how should it be for
people to stay there? How should the area be experienced?
This felt and lived quality of a place is explicitly cherished by the studio
with distinction between felt and measurable. The studio would set off with
an idea about how a place should feel in terms of its vibe, and this nitty-
gritty heart of the matter would then be settled as the ‘concept’ or principal
idea of a design solution. This is reminiscent of Adolf Loos’s call for
the architect to first “identify a feeling for the effects he wants to create”
(Pérez-Gómez, 2016, p. 20). ‘The felt’ is what the studio at times refers to as
‘the atmospheric’, and renderings are about ‘grasping’ and ‘capturing’ this
atmospheric touch to pass it on to a larger audience. Renderings are
therefore used as a way to communicate visually a project’s ‘feel’ – its at
mosphere. To illustrate we now turn to a case of redevelopment of an area
within Copenhagen City.
Rendering urban renewal

The studio takes part in the transformation of an industrial district into a new,
innovative and sustainable hub, where creativity, inclusive communities and
lifestyle urbanism are at the forefront. The developers’ vision is to transform
the existing industrial building and surrounding outdoor areas into a melting
pot of arts and culture scenes, workplaces, places to eat, studios, workshops,
sports facilities, play, entertainment, nature experiences, and much more. In
order to bring these visions to life, renderings are needed, and the studio takes
the lead of this task by hiring an external company specialized in rendering.
This choice of collaborator, based in Australia, is due to the studio’s im
pression of the delicate sense that this company has so far shown: “when our
designers ask for ‘wild nature’, [this Australian company] doesn’t suddenly
plant placenta flowers in the renderings” indicating that this aesthetic slip was
made by others less successful collaborators.
Aesthetics here enables us to approach the strong economic agenda that
influences the process of urban design like any aspect of our environment
(Friberg, 2019). It is important for the real estate provider to attract the
creative class (Florida, 2005) in order to have them take lodgings that in the
long run can reduce construction costs while simultaneously contributing to
the livability of the area. Hence, it is the job of the studio together with its
collaborators to have the renderings address the exact values and ‘good taste’
of the target group. Rendering, thus, is clearly about making an area appeal
and make it object of social distinction (Bourdieu, 1984). For instance, at
meetings in the studio we would witness discussions on how to create an image
of this hub that in reality was available to everyone, but people would still feel
among the few who knew. The image of a secret spot would be upheld not
only through the rendering, but also through the choice of (no) advertisements,
the sale of natural (unadulterated) wines, and by the arrangement of ‘public’
readings of literature – activities and programs appealing to the social group
that would generate money and innovation as commodity (Røe, 2015).
The location of the external collaborating rendering company in Australia
was a timely advantage to the studio in Denmark who could exploit from the
working hour time difference. Also, it is of advantage to the production of
atmospheric renderings to choose a partner, who is miles away from the social
struggles that may take place between companies and financials within the
Copenhagen area. Detached from local conflicts of interest, the external ren
dering company is hired, partly to take note of interests explicitly formulated
in the email thread above, but partly also in order to specialize in ‘good’,
appealing and credible, rendering techniques with aesthetics at the forefront. It
comes as no surprise that companies will have an interest in promoting the
awareness of own enterprise (in casu: to have the construction work or the
surrounding landscape stand forth in light), yet it is remarkable how the two
Danish companies in this case consent with no reluctance to the external ad
vice that deals with the atmosphere of the rendering and that mainly addresses
its aesthetic appeal and not the self-interests of the companies.
Rendering atmosphere through luminosity

Atmospheric renderings are composed to appear simple. Good renderings,
Evelyn tells us, usually display just one situation and refrain from asking the
recipient to relate to several things at once. It sounds straightforward when the
architect tells us this, but when following the process, it seems to be less easy,
especially in cooperative situations. Rebecca, an architect in the studio notes that:
sometimes [we] have to be better at showing the simple picture. We

often want to show everything at once; space for children, the elderly,
bicycle parking, etc. But all of a sudden, the atmosphere becomes
difficult to see, even if there is a beautiful light, because [the recipient
has] to take a stand on way too many things. […] It’s something we’re
quite aware of that we need to improve. We don’t have to show
everything, but this is nevertheless what we sometimes feel an urge to
do, since of course you want to make sure that everyone in the judging
committee or whoever receives it can see themselves [reflected] in the
project, rather than solely being seduced by a mood.
Rebecca exemplifies the key issue discussed in the commentary rounds:

How to create an atmospheric impression that is simple enough to seize the
viewer? For example, rendering comments shows how lighting plays a
crucial role for how simple the rendering appears, and thus how narrow or
broad the focus should be for the person who encounters the rendering. At
meetings with developers, it was also discussed what time of day would best
represent the site. Since the bird-eye View_B (Figures 13.1 and 13.2) was
the intended ‘money shot’ to hit the headlines with the overall project
proposal, much was at stake in the rendering process of this view. Evelyn
tells us how prior to placing the order by the Australian company, she did
some 3D-testing of how the site would make its best appearance according
to the choice of time of the day – that is to say; the lighting conditions:
I made one for 10 a.m. and one for 12 a.m. and I’ve tested it in the bird
eye view. We had fancied the idea of a full-summer-day-it’s-good-craic-
like-picture. You can see over here that 5 p.m. is not working well
because of the huge shadow thrown into the area of arrival – how
people arrive was really what we wanted to show. That’s why we
thought it was much better [to render the site] in the middle of the day –
so that we would be able to see both the arrival and the surroundings.
But then the architect just overruffed by saying that he didn’t want
daylight because then you wouldn’t be able to see into the building. In
daylight, windows are dark, and with the light reflection you can’t see
what’s going on indoor. He however wanted to show that there was
‘days of wine and roses’ inside the building – you know, the general
idea is that it must look lively 24–7 with hipsters all over the place and
then a more commercial shopping street with restaurants and so on.
Based on what and how much the addressee should be able to see, the studio
decides to order a picture at dusk, for there to be just enough light both inside
and outside the building. However, as the e-mail correspondence also reveals,
the final rendering ends up being neither at dawn nor dusk. It ends up as a
sunset image (Figure 13.3). This is due to the disclaimer of the Australian
rendering company who flags their reluctance in meeting everyone’s wishes.
Instead of spelling this out, they tie in with the lighting issue: The time of the
day rendered in the image, they remind the employees in the studio, helps
Figure 13.3 Final View_B.

determine how many stories (or agendas) the rendering can contain. At the
same time, Matthew points out to the Danish designers that a sunset picture
will appear warmer (in reddish tone) and with longer shadows cast. “So, in
the end we chose to go with his suggestion”, Evelyn explains, “because ob
viously the shadows add a greater play of light and makes the image appear
more interesting than the view at dawn”.
The light creates focus that ensures the atmospheric effect of the rendering.
Rendering atmosphere thus involves a designer’s careful attendance to what
light may tell the viewer: “A rendering should be read in a split second”, an
architect tells us. Accordingly, the light ensures that the eye instantly finds a
place to rest, the same architect explains. Rendering atmosphere hence allows
for a perceptual hierarchy with a clear centre of attention and a less important
periphery, which in this case prevents dullness and ‘flatness’ in experience,
keeping a focus and ensuring a simplicity by appearance. The point is then
that the rendering acts through the atmospheric impression, and this im
pression is framed through the interplay between light and storyline (what to
see and not to see). This raises the question of how cultural aesthetics and
skills of communication partakes in the design process.
Cultural aesthetics of light, subtlety and cheesiness

For View_A (Figure 13.4), one of the other six professional renderings for
the redevelopment project, Evelyn and her team ask for some of the light
Figure 13.4 View_A with rendering comments seeking to ‘ease the read’ of the
image through lighting adjustments.
rays to be removed. “It’s getting too cheesy”, Evelyn explains, “It’s almost a
divine light. It’s like ‘too much’. It has to be more subtle. Something that
doesn’t steal all the attention and still works well.” When we ask what it is
that works well, one of Evelyn’s colleagues elaborates with reference to a
rendering from another project:
The light is like a goddess coming down. It’s like come on! Silly! Now
Jesus himself is coming down from heaven! The person who fancied the
visualization wanted so much godliness that it looked like Jehovah was
coming down, and we [at the studio] were just like ‘chillax’. We prefer
it to be a little more subtle. […]
Interviewer: What is subtlety doing?
It offers rest. After all, it’s difficult to focus on what you’ve done – that
is, what you’ve actually drawn – if all is covered in fat sun rays.
In the mentioned situation, it was a customer from England who fancied the
‘cheesy’ sun rays, we were told, and from the viewpoint of Evelyn’s team it
is a matter of taste, which was exactly why the process of rendering could
sometimes turn into a challenging task of manoeuvring among style, taste
and preference of different cultures.
This issue about the aesthetics of rendering becoming a cultural matter of
taste is a general point that applies to most renderings. Although the studio
does not conduct systematic segment analyses, it turns out that rendering
(verb) employees draw on an intuitive flair executed to ensure the atmo
spheric appeal of the renderings. For instance, Wei, a Chinese employee in
the Copenhagen-based studio, qualifies this matter of taste by pointing
to lighting adjustments in renderings. He distinguishes renderings for
Scandinavian recipients from renderings made for South-European or Asian
costumers:
I feel like in the Scandinavian countries, the weather is a key issue,

because the sky is always kind of cloudy and grey. It’s very rare to have
like a sunny bright blue. […] Actually, everything is kind of desaturated
in the renderings for Scandinavia. I don’t know why. It’s just the kind
of feeling you get when you walk on the street in Copenhagen. You feel
like… it’s not like the colourful Spain […] where there are really bright
red and yellow colours. In the Scandinavian countries you don’t use
colour a lot […]. It also goes with the personality of Scandinavian
people. Everybody is shy, not very outgoing. People […] don’t have
much expression on their faces […]. Maybe this is why desaturated
colours go with this kind of environment.
Wei is a good example of how architects and designers intuitively work

with the impression that, for instance, choice of colour implies. Wei thinks
of geographical regions in terms of colours loaded with sentiments that
match identities of places. Scandinavian people’s sentiments captured in a
desaturated colour-spectrum confirms his aesthetic work with atmosphere
producing renderings able to impinge on addressees with felt sensations of
Scandinavia. By ‘turning down’ the colours, the designers would ‘turn up’
the atmosphere that they perceive exists in and around Scandinavia.
In order to render atmosphere, one would need to have a sense of both
the place under redevelopment and the type of person to which the ren
dering should appeal. From the architects and urban designers, we hear of
episodes where external rendering companies inserted improper elements
into the images like a red bull, a severely obese person or a sinewy guy with
tattoos. “Such kind of gimmickry just doesn’t work,” says Evelyn. “It’s not
that we don’t want to be diverse and inclusive, but the stand-in people that
we use have to look like our target audience and they cannot run away with
the attention by breaking the norm”. As with the careful selection of suited
people for the renderings, the same careful selection is done regarding the
activities that ‘suited’ people are engaged in, suited vegetation and choice of
furniture, facades and coating. The cultural aesthetics of all of these men
tioned features constitute together the overall ‘material narrative’ of a
rendering (noun).
The social mechanisms of rendering

In a comment round for View_E (Figure 13.5), Evelyn asks the Australians to
“delete the flower stand” – “It looks like a square from Albertslund Centeret
[a suburban shopping area]. No offence, this is where I come from myself,
but you know, this isn’t where we’re heading with this”. “So, where’re we
heading?” Stenslund (first author) asks. “In my opinion, this is going to be a
polished hipster-centre,” says Evelyn, implying a particular lifestyle urbanism
that their design choices need to support. So out goes the petty-bourgeois
flowerstand and in comes long grasses – the ultimate hipster vegetation
nowadays.
For this project, the architects and urban designers collaborated with a
so called ‘cultural design studio’ – a community of unspecified profes
sional background who were not familiar with making renderings. The
community was expected to join the commentary round circling between
designers in the North and rendering-specialists in Australia. Yet, Evelyn
says, since they are untrained in the rendering communication working
with them is a challenge. That is why Evelyn had to ‘translate’ what this
community meant with their forwarded reference-images with which they
tended to argue only. Pointing towards View_E, she says: “Well, I un
derstand what they mean here [with recycled containers instead of a posh
looking bar], but if others should be able to understand, we still need to
spell it out, literally speaking. We just can’t assume that the Australians
went to Reffen [a hip part of Copenhagen with faded shipyard grandeur]
Figure 13.5 View_E rendering vegetation.

last Saturday”. This challenge of engaging in a cross-cultural commu

nicative action shows that in order to render, one would not only need to
know about cultural norms, values and ‘good taste’. One also needs to
master communicative skills to formulate one’s intuitive flair about cul
ture in written text. When Evelyn in each comment round thus formulates
a collective response dispatched from all her collaborators in Copenhagen
to the Australian company, she would literally translate images sent from
the community of ‘cultural designers’ into text. For example, she would
spell out that “the food stalls should not be made by concrete. We prefer
remodelled shipping containers instead”, and elsewhere she would write,
that they desired “Berlin type of furniture, table + bench” instead of Hay
design and Acapulco chairs.
So when urban designers based in Denmark in their commentary rounds
for the rendering process ask for ‘weathered’, ‘rubbed’, ‘used’, ‘reused’, ‘less
polished’ and ‘less neat’ materials then it is not because they desire some
rubbish bits and pieces, but because this choice of materials adds to the
intended atmosphere. Their choice of materials for the renderings are thus
based on material’s atmospheric qualities which are in need of cross-
cultural translation. This happens not necessarily across nationalities, since
the Australians were better at ‘breaking the code’ than other rendering
companies located closer geographically. The matter of atmospheric ren
dering is therefore less about cross-national communication than about
Figure 13.6 View_E rendering materials.

communication and translation of aesthetic preference and taste of diverse

target groups within a given culture.
Conclusion
A main issue in architectural anthropology has been to discuss the ways in
which architecture and anthropology as disciplines can be understood as
sources of mutual inspiration and in the end also be combined (Lucas, 2020;
Stender, 2017; Ingold, 2013). This article has argued that rendering atmo
sphere involves a creative process of correspondence between light, materi
alities, architects and designers that frames what the viewer must be able to
perceive and thus feel in the immediate encounter with the rendering. As an
image-making process, renderings involve an atmospheric competence of
curating aesthetics that rests on intuitive flair and skills of communication.
Rendering as noun and verb is entangled in selling dreams for the future that
are credible and not too un-realistic by turning the question from what you
see to how you feel about prospect urban spaces. We have shown how the
rendering process is not only entangled in cross-cultural negotiations where
atmospheres are attributed to the rendering in favour of clients’ visions for
future cityscapes. It is also about how atmospheric sensory appearances
marks the very materialization process of the renderings as well as the
communication between participating collaborators. The atmosphere is, so
to speak, the “glue” that ties the creative process together. Beyond simply a
noun, rendering is a verb where atmospheric competences are negotiated and
moulded in a process that in particular entails choosing the light that makes
future places not just look, but also feel in particular ways.
Note
1 The research was funded by the Velux Foundation as part of the project Living
with Nordic Lighting (no. 16998).
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Yaneva, A. (2009). The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to
Architecture. Peter Lang.
14 Constructing community?
A collaborative housing
development process meeting
credit and concrete
Silje Erøy Sollien and Søren Nielsen
It felt like we were caught in a net … It has been a process which has gone
from us being very deeply involved to not being able to decide anything at
all. This shouldn’t be a normal forward purchase development!
(Anders, member of building cooperative)
And look – the project with that façade will end up looking just like the
‘Pippi Longstocking sketch’ from the first workshop.
(Line, non-profit developer)
An architectural anthropology of modern housing development processes

quickly runs into the methodological and theoretical problem of how to
reconcile production in the capitalist world with an inclusive and partici
patory creative process and construction as an architectural craft. The way
materiality is articulated in the construction process is to a large extent
distanced from the hands of the architect, the client group and the people
sitting at design management meetings after the architecture project has
entered the technical design and construction phases. What meets the cli
ents, architects and the team of consultants, is a design and production
process locked in industry standards for managing risk and a large number
of suppliers and subcontractors, organized in infrastructures of legal ar
rangements, logistics and project management, all favouring certain stan
dard solutions. Bank finance and investors relations are among these
arrangements. Urban housing might in some contexts be seen more as real
estate and financial instruments for savings and investments than archi
tecture for living one’s daily lives (e.g. Sassen, 2012; Ryan-Collins, Lloyd,
Macfarlane, & Muellbauer, 2017). How does architectural research ac
count for this?
The creative process or the ecology of making, needs to take into account
a large number of physical and intellectual frameworks, of which it is very
difficult to get a complete picture, in order to address these complex pro
cesses. Building construction in the city may be best understood as a form of
urbanism, with its focus on infrastructures, (e.g. Amin & Thrift, 2016;
Simone, 2004). The multi-sitedness of the processes means there may be
Constructing community? 225
elements produced in factories in diverse geographical locations, regulatory
approvals taking place, client groups debating changes to the building
program and a concrete foundation being poured on the building site all at
the same time. An architectural image in the form of a visualization is
communicated in the media, where the innovative housing project is being
praised with accolades of big expectations. Sales materials to attract the
final inhabitants exist in various geographical and virtual locations invol
ving different organizations and materialities. The architectural design
process at this point may be expressed in spreadsheets and words as much
as in drawing. This chapter sets out to analyse the changing role of the
architectural design in relation to the other actors in a specific building
project, the private building cooperative Fællesbyg Køge Kyst in Denmark,
as it moves closer to the construction site.
In order to grasp the complex organization of developing the housing
project, a pragmatist view and methods inspired by Albena Yaneva, who
has analysed the way particular architectural offices work, have been
adopted (Yaneva, 2009, 2012). This means charting the different actors’
positions and influence on tricky problems arising during the development
process, in order to question agency and how creativity is expressed and by
whom, in solving different challenges arising. These methods have been
developed specifically to deal with complex socio-technological networks
like industrial production processes and what sustains them (Latour, 1993).
This chapter highlights how architectural research can use the pragmatist
approach from an anthropological background to help unfold a wider web
of factors affecting architectural design. Thus, we can create a wider un
derstanding of the many actors and infrastructures at work in the colla
borative processes of designing and developing an urban housing project.
The aim is to start unpacking some of the many ‘black boxes’ or ‘dark
matter’ in a design process, which are the results of standard organizational
systems (Latour, 2005; Hill, 2012). Latour describes ‘black boxing’ as the
oversimplification taking place when focus is on input-output in a machine/
program/ device, rather than the complexity of the process itself, whether
this regards interpretation of a law, the application of a computer program
or the design of a contract in a building process. Hill describes the ‘dark
matter’ in relation to a design product/ service/ artifact as the complex
organizational context that produced it. These processes are seldom in
vestigated in detail in architectural and design research and can benefit
greatly from what Anna Tsing calls the anthropological ‘art of noticing’
(Tsing, 2015).
The stability of these systems, collectives and constellations of actors, are
by their nature challenged by attempts to introduce new types of processes
and unknown actors like the building cooperative presented in this chapter.
This new actor opens up particular windows for questioning the organiza
tional and legal-financial frameworks for alternative creative and participa
tory building processes today, and for breaking up disciplinary boundaries
226 Sollien & Nielsen
and extending the concept of the creative process to everyone actually in
volved in legislating, calculating, fabricating, creating and making a building.
The research presented here is based on a post doc industrial research project
about alternative housing strategies.1 The authors are post doc
researcher (first author) based at Vandkunsten Architects and partner at the
office (second author) responsible for the research project but not for the
housing project discussed. The post doc researcher is an architect with a social
science background and familiar with ethnographic method and anthropological
analyses. In order to write this chapter, particular focus has been put on the
ethnographic aspect of paying attention and observing, as well as the theoretical
frameworks these are connected to. We have been mapping actors and timelines
in order to keep track of the changes in the architecture and project organization
over time, based on scrutiny of documents and drawings available to the ar
chitects and client groups, and on repeated series of retrospective interviews of
key actors. The post doc researcher has taken part in a number of meetings in
the project group, visited the building site and attended public events and de
bates with members of the client group. Particular socio-technical infrastructures
appearing as matters of concern to the project architects at Vandkunsten has
been given extra attention in the way the project has been deployed for analysis.
Actors and events
Fællesbyg
The housing project ‘Fællesbyg Køge Kyst’ challenges the structures of urban
building construction by letting a group of future residents act as a non-
professional client for a multistory housing project. This is very unusual in
Denmark but widespread in parts of Germany (Kuhn, Harlander, & Stiftung
Bauen und Wohnen, 2010; Ring, 2013). The project has the idealistic aim of
bypassing professional developers, in order to make sure the apartments are
tailor-made for dwelling and to save the developer fee and thus contribute to
solving the crisis of affordable housing today. The project was initiated as a
partnership between the public private development company Køge Kyst, to
gether with Vandkunsten Architects and Selskabet for Billige Boliger – SfBB
(‘Foundation for Affordable Housing’) after visiting the city of Tübingen in
Germany and seeing the added value this type of democratic housing
development model brings to the urban neighbourhoods. Vandkunsten and
SfBB would assist the building cooperative in the initial stages for free, with
architectural development and organizational issues. Køge Kyst provided an
attractive building site with particularly long purchase option.
The key crisis moment in the development process has been securing bank
financing. For a period of several months after the initial design proposal phase,
there was insecurity as to whether the project was going to be realized at all, as
the banks posed very difficult demands for equity, collateral and risk reduction.
In order for the project to go ahead, a different client organization was needed,
to access the necessary equity for the bank loan and for making the project
buildable. The decision-making process changed drastically for everyone in
volved at this point, and the general complexity of urban building production
was made very explicit by the fact that a group of non-professionals were on the
centre-stage of the project management. The time spent trying to solve the fi
nancial deadlock resulted in a number of delays to the standard technical design
process, and there were big changes to the architecture outside the original client
group’s influence.
The project was launched with a public meeting in the southern harbour
in Køge in March 2017, inviting people to take part in a building project
where they themselves would be the client and thus have a large influence
on the design of their future apartment (see Figure 14.1 for timeline).
Figure 14.1 Simplified timeline Fællesbyg.

Illustration: Silje Erøy Sollien.
Figure 14.2 The Pippi Longstocking sketch.

Illustration: Vandkunsten Architects.
Vandkunsten produced a “Pippi Longstocking drawing” referring to the

colorful Swedish children’s book figure, as a partly hand drawn inspira
tional sketch for the project. The ‘storytelling’ of Fællesbyg was rooted in
this image (Figure 14.2). A handful of households formed the ‘Fællesbyg
(meaning “common building”) Køge Kyst’ association in August, and the
building cooperative was born. The project would contain 40–50 apart
ments, conforming to the local plan for the site, and finding more members
was a main focus for the group. The group quickly grew, consisting mainly
of people close to or already in retirement. Fællesbyg put up a camper
trailer on the plot they had reserved, inviting interested people to come and
talk about the project every Sunday.
By august 2018, the architectural storytelling had been developed into
a design proposal handed in to Køge Kyst for their approval, in
Fællesbyg’s meeting minutes described as a “fully finished architectural
design proposal”. A new visualization was developed for publicity, re
flecting a varied volume with different façade cladding and a constructive
system of wood, making it Denmark’s tallest wooden building. However,
in order to make it Denmark’s tallest wooden building, someone would
need to build it, and dialogue with a sales representative from a con
tractor had been initiated and a target price agreed upon.
Financial requirements – the long, drawn-out event
In Denmark it has been common to have almost full bank financing when
buying or building a home. It was expected that construction loans for the
cooperative project of roughly 150 million Danish kroner, out of which
84.5 million would go to the construction enterprise, would require most of
the apartments reserved, the building plot offered as collateral and a solid
project organization. What was not expected, was the demand for 20–30%
equity from the cooperative. One of the external consultants in the early
phases had worked on a co-housing project ten years earlier, where the
contractor had assumed the building risk during the construction phase.
This was not possible in today’s market. Also, the banks do not “give away
money like in the happy noughties anymore”, as a bank manager de
scribed it.
The negotiations with the banks were initiated in May 2018 by the
chairman of the Fællesbyg board and a board member who had long
experience as a chartered accountant with his own firm. Five banks were
contacted, out of which only one was willing to meet with Fællesbyg.
“Come back when you have 20–30% equity”, was the general message.
Arbejdernes Landsbank (AL) initiated a dialogue, however. The build-
ing cooperative was well organized, the building site was attractive, and
AL had recent experience from a highly complex co-housing project,
which had been successfully realized in a much less attractive area.
Meetings were held with the head of new business, and Fællesbyg got
the impression that the bank was interested in having them as clients.
36 of the 42 apartments were at this point reserved after intense sales
activities.
The bank scrutinized the Fællesbyg documents and quickly told them to
remove the profit-sharing clause in the articles of association, meant to
hinder speculation in the attractive flats. The normal bank requirements
were examined. There was not yet a formal registration of the plot, due to
the stage-by-stage development process adopted by Køge Kyst. The gov
ernment body responsible for the land registry, was in a process of physi
cally moving, which meant there was a processing delay of nine months.
For the bank this was unusual and is what the bank manager remembers as
a main problem a year later. Building permit and a fixed price construction
contract were also not ready, as the cooperative needed loan money to be
able to pay for the needed consultancy work to reach building permit ap
plication and for the contractor to calculate a fixed price. There was a bit of
a chicken and egg issue: How to pay for the consultancy work needed in
order to get to the stage of securing the loan? Until the loan was secured, the
project could still collapse and there was a risk putting more consultancy
hours into it.
The AL bank manager collected the documents and passed them on to
the credit department. The news came back early November: “We will give
you the loan if you provide 20% equity”, just like the others. What had
gone wrong? “You never get to talk to the credit department”, states Hans-
Jørn from the Fællesbyg board, when recounting the negotiation process.
There is a culture that “it is more important to put a cross in Box A36 than
asking why Box A36 is there in the first place”, he says. There is no box to
tick for building cooperatives. More banks were contacted through the
local bank managers who wanted to land the big local innovation project
with prominent actors and media attention, but they were rejected by the
credit departments.2
In the meantime, the backers of the project had started mobilizing to find
alternative financing solutions and strategic alliances. People in SfBB after a
while started talking about money, which would be freed up at some point
in spring. CEO Line Røtting Dornan convinced her staff and board of
governors that SfBB could provide the equity needed against assuming the
role of non-profit professional client in the construction phase. Fællesbyg
now had a choice between giving up the owner and client responsibility
with a lot of the risk involved during the construction phase, against a fee of
8.4% to cover SfBBs running expenses and a sales risk, or basically giving
up the project. CEO Line Røtting Dornan saved the project. But a lot of
time had been lost. The architects had stopped drawing, worried too many
work hours may be lost if the project collapsed. It was now high time to
make the visionary project buildable.
Contract and concrete

In February 2019 an attempt from the contractor at calculating a price as
near as possible to the target price from June 2018, came back much too
high and unacceptable to the cooperative. There had been put a high-risk
premium on the wooden construction system, making it more expensive
than the actual construction costs. The building must be a concrete con
struction as usual, as building industry and regulatory frameworks in
Denmark since late 1940s are geared towards prefabricated concrete con
struction (Kauschen, 2015, pp. 72–73). The wooden vision was given up in
one member meeting. Vandkunsten assigned Gesine Kauschen, a highly
experienced architect, to redraw Fællesbyg as a concrete structure with
wooden sandwich elements. The cooperative was worried too many people
would withdraw if big delays occurred, so it was decided as crucial to start
building by 1 September. There were a couple of months to develop the
project to the level needed for planning and building permission – which
was in the hands of the contractor a couple of days before breaking ground
on site. Fællesbyg agreed to pay engineer and architect to reach building
permit application standard and then SfBB would take over as client in the
next stage when the loan would be realized and reimburse the cooperative
for the roughly 2.5 million Danish kroner.
After the necessary constructive changes to the structure and more precise
drawings, there was a need to change the apartment plans developed for
‘the wooden building’, as the whole modular make-up of the building
changed – while the m2 already reserved and bought a bank guarantee for
ideally should not be changed. All members of Fællesbyg were then invited
to go through the apartment designs together with the architect. The
households were grouped according to how the apartments stack on top of
each other. Gesine drew live on a big screen in a Vandkunsten meeting
room, moving elements around as people would speak, making sure people
got to lead the design as much as they could themselves. After this exercise
most elements of the building would be ‘locked’ for the contractor to be
able to finalize the enterprise. However, exactly what had been fixed was
not so clear to many of the participants. At the time of most recent inter
views there was a lot of frustration among members of the cooperative
about why things not yet defined in the building program, could not be
discussed with the contractor. Things which had originally been described
as ‘options’ in the design now came as ‘extras’ or were not possible at all.
When contracting takes place in a fixed price construction contract, the
contractor is responsible for the whole building project, and the architect
becomes a subcontractor, in reality handing over the drawings made for the
contractor to fill in the blanks. What is not yet in the building program or
other contract-binding documents, is in practice out of the hands of ev
eryone except the contractor. For the individual Fællesbyg members this
means they have gone from being part of a client cooperative discussing
everything about the design at member meetings, to hardly getting to know
what is being decided about the building as construction is to start on site.
“But why can’t there be a dialogue?” says Jan, one of the founding mem
bers, “We are not professionals. How can we know everything in ad
vance?” referring to the realization that they would have had to make every
important decision before the project was handed over to the contractor, in
order to have it under their control.
SfBB has made a particular ‘client organization’ where the client re
presentative, SfBB and two members of the Fællesbyg board meet regularly.
The Fællesbyg representatives have the challenge of communicating to the
rest of the members what changes and decisions are taking place, but now
things are moving fast and there is not much room for discussion. The
cooperative has in no time gone from being at the centre of decision making
to not being able to decide “anything at all”, as described by cooperative
member Anders:
It felt like we were caught in a net. There were a lot of discussions we

hadn’t taken yet. But we had to pay for the plot now! … This shouldn’t
be a normal forward purchase (‘projektkøb’) development [where the
developer makes all the decisions without dialogue].
Ideally when signing the kind of contract between the contractor and SfBB,
the project documents with the work instructions should all be ready, so
that the whole future building is known, and calculations can be made as
precisely as possible before construction starts. In reality the contract form
allows for a process where the foundation is poured before the roof con
struction is fully known. Thus, the physical building starts growing and
becomes a pretty static central agent in the design process before many
design details are cleared. In this specific case, the engineers were for ex
ample taken by surprise by the consequences of very strict noise regulation
in the area next to a still partly existing harbour, when they finally carried
out the precise noise calculations for the windows. This is of course the type
of information which should have been available before the windows are
designed, not after the concrete elements have been produced.
“Ideally we should have pressed ‘stop’ and given the project one more
year of detail design making sure everything was in place before starting on
site”, says Louise, project manager for the contractor. Some calculations
seem to consistently come too late and cause expensive changes to the al
ready standing building. “Next time we will do things the correct way”,
says Gesine. Doing things according to the book in this case means ac
cording to the industry standards “Ydelselsbeskrivelsen” for how a con
struction design process should be divided up and which service should be
delivered to whom and when, and the whole time guiding the non-
professional client in this process. For Fællesbyg a normal construction
phase, where many elements of the building are clarified by the engineers
before regulatory approval, was skipped in order to save time and get the
project ready to start building as soon as possible.
Building and façade

The foundation for the building was poured in December 2019. Fællesbyg
members gathered to view the event and have been coming to the site
regularly since. The sales camper has been removed after SfBB placed a
prefab pavilion like all the other developers. Next to the sales pavilion,
however, stands a colourful façade mock-up which still signals something is
different. In June 2019, three days after submitting the building permit
application, a presentation of the proposed façade design was made to the
Fællesbyg cooperative:
Everyone was there. The architects showed the drawing from the design
proposal and built the presentation up with different variations – ‘We
could have done like this or like this’ and as they have done in other
places – the brick façade was too expensive, and so on. In the end the
façade proposal chosen by the architects was revealed and everyone
was cheering and clapping.
(Karen, building cooperative member)
The façade for the final design consists of a collage of cladding materials
chosen from Vandkunsten’s back catalogue, including sky blue, gold, red,
light green and dark anthracite. It is Line from SfBB who points out how
much the building in the end actually looks very much like the initial Pippi
Longstocking drawing rather than the Denmark’s tallest wooden building
visualization. The initial storytelling device and hand drawn sketch clearly
not signalling a finished project, in the end has had a lot of staying power.
Conclusion and perspectives

The few examples of architectural anthropology based on thorough eth
nography of architects’ offices, necessarily to some extent deals with the
challenges to projects and the project teams reacting to changing market
conditions and changing financial arrangements among the project partners
(Hagen, 2014; Yaneva, 2009, 2012). Marie Stender describes how the
impact of the financial crisis in 2007 was “dealt with much like an outside
uncontrollable power which bears a resemblance to the forces of nature” by
architects and clients and relates this to a concept of ‘unintentional design’
(Stender, 2018, p. 10). There has recently been increasing interest in
looking more deeply into these forces in relation to housing and how their
markets are created, as mentioned in the introduction. The focus is on the
fact that markets are created and that we can influence how this is done and
as architects and urbanists engage in the discussion of how to create better
markets and thus better cities.
An interesting attempt to really enter into the black boxes of the internal
machinery of how banks produce mortgages and other forms of creating
Figure 14.3 Latest building visualization, summer 2020.

Illustration: Vandkunsten Architects.
money, is presented in Carmen Losmann’s documentary film Oekonomia
(2020). She illustrates which keyboard buttons are pressed while asking
unexpected conceptual questions to the directors in the European Central
Bank and big asset management companies. This can be seen as an example
of the “art of noticing” called for by Tsing (2015), even if Losmann is not
an anthropologist. Architecture also pays a lot of attention to detail and
cuts across scales, just that traditionally this has been more about con
structive and material details. Architectural research is, however, not a
static field with clear disciplinary boundaries, and in order to engage with
the financial, legal, political and logistical infrastructures that are such an
important part of producing urban architecture, we argue that these must
be part of a transdisciplinary architectural analysis. The emerging field of
architectural anthropology shows promising ways of approaching these
processes in a systematic way and the detail needed to deploy aspects of
complex networks and infrastructures for analysis, as illustrated in this
chapter.
By describing in minute detail what happens, based on all information
available and charting the actors and events in time and space, we can see
many of the changes taking place, and by asking additional questions,
we understand how people and things have been affected by the events. The
process described above shows how the building cooperative felt they were
caught in a net of building industry structures where they had committed to
a project that they suddenly did not have the expected influence over
anymore. The decision to start building quickly in order to recuperate lost
time waiting for finance, meant that some steps in the ‘correct’ design
phases were skipped, adding to elements which were out of the hands of the
cooperative to decide because the building was there already, before all
design issues had been discussed.
The initial professional backers of the project had the aim of changing the
housing market, and the fact of working together with other just as moti
vated and agile professionals, helped them together to show flexibility and
creativity in moving the process forward within the structures described.
This significant personal and organizational motivation, leading to stable
alliances, is, however, rather captured in the research through personal
interviews and engaging in this work together with the people in question,
and only indirectly through the alliances and communication channels
appearing in timelines, organizational mapping of actors and detailed de
scriptions of specific events.
In a discussion about different ways of working between architects and
anthropologists, it has been said that the architect wants to change the
world by adding to it, and the anthropologist traditionally by giving voice
to social groups not normally listened to (Stender, 2017). Today this may to
a large extent be about giving voice to a ‘more-than-human society’ and
change our way of seeing our environmental relations in a deeper way. Tim
Ingold uses a concept of ‘vitality’ in describing different ways of relating to
materials and their agency, arguing that automated production renders
processes less human and with less vitality (Ingold, 2010). This adds a
normative element to the human and to the ‘more-than human’ experience,
beyond socio-technical networks. Bringing these perspectives into the
analysis of the credit departments would be the next stage in the project of
unpacking black boxes in the service of developing more humane and thus
more dynamic, vital housing models, where inhabitants, professionals and
materials are co-creating better housing. The phenomenological experience
of working with live, dynamic processes, requires reciprocal relations, not
just spreadsheets that respond to questions with blinking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the
screen after you fill in the blanks. In order to establish and cultivate these
dynamic reciprocal relations, we need to continue opening black boxes in
order to see the networks and infrastructures framing the production of
architecture more clearly and challenge them.
Notes
1 The industrial post doc project is a collaboration between Vandkunsten Architects
and BUILD, Aalborg University, part funded by Innovation Fund Denmark.
2 Considerable effort has later been put into investigating which laws, regulations
and professional practice guidelines are responsible for this attitude by the banks,
but there appears to be no formal reason (see Sollien, 2020).
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15 Norwegian pilots
Navigating the technological logic of
sustainable architecture
Ruth Woods and Thomas Berker
Climate change and concern for the environment are high on international
and national agendas. The existing building stock is responsible for 40% of
energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions. National and interna
tional directorates state that we need to renovate or build super-efficient
buildings that use very little energy and include building materials that are
locally produced with low CO2 emissions. Most articles that begin with
stating these facts continue by proposing solutions. Here, we start with a
doubt. Harvesting the ‘low hanging fruit’ of climate change mitigation by
architecture is easier said than done. The construction industry; en
trepreneurs, architects, small and large contractors, electricians, plumbers
and carpenters are invested in less sustainable practices and will only be
convinced of the feasibility of alternatives if they see well-functioning ex
amples that deal with regional climate conditions, architectural styles and
traditions. This is the main reason why pilot buildings are a popular tool to
deal with these challenges.
The logic of a ‘pilot’ is that it can ‘lead’ through the unchartered territory
of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. A technological
interpretation of pilot buildings sees them as a safe test bed, which can be
used to develop and demonstrate future solutions. Once the pilot building is
constructed and solutions are tested and shown to be feasible, the ex
pectation is that all the others easily can follow its lead. The reality of pilot
buildings is, however, always much messier. Mistakes made and dead ends
encountered are hidden by the end results (Ingold, 2013, pp. 58, 59). Stories
about pilot buildings that have failed are told less often, but the Norwegian
context is scattered with pilots that did not achieve their ambitions and turn
out to be regular buildings that prove the opposite: that change is difficult.
There is no reason to believe that Norway is special in this respect. The
chapter tells two stories about zero emission pilot buildings from central
Norway.1 The first is about the transformation of the old offices of the
Norwegian broadcasting company (NRK) into a zero-emission kinder
garten, at Lø in Steinkjer. This kindergarten did not get built because of
opposition from employees. The second story is about end-user evaluation
of an electrochromatic sun shading system installed on the façade of
238 Woods & Berker
Heimdal secondary school in Trondheim. A shading system that did not
gain end-user approval.
The intention of the chapter, however, is not to unmask false promises. It
rather focuses on the consequences of specific ways in which pilots are
performed within architectural and engineering practices, which we will call
the technological pilot logic. Based on this we will propose an alternative,
which we call architectural anthropological navigation.
The chapter starts by describing different notions of what makes a
building a pilot building, highlighting the difference between the techno
logical interpretation of a pilot applied within architecture and engineering,
and the local understandings associated with the places where pilots are
located. The practice of navigation is proposed as a mediating theme, one
that resonates with the anthropological method and offers an alternative to
the technological approach to pilot buildings which we call architectural
anthropological navigation. We then present the stories about pilot build
ings and conclude the chapter with a suggestion about the role of archi
tectural anthropology in pilot buildings.
What are pilot buildings?

Pilot buildings are common within applied interdisciplinary research pro
jects that aim for extremely energy efficient, environmentally friendly
buildings, where architects and engineers collaborate with practitioners
from the construction industry. In pilot buildings innovative technologies
and solutions are tested and demonstrated during design and construction
phases and in the completed buildings. Anthropologists have increasingly
been given a role in the interdisciplinary teams.
A dictionary representation of the verb ‘to pilot’ tells us that it is to “act
as a guide to lead or conduct over a usually difficult course” (Merriam-
Webster, 2020). This definition is associated with a ship or harbour pilot,
but it also tells us something about the expectations from the architects and
engineers associated with pilot buildings: that a pilot will, based on a design
or model, lead us where we want to or expect to go. An engineer who has
worked with pilot buildings for at least five years told us “I have iron clad
faith in the use of pilot buildings. It is a much better way to disseminate
than through a report. It is so easy to communicate; you can see whether it
works or not”. It is hard to disagree with her argument and with the use
fulness of ‘real-life’ examples when communicating with the construction
industry. Technical or architectural solutions, which promise a certain
performance, can be doubted. But a realized, and at least seemingly well-
functioning pilot building can be seen and touched. Empirical reality is a
powerful way of dispersing doubt. In the engineer’s quote the possibility of
failure – ‘whether it works or not’ – is an option. However, framed as a
device that reduces doubt, pilot buildings are an arena in which a techno
logical hypothesis is proven. In this version of pilot logic, failure of the
Norwegian pilots 239
hypothesis is only of relevance to the engineers and architects that have the
means to produce better solutions based on what they have learned. A
building that does not meet the performance aimed at during design and
construction simply is not a pilot in this logic. We call this technological
pilot logic.
If we look closer at the activity of piloting in a broader sense, navigation
and the skills needed to navigate emerge as central team.
An understanding of navigation as both experience-based and as tech
nical skill is an ongoing theme in anthropology. In the first line of
Malinowski’s introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922/
1984) he sets the scene by telling us “The coastal populations of the South
Seas Islands, with very few exceptions, are, or were before their extinction,
expert navigators and traders”. Malinowski goes on to explain that the
method, participant observation and being in the field, are a means to na
vigate everyday life with natives, to “traverse the distance” between the
anthropologist’s western understandings and those of the native. Along the
way he points out that this method, although different to that of the phy
sicist or chemist, is just as rigorous. But he does not subscribe to the view
that maps, plans and diagrams are necessary to navigation. Rather, he is
critical to the previous tradition where anthropologists used these tools
from a distance to analyse and express opinions about native behaviour and
social organization. The anthropologist’s job is to disentangle cultural
phenomena, the “imponderabilia of actual life” (Malinowski, 1922/1984,
p. 18), by being there. Learning by experience and grasping the small and
large details of everyday life enables anthropologists to understand the local
point of view.
Returning to how pilot buildings are performed, an understanding of the
imponderabilia of everyday life is lacking from the technological logic which
was described above. There, occupants are given the role of passive recipients
who are testing and receiving information about buildings and technologies
(Woods & Berker, 2020). The place as a location with a community and
history is not included in the technical design and development phases of
pilot buildings. If specific places and activities are mentioned, it is in terms of
somewhere data about technical performance can be collected.
We suggest that pilot buildings will have greater relevance if they are
understood as places that are something more than where “performance
data” can be extracted (Hodson & Marvin, 2007, p. 311), avoiding an
assumption that residents will simply accept serving as passive test beds.
Heiskanen, Jalas, Rinkinen, & Tainio (2015) have studied experimental
formats applied in pilots and suggest that from the perspective of “non-
technologists”, local experiments may run into conflict when they meet the
everyday concerns and responsibilities of the people living there (Heiskanen
et al., 2015, p. 162).
Another way of framing the alternative to the technological logic that we
are developing here is to insist on a specific contradiction between pilot
240 Woods & Berker
buildings as devices used to de-risk new approaches before being upscaled
or shared with a wider market (Hughes, Yordi, & Besco, 2018, pp. 7,8),
and ‘lived spaces’ that include local qualities of community, history, geo
graphy and climate. Pilot buildings that follow the technological logic re
present outsider understandings. An outsider views a place as a location or
setting for concepts, whilst a local understanding of a place is socially
constructed through everyday practices, representing “spatialised experi
ence” (Rodman, 1992, p. 643). Rodman suggests that a more useful un
derstanding of a place combines local and outsider understandings,
establishing “lived space” (Rodman, 1992, p. 642). As alternative to the
technological understanding of pilot buildings we propose to approach
them as examples of ‘lived space’ and as an effective means to navigate the
design and development phases and to learn in the process.
One consequence of a move from technological logic to pilot buildings as
‘lived space’ is that stories become an important medium to think with.
Within applied interdisciplinary research projects, pilot buildings are cur
rently used to demonstrate future solutions, representing a kind of
‘everywhere-as-space’, or maps, a point of view from above (Ingold, 2011,
p. 227). Maps are non-indexical representations of a place, that guide us
but are not bound to one particular point of view (Gell, 1985; Ingold,
2011). According to Ingold (2011), when finding our way in everyday life
we rarely venture into unchartered territory, which forces us to rely on
maps. Instead, everyday life is characterized by repeated movements within
structured patterns of space and time (Shove, 2012). Finding our way
within and through these patterns is based on memory, resembling story
telling rather than map-using. We do not have maps in our heads. Instead,
we have stories that are bound to the place.
Pilot buildings that do not aspire to develop a ‘lived space’ and instead
one-sidedly emphasize ‘piloting’ in the sense of the creation of a universal
map, lack the connection between ‘everywhere-as-space’ and experience-
based knowledge. Maps in their two dimensions hide historical change as
well as the messiness of their creation. In a similar way, in completed
buildings an aesthetic of newness masks the process and what was not in
cluded (Gieryn, 2002, p. 62). In addition, the partners from the construc
tion industry that have paid the added cost of testing new solutions have
strong incentives to make sure that the investment is a success, hiding the
messiness of political decision-making, the inclusions and exclusions, the
failures and losses of the design and development phases. The idea that pilot
buildings offer maps for behaviour, masks the refiguration of formal and
material qualities by building users, and the significance of the unintended
consequences of design decisions (Buchli, 2013, p. 99). Buildings are not
simply somewhere people go to do things (Rodman, 1992, p. 640). Gieryn
(2002) demonstrated in a study of the biotechnology building at Cornell
University that the redevelopments and adaptation to needs, are social
processes with political preconditions and consequences. Carsten and
Hugh-Jones (1995) stress that in houses there is an interplay between
permanence and impermanence that is about more than building main
tenance. Changes often coincide with changes in the lives of inhabitants and
are thought of in terms of them (Carsten & Hugh-Jones, 1995, pp. 37–39).
Guestrooms turn into nurseries, storerooms into home-offices and back
again. The renovations, extensions and make-overs are part of the inter
pretative possibilities of buildings.
Stories convey changes in time, and they reveal how things became what
they are today. Pilot buildings as ‘lived space’ are about navigation through
unknown lands, where maps are handy (or today, navigational software),
but they are as much about the creation of these maps together with those
who inhabit these spaces. Thus, there is a need for combining insider and
outsider stories, enabling the establishment of pilot buildings as ‘lived
space’ rather than as maps for future behaviour. We believe that archi
tectural anthropological navigation is required.
Anthropological navigation
Participating in applied interdisciplinary building research based on the
principles outlined above, is challenging for anthropologists, because they
are required to participate on both sides of the ‘lived-space’. As part of the
research team they are engaged with a result orientated approach, where
success is measured in terms of completed buildings and energy saved. At
the same time, they are included in the project because they can enable
greater interaction with building users. The combination can challenge their
ability to support the inclusion of the building user. In addition, despite it
being increasingly common to include anthropologists in this kind of pro
ject, there is still an expectation among the design experts; architects and
engineers, that the anthropologist’s role is post-processual (Henning, 2005),
arriving when the building has become the universal map that seeks to
replace the multiple stories of its creation. Instead of enabling the inclusion
of building users in the design process, anthropologists are thus only able to
report what happens when users are not included.
Anthropologists entering the building after completion are expected to
check if it is functioning according to design ambitions. Checking if
‘end-users’ present in the building have affected the realization of these
ambitions. The term ‘end-user’ is telling in this context: they enter at the
‘end’ – and are expected to ‘use’ what is there. A ‘user evaluation’ is a
common post-processual action, it is a response to the design process. It
aims to avoid expensive failures, but as it takes place after completion
(Vermeeren, Law, Roto, & Obrist, 2010) it is founded on a contradiction.
Evaluation can have value, with implications for building management or
use in other new buildings. As an ethnography for architects its findings are
fed back into new design processes and plans for new buildings. It can,
if the evaluation is negative, even lead to replacement of the evaluated
242 Woods & Berker
system. More commonly, however, in the scenario often preferred by the
evaluation’s sponsor, it can supply success stories (Janda & Topuzi, 2015),
that encourage the use and marketing of a new technology. Seen from the
vantage point of an architectural anthropology, the idea that the anthro
pologist’s role is essentially to evaluate end-user behaviour inside completed
buildings is based on a misunderstanding. This misunderstanding is foun
dational for a technological logic of pilot building. Logic which is rooted
within the parts of applied building research where building users are un
derstood as passive and lacking in knowledge and are expected to change
their behaviour based on technology requirements (Ellsworth-Krebs &
Hunter, 2015; Ryghaug, Skjølsvold, & Heidenreich, 2018).
The technological logic of a ZEB

The stories about two zero emission buildings (ZEBs), Heimdal secondary
school, and the Lø kindergarten, illustrate the perils of assuming that
building-users and those studying them are non-essential during the design
and construction of pilot buildings and only of interest when it is taken into
use. A ZEB has low energy requirements and a net zero climate footprint
and includes technologies for generation and storage of electricity and heat
(Hestnes & Gustavsen, 2017). The definition of a ZEB is essentially tech
nical, activities connected to sustainable lifestyles, such as recycling or food
production are not included. The desire to reduce emissions has societal
relevance and international agreements such as the Paris agreement and EU
goals for zero emission society suggest its importance on a policy level, but
engaging building users with the scenario has proved to be a challenge.
In energy research, stories are predominantly used to describe technology
development and they are part of why pilot buildings are useful as dis
semination devices. Stories are not neutral in applied research projects.
Success or ‘hero’ stories are the most popular because they are inspiring and
positive, but in success stories there is often no correlation between what is
predicted or proposed, and the results presented (Janda & Topuzi, 2015,
p. 517). In what follows we use stories that include the messy practices or
things that simply did not work. The end-user is not a generic entity in the
stories about the pilot buildings in Heimdal and Lø, they provide the local
insider understanding of a place that is socially constructed through ev
eryday practices. The zero-emission technology and buildings are part of
the stories told, as well as the outsider understandings of the place. But the
stories show that the lived understanding of place, where both insider and
outsider understandings are included and regarded as important to pilot
building design and development, was not established.
A zero-emission kindergarten
In the autumn 2017, Steinkjer municipality in collaboration with the
Research Centre for Zero Emission Neighbourhoods in Smart Cities (ZEN),
began planning a zero emission neighbourhood in the suburban area of Lø.
Plans included renovating the Norwegian broadcasting (NRK) offices from
the 1980s to a zero-emission kindergarten. Two existing kindergartens in
Lø were to be co-located and merged in the completed building. The Lø
story presented here includes both the outsider and insider understandings
of the plans for the kindergarten at Lø but is the story of a pilot building
that was not realized. The outsiders included a team of ZEN researchers
(two engineers, a geographer, an architect, and an anthropologist), who
were supporting the design and development process led by Steinkjer mu
nicipality, and representatives from the municipality’s planning and devel
opment departments. The insiders represented the two kindergartens,
employees and parents who were to be co-located in the planned zero
emission kindergarten, two kindergarten managers and a representative
from the municipality working specifically with kindergartens. An ethno
graphic process that included participant observation and interviews was
initiated to follow the planning and development process but ended up
Figure 15.1 The entrance to the old offices of the Norwegian broadcasting company
(NRK) in Steinkjer where the zero emission kindergarten was to be
located.
Photo: Morten Stene.
244 Woods & Berker
Figure 15.2 A rear view of the (NRK) building.

Photo: Morten Stene.
being used to understand why different understandings of the needs of the

building did not connect with each other.
Representatives from the municipality’s planning and development de
partments and ZEN researchers believed that the plans for renovating the
NRK building at Lø was a “fantastic opportunity” (the anthropologist was
no exception). They saw no contradiction between the pilot and the needs
of the two kindergartens. What they did not see was that the kindergarten
representatives had no desire to be the passive recipients of a renovated
ZEB kindergarten. This was despite one of the kindergarten managers
stating: “We have been in Søndre Egge (a kindergarten recently built by
Steinkjer Municipality). I want one like that, a new kindergarten with a big
outdoor space that goes all the way round the building.” A kindergarten in
a renovated ZEB was not what they had asked for or had previously been
promised. During a meeting in the town hall the municipal kindergarten
supporter declared “If I could decide, I would pull the whole lot down.”
According to the two kindergarten managers, employees and parents were
not familiar with ZEN. “Nobody knew what ZEN was, but the group work
(during two workshops with parents and employees) was about sustainable
development. Nothing about merging the kindergartens.” A lack of famil
iarity with ZEN’s zero emission scenario influenced interpretation of sus
tainable solutions proposed during discussions.
In a letter to the municipality’s executive committee asking for a new
rather than rehabilitated kindergarten building, they stated that the sug
gested solar panels, sharing the kindergarten premises with others and re
ducing the number of parking spaces, would be expensive, require extra
maintenance and affect the children’s privacy and safety. These factors
would, they claimed, limit the building’s functionality, have a negative ef
fect on the everyday lives of children, parents and employees, and increase
the cost of building and managing the kindergarten. The two managers
based their arguments on everyday experiences within existing buildings
and visits to new kindergarten buildings within the municipality.
In March 2018, the chairmanship of Steinkjer municipality took the
decision, based on the letter from the two kindergarten managers, to de
molish the NRK building and build a new kindergarten on the site. This
was the end of plans for a pilot building in Lø. Demolition will make it
expensive and difficult to achieve zero emissions because the CO2 emissions
embodied by the new materials used in construction have to be accounted
for. After the decision was made one of the kindergarten managers told me:
I am very pleased with the decision to build a new kindergarten. I took

an active role because I did not recognize us (the two kindergartens) in
the proposal that was sent. It said that we were really positive towards
the renovation of the NRK building.
The Lø story starts early in pilot building development, but it shows that
the design and development process did not take previous events and local
knowledge strongly enough into account. A mismatch between insider and
outsider concepts and knowledge was so intense that it stopped the devel
opment of the pilot building.
Heimdal secondary school

The new Heimdal secondary school, which opened in August 2018, is a ZEB,
and one of the first to be completed in Norway. It is also one of the largest
schools in Norway, with a gross area of 300,000 m2 and space for 1020
pupils. Internal and external sun shading contributes to a good indoor cli
mate and helps to reduce a building’s energy requirements. Electrochromatic
glass shading is installed in the school’s south facing façade. The system has
no moveable parts and is integrated in the insulated glazing unit of a
window. When functioning it provides shading automatically based on re
gistered solar radiation through the glass into a room (Woods, Lolli,
Thomsen, & Grynning, 2020). A user evaluation of electrochromatic sun
shading that included observation and interviews, was requested by ZEN
centre partners. Six building users from technical management, responsible
for the everyday follow-up of the building, and teaching and administration
staff were interviewed.
246 Woods & Berker
Figure 15.3 Heimdal secondary school in Trondheim, the electrochromatic glass is

included in the south facing façade.
Photo: Spesiellise Foto & Design.
At Heimdal the electrochromatic glass often did not work, leaving south
facing windows without any sun shading, compromising the indoor climate
in a classrooms, offices and meeting rooms. The exchange of knowledge
between the design team and building managers did not go smoothly and
this had an impact on how the system was understood and the ability of the
building users to take it into use. A member of the technical management
team told us,
It just flashes, I don’t know why. I don’t know enough about it. We
don't really know how it should be run. A lot of people think rooms
should be darker. No one has training and equipment. This is a pilot
building, and the support is poor.
The technical managers told us that the system is designed so that they are
unable to deal with challenges themselves, “it could have been clearer in
relation to what room it is in. What circuit. There is a drawing, but it is
convenient to know which circuit.” The only expert was in another
country. The lack of local knowledge was a challenge for staff working in
rooms with the glass in the windows. A member of the teaching staff
told us,
The worst thing about it is it takes so long to get help. You lose faith. It
is probably similar to the technology in car windows. They should
already know how it works. If they are going to test it, there must be
someone living nearby. It shouldn’t be necessary to fly an expert in
from abroad. They should train someone in Trondheim.
These problems led to new sun-shading systems being installed, external

and internal, both of which will limit the view in and out of the building
and which will threaten the delicate balance within the building’s carbon
budget. The electrochromatic glass is increasingly being ignored.
The interviewed users, whilst complaining about the sun shading and the
challenges of being involved with pilot buildings, all at some point said
more or less the same thing, that they really liked the building. A member of
the teaching staff told us,
We are proud of it (the school building), that we supply Huseby

swimming pool (a neighbouring building) with heat. It is important at a
time where there is focus on the environment. It lives up to our
expectations and it’s mostly a great school. I am really proud to be part
of Heimdal secondary school. A lot of people want to work here.
The new building is disarming, and the challenges do not seem to detract
from the overall pleasure in the finished result. The user evaluation tells the
story about insider and outsider understandings, but the outsiders who made
the decision to include the system are not present in the story. They are
represented by the electrochromatic glass, which despite efforts to actively
include it in the local use and understanding of the building, remains literally
an outsider. Problems associated with circuit design and knowledge exchange
are not insurmountable. If dealt with earlier, they could perhaps have been
solved? A lived space that valued the knowledge and experience of the
building users was not established during the design process. Evaluating the
glass after installation seems too little too late. Electrochromatic glass has not
been recommended for further use in schools (Woods et al., 2020).
Discussion: Maps of the future or lived space?

Our stories demonstrate that within the technological logic, pilot buildings
are intended to represent maps of future buildings for the construction
industry, but the concepts and scenarios found in the ‘everywhere-as-
spaces’ that they represent often do not fit with everyday lives. This
compromises the pilots’ ability to engage with the lives of the people
working and living within them, and to establish new technology as
relevant outside the research context. The technological logic dominating the
design team produces an expectation that the most important results from
248 Woods & Berker
pilot buildings is their relevance in the ‘everywhere-as-spaces’ found in a
wider market, which justifies the disregard for local users and their stories.
In Heimdal and Lø building users were not included when decisions were
being made, the users’ knowledge about the place was not asked for and not
enough time was spent on providing them with knowledge about solutions
proposed. At Lø the knowledge gap shut down the pilot building and in the
Heimdal school it prevented users from interacting meaningfully with the
technology which was tested. In addition, the story about electrochromatic
glass shows there is an interplay between expectations about permanence
on the side of the building design team and a reality of impermanence due
to building maintenance and the requirements of building users. It ex
emplifies the never-ending work of interpreting and adapting the building
by its users, which amounts to a continuation of the navigational efforts far
into the pilot building’s life.
Conclusions: Anthropology applied

The design and development of pilot buildings for the construction industry
is a field of applied research and largely dominated by engineers and archi
tects. Anthropology’s role in applied research remains peripheral to the
process, often still taking the form of a user evaluation after a building’s
completion. Here we have argued that this is rooted in a specific technolo
gical logic of piloting, in which the desire to create a universal map super
sedes the other side of ‘lived spaces’: local experience. Navigating between
abstract universal concepts and everyday life resonates with the practice of
anthropology but being able to do this requires an interdisciplinary reshuf
fling. This reshuffling would demand establishing an understanding of the
social and cultural place at the start of a project by including the building
users with their knowledge and experience, and taking this knowledge as
seriously as the potential associated with sustainable building solutions. The
main task of architectural anthropology then becomes to secure and support
the building user’s creative involvement during the design process. Rather
than acting as an observer of behaviour or as an evaluator of users, the
anthropologist becomes a knowledgeable guide through an alternative logic
of piloting. One which approaches the pilot building as ‘lived space’, em
phasizing that a pilot building is not only a space for technological learning
but also a place for the interpretive possibilities of everyday lives.
Note
1 This research was funded by the FME Research Centre on Zero Emission
Buildings in Smart Cities (FME ZEN) https://fmezen.no/
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Afterword
Engaging architectural anthropology
Sarah Pink
Architectural anthropology is a significant proposition. As I write, a global

crisis in public health, climate change, economic instability and inequality
and politics surges. Simultaneously emerging digital, automated, and con-
nected technologies – often envisioned in dominant narratives as solutions
to societal problems – are increasingly embedded in the environments,
practices and experiences of life. A turn towards a more active and engaged
anthropology is all the more necessary and urgent, and architectural
anthropology has the potential to play a critical role in such a movement.
The crises we are living, and the innovations in new automated tech-
nologies that are entering our lives are inseparable from the environments,
circumstances and spatialities in which everyday life will continue to shift
and change in following years. These (unfinished) crises have implications
for the lives of humans and other species in homes, indoor and outdoor
public spaces and for where and how we work, including the ways in which
anthropologists and architects practice. Architectural anthropology has the
potential both to offer new ways of knowing in and about these crises, how
people live in and through them, and to intervene collaboratively in the
processes through which new modes of making, being in and experiencing
the materialities, atmospheres, and socialities of physical, sensory, techno-
logical, possible, and imagined space emerge.
The case for architectural anthropology seems watertight, it has been
established on the basis of firm theoretical and methodological foundations,
as is confirmed by the contributions to this book by Tim Ingold and Albena
Yaneva respectively, as well as the work of others such as Trevor Marchand
(2009) or Victor Buchli (2013). Architectural Anthropology continues to
take further steps out of the comfortable confines of its anthropology’s
disciplinary conventions, to engage both critically, ethnographically and
practically with the spatialities and temporalities of architecture. The pro-
spect of architectural anthropology specifically offers an opportunity to
consider how a theoretically, methodologically and practically inter-
disciplinary field might both play a role in academic research and discus-
sion, and be engaged as an active element of public debate and practical
intervention. I believe that such modes of bringing together interdisciplinary
252 Pink
theoretical scholarship and applied practice should lie at the core of the
future of anthropology as a discipline (Pink, Fors, & O’Dell, 2017) and that
an anthropological focus on the relations of humans, other species, en-
vironment and emerging technologies should be fundamental to the ways
futures are understood across design and planning focused disciplines in-
cluding architecture. This book takes a crucial step in consolidating this
field of interdisciplinary practice, both theoretically and methodologically –
I first reflect on how this is achieved and its implications and then develop a
discussion of how I believe this might best be taken forward towards an
Architectural Futures Anthropology.
One of the strengths of this book is that it advocates for architectural
anthropology as a methodology. In particular there is a focus on inter-
disciplinary methodological innovations whereby anthropologists and ar-
chitects work together to create shared practices and visions. For example,
by through the investigation of public space with participants. Many of the
contributions exemplify such work creating dialogues between anthro-
pologists and architects (Harboe & Geirbo) for instance by bringing the
perspectives of urban youth into such conversations (Hagen & Osuldsen),
and engaging anthropological filmmaking as a method in urban planning
and design (Berglund-Snodgrass & Högström).
Two core uniting theoretical foci endure through my reading of
Architectural Anthropology: space and futures. While of course these are
not the only theories that are used across the chapters of this book, to my
mind they encompass and overlap with most of the concepts that might be
engaged to think with anthropology and architecture. Indeed, as noted
below, the contributors to this volume offer us a wealth of concepts which
have been generated through their collaborations, and which could be used
in future work. They invite us to consider what is specific about the theo-
retical orientations that we might use to understand the temporalities and
spatialities that architecture entails and implicates, and how these draw in
and draw out attention to conceptual and empirical layers of investigation
including of practical activity, sociality, materiality, atmosphere, affect, and
ethics. The emphasis on architectural anthropology as concerned with the
spatial is useful for distinguishing it from design anthropology, with which
it has much in common.
Spatiality is central to this book, its subtitle invites us to its exploration
of lived space, through its definition yet openness in the form of its
porosity (Lori) and blurred boundaries (Stender & Blomgren Jepsen), and
the experience of living in buildings and homes (Øien & Rasmussen)
alongside the experience of home outside these bounds for homeless
people (Højring & Bech-Danielsen) and the walled nature of the island
(Johannessen & Martin). This is a perfect starting point for considering
the implications of the critical perspectives offered by the contributors to
the book. Here the chapters of the book directly reveal how gender, dis-
abilities, class, migrant, and other inequalities are implicated across
Afterword 253
diverse spatialities of homes, indoor and outdoor public and incarcerated
sites. The contributors collectively call for, and start to demonstrate the
need for a movement, an impulse and a mode of engagement through
which anthropology might participate in the making of new, adjusted, or
alternative spatialities. This would involve seeing architectural anthro-
pology as an interdisciplinary field of scholarship and practice that in-
tervenes critically and practically in the ways we conceptualize and create
spatialities.
Futures are also at the core of the work of this book, since like design
anthropology, architectural anthropology is complicit in the processes
through which futures are imagined and made. Some of the chapters in this
book represent the potential of architectural anthropology as an applied
process that is engaged with experimentation, prototyping and advising on
how buildings come about. Unlike conventional anthropology architecture
does not problematize or shy away from futures, but instead, as for design,
much architectural practice inevitably seeks to intervene in the future. There
are many approaches within architecture, including critical approaches to
architectural scholarship and practice, whereby it is acknowledged that the
architect cannot engineer societal or human behaviour change through
spatial design (Pink, Burry, Akama, & Qiu, 2018). Therefore I do not want
to apply a broad critical brush to the discipline or its practitioners, however
there is very obviously an anthropological critique that can be applied to
such ideas, and existing work has revealed how often architectural com-
panies cannot but be complicit with a capitalist system of innovation,
governance and planning (Abram, 2017) as they tender for projects.
Contributors to this book show how such consequences have been miti-
gated, and evaded often in the Scandinavian context, there is much to learn
from this. One of the advantages of architectural anthropology, is therefore
its ability to critically engage with the spatial futures that are envisaged by
planners, government, and industry, to bring to the fore the everyday
questions that they raise, and the inequalities they should address.
Anthropological ethnography can be mobilized to reveal and surface and to
collaborate towards the imaginaries for other possible futures, where spa-
tial formations are ongoingly and differently entangled with other elements
of environments, human lives, hopes and desires and interspecies relations.
The contributors to this book engage a series of concepts that enable them
to think processually – for example the notion of rendering offers ways to
consider atmospheric transformation (Bille & Stenslund), the concept of
infrastructuring is engaged to understand processes of social, political and
spatial change (Andersen, Dalseide & Fagerlid) and the concept of piloting
which offers routes through which to encounter the possibility that emerges
from engaging with a kind or prototype or test building (Woods & Berker).
These concepts are important because they form the basis of a conceptual
guide for architectural anthropology, which might be applied and advanced
through future work.
254 Pink
A futures anthropology approach (Pink & Salazar, 2017) offers a par-
ticular take on architectural anthropology, in that it complicates how fu-
tures have been conceptualized both in anthropology and architecture.
Whereas anthropologists have long since been interested in futures, the
main thrust of existing research has tended to be critical or documentary, in
that it has mainly critiqued the ways futures are predicted and characterized
in other disciplines, theorized how they are imagined, and documented how
they are experienced through ethnographic studies. Instead a futures an-
thropology approach (Pink & Salazar, 2017), inspired by design anthro-
pology (Smith & Otto, 2016) suggests that there is a further step. We have
argued for attention to futures as contingent, ongoingly emergent, never
knowable or reachable. I have also argued for a futures ethnography ap-
proach, which re-thinks the sites of our research as explorations of possi-
bility, imaginaries and uncertainties. This approach engages anticipatory
concepts, such as trust, anxiety, hope and desire (Pink, 2021a) through
which to understand how these sites of what has not (yet and perhaps never
will have) happened are experienced, sensed and spoken of through the
present. In the case of architectural anthropology this involves asking how
this approach can most effectively be located beyond the exploration of the
spatialities of the present which immediately slips over into the past. Putting
it another way, how can we surpass the study of processes and experiences
as they happen? The chapters of this book demonstrate how architectural
anthropology is a necessary movement, how it shows up the perspectives
and practices of the stakeholders encountered at its sites of design, plan-
ning, making, monetizing and dwelling and reveals how they imply moves
towards spatial futures that are more or less equitable, ethical and
responsible.
I believe this raises a key question regarding how architectural anthro-
pology might contribute to debate and practice in the sites where archi-
tecture and the stakeholders whose agency influences it are active, as they
become active? Putting this idea another way, how can architectural an-
thropology participate as architecture slips over into its futures, and how
might it do so as an interventionist stance, which seeks to guide such
processes. There are a number of ways in which this might come into
practice, including through interactive and ongoing collaboration between
architects and anthropologists as shown by several of the contributors to
this volume. However, this is not simply a practical step and I would argue
that to advance further we also need to interrogate the theoretical and
methodological orientations of anthropology as a whole, to re-think how
futures might become conceptualized and practiced through the discipline.
Architectural anthropology provides an ideal conduit through which to
experiment with such a move.
I next explore this through a reflexive discussion of how the idea of ar-
chitectural anthropology inspires me to think about and with my own
practice as an interdisciplinary anthropologist.
Afterword 255
Architectural anthropology as futures anthropology
My current work involves the development of a futures-focused anthro-
pology, which intentionally transgresses the temporalities of traditional
anthropology in its theory, subject matter and its methods (Pink & Salazar,
2017; Pink, Akama, & Ferguson 2017; Pink, 2021a). I argue that to be able
to be engaged, and to work towards ethical, equitable and responsible fu-
tures anthropologists need to intervene in the sites that anthropology has
conventionally problematized and avoided. These are sites where con-
versely those other disciplines and professions that seek to influence what
happens next, practice in ways that they believe are unproblematic. This
means that anthropologists need to extend the scope of the discipline to not
only critique but to seek to intervene. Therefore architectural anthro-
pologists would critique future visions that are framed by predictive nar-
ratives which seek to create finished artefacts. In place of such narratives
they would call for greater acknowledgement of futures as contingent,
open, uncertain and nurtured by human creativity and everyday innovation.
Such an approach would maintain theoretical principles from anthropology
that problematize the very idea that futures can be imagined as something
ahead of us. But it would re-harness these principles and related critical
perspectives in dialogue with ethnography to complicate the predictive
modes of future-thinking that underpin the dominant narratives. In my
view this means we need a new anthropology, which focuses on its inter-
disciplinary and interventional possibilities in ways that remain loyal to the
critical impulse and considered perspectives that arise from anthropological
theory and ethnographic practice.
One of my interests in architecture is precisely its futures-focus, and its
subsequent capacity to pair with anthropology in such an endeavour. There
are many possible sites at which anthropological and architectural practice
and theory might encounter each other. First we might consider how ar-
chitectural design sometimes becomes complicit in agendas of governance,
aimed to shape or change future societies, everyday lives or workplace
practices, often with good intentions. This can be at odds with design an-
thropological work which reveals how people innovate to create the ways
of being, sensing and feeling that are appropriate for them in relation to and
often in spite of architectural design. A second touching point might be
where anthropologists collaborate with architects to understand how
people engage with and imagine their futures in and through architectural
space. This means going beyond co-design methods and public consulta-
tions, and it is definitely not ethnography in the service of architectural
design. Instead it involves engaging the analytical tools of design anthro-
pology as a mode of architectural anthropology investigation to understand
possible human futures. A third example might be to consider how and
where architecture emerges as a playful and speculative field, which can
focus on questions of possibility and is inhabited by critical architecture
256 Pink
scholars whose work and ideas resonate with those of design anthro-
pologists. Here the sites of architectural speculation and imagination might
become shared sites for the unfolding of futures anthropologies and
ethnographies of the possible or unknown.
Anthropology, particularly in its ethnographic endeavour, is a reflexive
discipline, requiring its practitioners to question, understand and reveal
their positionality in processes of research, analysis and representation.
Architectural anthropology needs a specific mode of reflexivity, as follows:
it should engage reflexively with not only how anthropologists, architects,
and projects that they share are situated in the present, or the biographies
that define them, but it should also have a reflexive stance towards the
anticipatory modes within which they work. To situate individuals and
projects and the ways of knowing and sensing that pertain to them in
relation to the imagined, the possible, the uncertain and the unknown.
Architectural anthropology in practice: a reflexive account

This book brings together the work of a number of researchers, practi-
tioners, and scholars who have engaged at the intersection of anthropology
and architecture, and in doing so defines a field of practice. I originally
trained as a social and visual anthropologist, which meant treading an in-
terdisciplinary path, and indeed also making a commitment to a field of
anthropology which at the time was often marginalized by mainstream
anthropologists. If anything this increased my enthusiasm for the prospect
of practising anthropology outside the constraints of the discipline itself. I
was concerned both with interdisciplinary theory-building and with the
practice of what I would now call interdisciplinary anthropology. The in-
teresting thing about establishing a field of practice in academia, is that
when doing so it is also usually possible to define the origins and emergence
of this field and this can involve asking how it was in some ways already
there – latent or lurking, waiting to be defined and for its community of
practice to find each other. Architectural anthropology offers this prospect,
since, as Tim Ingold notes it can be found in the history of the discipline,
and I believe that with some self-interrogation many anthropologists might
find unnamed elements of it within their work. Curious about how I might
define myself as a sometimes practitioner of architectural anthropology, in
the next subsections, I reflect on my own research to discuss how a future-
focused architectural anthropology might attend to different elements of the
creativity involved in the circumstances in which architecture as a practice
and a process is implicated.
The unbuilt
When I first discovered the concept of the unbuilt I was fascinated by the
idea that architects inhabited an otherwise invisible alterity, imperceptible
Afterword 257
to me until its existence was revealed through a show of plans, visualiza-
tions, and even awards or other merits conferred on buildings that did not
and likely would never be built. It seemed to me an otherly world, sensorial
and engaging despite its intangibility, something that was here but not here,
alongside, bursting with potential, but not predictive or certain. While for
architects the concept of the unbuilt might be experienced quite differently
(which is something I have yet to find out), my interest in it relates to the
question of futures in two ways: it suggests a route towards considering
the question of what is built as being emergent from the circumstances that
the world finds itself in; and its speculative mode creates a world of
possibility, imaginary and what if, a kind of alterity to the embeddedness of
the material monetized world in which buildings are constructed. Indeed a
design anthropological notion of the unbuilt may be seen as living alongside
the sets of imaginaries that inhabit architectural anthropology: the unbuilt
that lives in the drawings and sensed spatialities of architectural designers;
the everyday imaginaries of the unbuilt that emerge from our experiences of
our immediate environments – for instance as I imagine or sense but do not
verbalize what an extension to my home would feel like; future dominant
visions of the impact of the built environment on society; and contesting
visions, of the differently built.
The unbuilt is a speculative mode, a ‘what if?’, which might be engaged
to bring together the imaginaries of different stakeholders in uncertain
futures. That is, it could be a meeting point where a futures-focused
architectural anthropology is performed.
The construction site

Nothing is ever ‘finished’, yet in some contexts things and processes are
more obviously unfinished and in progress than others. Since around 2007 I
have collaborated with experts in the construction industry in research
focused mainly on construction worker health and safety. The construction
industry is one of the most dangerous industries in the world to work in.
Workers die from a range of accidents including falls from height, as well as
suffering ill health from workplace injuries. Compared with the number of
anthropologists interested in the more glamorous and publicly visible work
of architects, the hidden, dangerous dusty and hard work of construction
workers is little attended to. Nevertheless there is a thriving field of research
in this area, and part of my work has involved bringing this together with
insights from design anthropology (Pink, Tutt, Dainty & Gibb 2010; Pink,
Tutt & Dainty 2013; Pink, Lingard & Harley 2016, 2017). The lack of
attention to the construction industry in anthropology is surprising given its
participation in, for instance the monetization of space and labour, the
vulnerability of its workers. Construction is also about the making of ar-
chitecture, it is where architectural anthropology might engage with the
processual world in which architecture comes about, and with the
258 Pink
biographies of buildings, not simply as inhabited by those who dwell in
them as they are occupied, but by those whose labour and sometimes lives
will forever reside in their structures.
Construction process and construction work are future-focused modes of
activity. They reveal a processual world in a rapid process of transforma-
tion, as different materials and teams of specialist workers participating in a
fragmented labour market characterized by subcontracting, move in and
out of a site, and on to other sites. The skilled labour, and ways of staying
safe on a construction site that are practiced by workers involve modes of
creativity and innovation that balance regulatory guidelines and frame-
works, organizational pressures with realistic and often unspoken ways of
knowing about how to work and keep safe. Here, what will happen next
might be a matter of life and death or of completing a job and being paid
before or after the weekend. Ethnographies of construction work are a
thorough reminder of the processual nature of the worlds we live in, the
changing environments in which we know and learn, the social inequalities
that shape our economies and our health outcomes and life expectancies.
A focus on the construction site reminds us to ask whose futures are
implicated in the spatiality of architecture, beyond the public face of
building, in architectural practices, planning, and the people who inhabit
‘finished’ projects.
The prototype
In around 2014 I began to collaborate with a group of architects, led by
Jane Burry, a Professor of Architecture, in a project focused on a prototype
architecturally designed meeting space – the FabPod. Our work focused on
the acoustics of the FabPod which had been inspired by Jane’s work on the
Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, and led to the creation of an
acoustic design methodology which sought to refract sound through the use
of hyperboloid shapes. The design process had been complex because there
existed no software for the design of such acoustics, and our inter-
disciplinary research brought together the prototype FabPod, video eth-
nographic research and acoustic measurement techniques. Jane Burry, our
colleagues and I report on this project elsewhere, and discuss its implica-
tions for how we might understand the architectural imagination (Pink,
Burry, Akama, & Qiu, 2018). As I read a set of publications by Jane and
her colleagues, seeking to understand their work I became both lost in and
fascinated by the inspiration for their project, the complexities of their
techniques and the processual and speculative nature of architectural de-
sign. This project alerted me to the ways in which the imagination serves as
a future-focused technique or technology in architectural practice, and how
it emerged in the everyday life experiences and in the speculative imaginings
of participants in design ethnographic and creative practice research ac-
tivities that my colleagues Yoko Akama, David Carlin, Annie Fergusson
Afterword 259
and I undertook with people who used the FabPod (e.g. Pink et al., 2017;
Carlin et al., 2018). It subsequently led me to ask further, how might the
imagination also be part of a futures anthropology approach which brings
together anthropological, ethnographic and architectural imaginations into
dialogue. Such dialogues would take place at sites that anthropologists do
not usually inhabit, that is beyond the comfort of an anthropological
practice that has tended to stay focused on ethically accounting for what
has already happened. I return to ethics later.
The ongoingness of architecture

From 2015 to 2018 I led a design anthropological project which investigated
how hospital staff, patients and visitors experienced moving into and in-
habiting a newly built architecturally designed hospital site in Bendigo, a re-
gional centre in Victoria, Australia. The new hospital is a stunning, award
winning, building. Amongst other significant features, its design enables the
flow of light into its central atrium and the units inhabited by patients via large
windows and internal courtyards. Our research showed how participants ex-
perienced the space and how they innovated to generate the feelings and
practices that felt right for them. Our research covered questions, including
how staff innovated spaces to take their breaks (Pink et al., 2020), how
comforting practices were performed (Duque et al., 2020) and the generation
of homeliness (ibid.). The question of how staff created a sense of homeliness
in the new hospital space, discussed in an article led by Melisa Duque, de-
monstrates two key points, relevant here. First the question of homeliness had
been identified as important to our participants during the first phase of our
ethnography in the old hospital in the first phase of our ethnography, under-
taken by Shanti Sumartojo. At the new site we were able to trace how this
feeling of homeliness was constituted newly, for instance in part through fa-
miliar sensory encounters including taste. Second, the work demonstrates the
unfinishedness of architectural space, as never complete and always recon-
stituted through both everyday and dramatic practices and activities of its
inhabitants. The idea of everyday spaces as unfinished is well established (Pink,
Akama, & Ferguson, 2017). The process of creating homeliness in a new space
emphasizes this, and demonstrates the need for a processual theory of emer-
gence to underpin the way anthropologists encounter architectural space.
Emerging technologies
In all the fields discussed in this chapter, emerging technologies – with in-
creasing degrees of automation, robotization and artificial intelligence – are
at play. They are assuming specific roles within everyday spaces of many
kinds. Simultaneously they are part of a connected world of big data, where
there is a possibility (although not an eventuality) that further continuities
will emerge between them.
260 Pink
The architect Jane Burry, mentioned above, specializes in mathematical
and computational architecture. One of the significant things I learnt
through my collaboration with Jane and her team, now several years ago,
concerned how the FabPod design involved working with algorithms which
assisted but did not solve the question of how to design for particular
acoustic effects, and also required the activation of the architectural ima-
gination. Now, as AI seems set to play a greater role in architectural design,
this raises questions about how and where automated and machine learning
processes might best support the creativity of the architect, and where they
meet with the architectural imagination.
Construction work is set to become increasingly automated and robot-
ized according to the future visions of technology designers and industry
accounts. For instance drone technologies (Li & Liu, 2019) and robots
(Liang, Kamat, & Menassa, 2020) might be used to perform certain tasks,
and automated hazard detection might make construction sites safer (Fang
et al., 2020). For the next five years my colleagues and I will be researching
automation and robotization in construction work in Norway and
Australia within a wider project about the automation of work. My hunch,
based on my earlier ethnographic research and reading of recent academic
and grey literature is that technological possibilities of future construction
work could make the industry safer, but it is likely that they will still involve
human knowing and intervention, in relation to machine learning and in-
telligence. This is also reflected in industry views of the future of con-
struction, where for instance the consultancy McKinsey & Company
suggests that ‘machines will take over individual activities within a role’ and
‘workers will need to learn to work side by side – or in a hybrid role – with
machines’ (Chui & Mischke, 2019). Speaking anthropologically we should
investigate how the sensory and unspoken ways of knowing that inform
how construction work is performed will still be necessary to how buildings
are made. While the creativity of the construction worker is much less
frequently discussed, than the architectural imagination is, it is equally
important to understand how worker creativity best combines with the
possibilities of emerging intelligent technologies.
Above I also highlighted how people inhabit and innovate in everyday
spaces, through the case of the hospital and the home. The future of
healthcare is one of the key areas that emerging technologies are associated
with and there is growth in robotic, artificial intelligence and automated
decision-making technologies in health care environments. This includes
technological interventions in surgical procedures, patient records, and
diagnostics and in the automated transport of materials and things (food,
laundry) through spaces. Smart home technologies are also part of the
everyday architectures in which some people live, as sensors involve tech-
nological ways of knowing about characteristics of space, including levels
of light, temperature, and movement. Public spaces are moreover increas-
ingly datafied, that is we live in spaces where invisible architectures of data,
Afterword 261
sensors and predictive analytics are equally part of our environments as are
the materialities of buildings or public squares and plazas. The possibility of
learning to live not only in material space, but with the often invisible
elements of technological and datafied space is part of everyday futures.
Ethnographies that seek to understand the spatiality of everyday life might
usefully incorporate an anticipatory mode of investigating how, if and
where people see their near and far future experiences of and activities as
involving such technologies.
My points in this section are all contingent in relation to inequalities of
access and distribution of emerging technologies. Moreover as argued
elsewhere, neither societies nor individual lives should be seen as the
landing sites at which such technology simply impacts on the world or is
appropriated by people as it is (Pink, 2021b). It is not only spatialities that
are unfinished, but also the technologies which begin to share journeys
forward into uncertain futures with people and the other things that
constitute the circumstances of life. The study of and/or intervention in
architecture in the making, architectural design and prototyping, or of life
in architecturally designed spaces will necessarily be a situated socio
technical architectural anthropology that acknowledges the ongoingness
and contingent nature of the relations between different things, species
and processes.
The futures of architectural anthropologies and

anthropologists
If much of the contemporary world is in crisis, then architecture cannot be
seen as separate from this situation. What is built and not built is emble-
matic of what the circumstances of the world enable. This relates not only
to what architects might design, but also to the spaces – homes, public
spaces, and other sites – that are imagined by the people who wish to live
their everyday lives in them or professionals who wish for new sites for
particular groups of people. As the chapters of this book show, archi-
tectural anthropology can reveal experience, imagination, inequalities, and
possible productive ways forward. I believe this signifies a dynamic sub
discipline that has the potential to combine theoretical scholarship and
applied practice in an exemplary way.
From my perspective, the next step calls for a turn in temporality, to-
wards an explicitly futures focused architectural anthropology; a pre-
emptive mode of theoretical-ethnographic scholarship which does not stop
at researching what has already happened or is happening in the moment,
but seeks to investigate possible futures that are unknown and perhaps will
never be known. Architectural anthropology enables such a task, in part
because it brings together the ethnographic rigour and commitment of
anthropology together with the future-orientation of architectural design
and allows a meeting of imaginaries.
262 Pink
This book, with its focus on futures, spatialities, and collaborative
methodologies offers a strong starting point. It is rich with concepts which
might be mobilized to take this field forward, with examples of inter-
disciplinary process and with empirical insights that demonstrate how and
why bringing together these two disciplines into an Architectural
Anthropology is an important move.
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Index
Aabø, S. 126, 130 Awan, N. 161

Aat Vos 122–3, 125–6, 132
Abram, S. 253 Bäcklund, Emma 158–60
acoustics 35, 41–2, 258, 260 Bagnoli, A. 79
actor network theory (ANT) 3, 65, 183, balconies 32, 48–61
184, 209 Ballantyne, A. 63
aesthetics 2, 48, 85, 87, 91, 113, 177, Barad, K. 6
183, 240; global 138–9; rendering Barth, Fredrik 7, 8, 9, 54
atmosphere 207–23; UVAs 117, 119 Barthes, R. 26
affordance 77, 157 Basso, K. 144
Ahmed, Sarah 41 Bastien, S. 183
Akama, Yoko 258–9 Bateson, G. 185
Akbari Chermahini, S. 185 Bauman, Z. 137, 172
Alstäde, Victoria 155–8 Bech-Danielsen, Claus 1–12, 31–3,
Andersen, Bengt 106, 122–34, 253 76–89, 252
anonymity 201 belonging 114, 135–8, 140–1, 146, 150;
Anstalten (Nuuk) correctional facility ‘After Belonging’ 164–76; temporal
90–7, 101 136–7, 143
Anthropocene 1 Bendigo hospital 259
anthropography 212 Benta, M. 94
Appadurai, A. 171 Berglund-Snodgrass, Lina 106–7,
applied anthropology 4 149–63, 252
appreciative inquiry 138 Berker, Thomas 178–9, 237–49, 253
Arbejdernes Landsbank (AL) 229–30 Besco, L. 240
archiving 15–17, 19–28 Bille, Mikkel 55, 178, 207–23, 253
Argonauts of the Western Pacific 239 black boxing 225, 235
art of noticing 225, 234 Blanco, L. A. C. 166, 167–8
artificial intelligence 259–60 Bluyssen, P. 62
At your neighbour’s house 155–8 body language 53
atherosclerosis 66 body multiple 66
atmosphere, rendering 207–23 Böhme, Gernot 209, 213
Attili, G. 149, 151, 152, 158 Bondi, L. 155
Audunson, R. 126, 130–1 bottom-up approaches 107, 150
Augé, M. 137 boundaries 31–103; balconies
authorship 15, 16, 151–2 32, 48–61
automation 259–60 Bourdieu, Pierre 1, 214
Index 265
Braathen, M. 174 Deleuze, G. 19, 145
Braidotti, R. 6 deportation centres, Lindholm Island
Brattbakk, I. 135 90–2, 97–101
Brochmann, G. 174 description 26–8
Brown, Wendy 90, 101 design 4, 9, 15, 19–28, 177–249;
Buchli, Victor 1, 240, 251 internalization 36–7; social concepts
‘building back better’ 5 194–206
Burns, C. J. 149 Després, C. 76, 77, 86
Burry, Jane 258, 260 Devlin, K. 138
diversity 195, 197–8
Calvino, I. 26 dividuals 40
Canadian Centre for Architecture Dornan, Røtting 230
(CCA) 15–16, 18, 22 Dovey, K. 83, 85, 210
Carlin, David 258–9 drone technologies 260
Carr, S. 144 Duque, Melisa 259
Carrithers, M. 184 dwelling/inhabiting 17–28, 69
Carsten, J. 1, 240–1
Castells, M. 57 Earon, O. 48
Chui, M. 260 Easterling, K. 90, 92
Ciacci, L. 149 Edvinsson, Daniela 152–4
City Guide platform 168 Edwards, Betty 86
Clapham, D. 2–3 electrochromatic glass 237–8, 245–8
climate 5, 240; footprint 242; indoor Ellebæk 97
32, 62–75, 245–6 emotions 254; film-making 150, 154–8,
climate change 237, 251 160; imprints 135–48
cognitive mapping 144 empathy 158
collaborative housing development Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM)
224–36 109, 111–12, 114–18
collage technique 76–89 end-users 241–2, see also participation
collective emancipation 150 Engbo, H. J. 93
colonialism 3, 4, 92 Enner Mark Prison 94
community: collaborative housing environment; see sustainable
development 224–36; architecture
homelessness 85 equality: ‘opening up’ 171–2; youth
computer-generated images (CGIs) 209 participation 198–9,
construction sites 257–8, 260 see also inequality
constructive interference 98 equalizer effect 141
Cooperrider, D. L. 138 ethnographic turn 3
cosiness 55, 57, 60 eutopias 142, 146
COVID-19 pandemic 5 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 4
creativity 177–249; entanglements everyday life, homelessness 85
184–5; youth participation 181–93
Cresswell, T. 171 FabPod 258–60
critical anthropology 13 Fællesbyg Køge Kyst 225–35
Culhane, D. 184 Færch, M. 97
cultural aesthetics 217–19 Fagerlid, Cicilie 106, 122–34, 253
Fainstein, S. 136
Dalseide, Astri Margareta 106, 122–34, Falleth, E. I. 181
178, 181–93, 253 Feld, S. 144
dark architecture 90 Fergusson, Annie 258–9
Davison, J. 94 film-making, spatial difference 107,
decontextualization 210 149–63
Degen, M. 208–10 Florida, R. 214
266 Index
Fokdal, J. 136 Hellberg, Marcus 158–60
Forde, Cyril D. 1 Henning, A. 241
Foucault, M. 99 Henning Larsen Architects 178,
Frandsen, A. K. 63 194–205
Franz, J. 149 Henriksen, Martin 97
Friberg, C. 214 Hermant, E. 22
Friedmann, J. 150 Hernández, B. 166
Fubiak see Furuset Library Herschend, S. S. 97
functionalism 123 Hestnes, A. G. 242
Furuset Library 122–32 Hidalgo, C. M. 166
futures 253–6, 261–2 Hill, D. 225
Hill, J. 17
Garvey, Pauline 52–4, 55, 60 Hirsch, N. 92
Gaviria, Aníbal 112–13, 114 Hjort, Sofia 155–8
Geertz, C., 20, 28 Hodgkin, R. 181
Gehl, J. 48 Hodson, M. 239
Geirbo, Hanne Cecilie 105–6, Hoelscher, Kristian 111
109–21, 252 Hoffmann, T. 95
gender, equality 198–9, 252 Högström, Ebba 106–7, 149–63, 252
Geurts, K. L. 183 Højring, Laura Helene 32–3,
Gibson, James 77 76–89, 252
Gieryn, T. F. 49, 240 Holbraad, Martin 36, 119
Gifford, R. 138 holism 3, 67, 70, 73, 79, 90, 140, 146
Göbekli 94 Holmarsdottir, H. B. 183
Goffman, E. 95 homelessness 32–3, 76–89
Goldhagen, Sarah W. 36 homeliness 32–3, 76–89, 259
Graham, S. 90, 112, 114, 171 homes 31–103; balconies 32, 48–61;
Gram-Hansen, K. 86 collaborative development 224–36;
Grant, J. 131–2 indoor climate 32; intimacy 41–2;
Groat, D. 7 noise nuisance 32, 35–47
Gromark, Sten 105–7 Hommel, B. 185
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid 107, 164–76 Hoppenbrouwer, E. 123, 128, 131
Grubbauer, M. 210 Horváth, A. 94
Guattari, F. 145 Hugh-Jones, S. 1, 241
Gullestad, Marianne 3, 37, 41, 130 Hughes, S. 240
Gunn, W. 4 Hunt, Jamer 7
Gustavsen, A. 242 Huq, E. 150
Hagen, Aina Landsverk 1–12, 105–7, identification, film-making 150, 158–60

135–48, 177–9, 181, 184, 185, 252 identity, homelessness 85
Hale, J. 79 Ihde, Don 77
Hanssen, G. S. 181 inclusion/exclusion: ‘After Belonging’
Haraway, Donna 27 164–76; infrastructure 113–14;
Harboe, Lisbet 105–6, 109–21, 252 public life 105, 106–7; Ryerson
Harris, M. 19, 22 University 195–204
Harvey, D. 114 indoor climate 32; mould and
Hastrup, K. 111, 119 microbes 62–75
Havik, K. 62 inequality 252–3; gender 198–9; social
healthcare 260 urbanism 113, see also equality;
Heaphy, L. 48 see also migrants/refugees
Heimdal secondary school 238, 242, infrastructure 105; PUIs 113–14; UVAs
245–7, 248 109–19
Heiskanen, E. 239 Ingold, Tim xiii–xvii, 8, 13, 17, 59, 69,
Index 267
73, 136, 173, 185, 211, 212, 235, McNiff, S. 144
237, 240, 251, 256 McQuirk, J. 110, 113
integration 41–2, 95, 114, 118, 124, Maggio, R. 151
132, 153–4, 170–3 Magnussen, M. 92, 97
islands 90–103 Malinowski, Bronislaw 4, 7, 239
Malpas, J. 49
Jacobs, Jane 2 Marchand, Trevor 251
Jacobs, K. 49 Martin, Tomas Max 33, 90–103, 252
Jalas, M. 239 Marvin, S. 112, 114, 171, 239
Janda, K. 242 material turn 3, 111, 119, 183
Jepsen, Marie Blomgren 32, 48–61, 252 Mauss, Marcel 1
Jericho walls 94 May, V. 138
Jewkes, Y. 95 Mead, Margaret 4
Johannessen, Runa 33, 90–103, 252 meeting place concept 122–3,
124–6, 131
Kahn, A. 149 Melhuish, C. 208–10
Kaplan, R. 143 Melhus, M. 3
Kaplan, S. 143 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 2, 183,
Kauschen, Gesine 230 195–6, 202
Kenzari, B. 91 microbes 62–75
Kirkebæk, B. 100 microscales 62–75
Kissoon, P. 165 migrants/refugees 107, 161; ‘After
Klarskov, K. 91 Belonging’ 164–76; Lindholm Island
Klinenberg, E. 131 90–2, 97–101; Oslo library 124, 128
Klingman, A. 213 Mikaelsson, Oskar 155–8
Knight, L. 144 Miller, D. 57
Køge Kyst 226, 228–9 minor architecture 159
Koolhaas, Rem 15, 22, 49 Mischke, J. 260
Korody, N. 167 mixed-use design, libraries 122–34
Korosec-Serfaty, P. 85 mobility, ‘Modes of Movement’ 168–70
modelling 189
Latour, Bruno 15, 21, 22–3, 49, 63, 65, modernism 2, 158
73, 183, 225 ‘Modes of Movement’ 168–70
Lauritsen, A. N. 92–3 Mol, Annemarie 66, 73
Law, J. 151 Moore, Henrietta 1–2
Lawson, B. 62 Moran, D. 91, 95, 101–2n1
Lawson, V. 151 Morgan, Lewis Henry 1
Le Corbusier, 31 Morreall, J. 184
Leach, N. 165 Mosse, D. 111, 119
Lefebvre, H. 136, 173 mould 62–75
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1 Mountz, Alison 99, 100
libraries 106; mixed-use design 122–34 Møystad, O. 136
Lien, M. 3 Muschamp, Herbert 112
light: cultural aesthetics 217–19;
domestic 55; UVAs 109 narrative dialogues 135–48
Lindholm Island 90–2, 97–101 narrative embroidery 141
Löfgren, O. 56 Nasar, J. L. 138
Lofland, L. 53 National Graphene Institute (NGI)
Loos, Adolf 214 17–19, 20
Losmann, Carmen 234 neighbours 81, 83, 85, 124; balconies
Louw, E. 123, 128, 131 32, 48–61; noise nuisance 32, 35–47
neoliberalism 114
McKinsey & Company 260 Newell, P. 181
268 Index
Nielsen, Søren 35–6, 37, 39, 42, 46n2, Petersen, Sandra Lori 32, 35–47, 252
178, 224–36 Peterson, M. 132
noise nuisance 32, 35–47 pilot buildings 178–9, 237–49
non-humans 1, 3, 6, 8, 13, 16, 19, 21–2, Pink, Sarah 9–10, 69, 73, 183, 251–63
26, 65, 91, 149, 182, 183–5, 190 place attachment 166
Norberg-Schulz, Christian 2, 136 place-making 166
Nordic Research Network for pluralism 150
Architectural Anthropology 4, 5–6 post-humanism 6
normality principle 91–2, 95, 96–7 post-humanist turn see material turn
Norris, J. 78 pragmatism 3, 13, 225
Norwegian Library Act 122 ‘primitive hut’ 2
Norwegian Planning and Building Act prisons 33; walls and islands 90–103
138–9, 181 privacy: balconies 51–3, 60;
Novoselov, K. S. 18 homeliness 83–5
NRK 237, 242–5, 248 private/public, balconies 55–60
Nuñez-Janes, M. 150 Proyectos Urbano Integral (PUI) 113–14
public life, urban space 105–76
Oekonomia 234
Office of Metropolitan Architecture qualitative approaches 2–3, 24, 26, 49,
(OMA) 14, 15, 18, 20, 22 64, 71, 78, 86–8
Øien, Turid Borgestrand 32, 62–75, 252
Oldenburg, Ray 122 Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred 4
oligopticons 22–3 Raffnsøe, Lau 35–6, 37–9, 42, 46n2
OPEN transformation (OT) 164, Rasmussen, Mia Kruse 32, 62–75, 252
168–75 reciprocity, ‘opening up’ 171–2
‘opening up’ 171–2 reflexivity 150
Organisation for Economic Co- Reiter, K. 95
operation and Development Rendell, Jane 78
(OECD) 5 renderings 207–23
Oslo Architecture Triennale (OAT) 107, Rice, Tom 41
164, 166–9, 174 Rinkinen, J. 239
Osuldsen, Jenny B. 106, 135–48, Rishbeth, C. 158
185, 252 robotization 259–60
the other 2 Rodeo Architects 123, 124, 131
Otto, T. 4, 254 Rodman, M. 240
Our meeting place: the E-hall Røe, P. G. 210, 214
Emmaboda 158–60 Rogaly, B. 158
outcast archipelago 98–100 Rogers, C. R. 146
Rose, G. 151, 208–10
Pallasmaa, Juhani 36–7, 41, 45, 62, 145 Rosten, M. 136
participant listening 139–40 Ruby, J. 152
participation 4, 177–249; collaborative Rudningen, G. 140, 184
housing development 224–36; fatigue Rudofsky, Bernard 2
181; ‘opening up’ 171–2; pilot RuimteVeldWerk (RVW) 164,
buildings 237–49; planning 106; PUIs 168, 171–5
113–14; user evaluation 241–2; UVAs Ruud, M. E. 126, 128, 140
113, 117; youth and urban Ryerson University 194–205
development 181–93 Rykwert, Joseph 2
The people’s house as a meeting
place 152–4 safety, homeliness 83
perception primacy 183 Saglie, I.-L. 181
Pérez-Gómez, A. 214 Salazar, J. F. 254, 255
personhood 37 Sandercock, L. 149, 150, 151, 152, 158
Index 269
Sanders, E. B.-N. 146 Stoner, J. 159
scale, microscales 62–75 Storstrøm Prison 94
Schliehe, A. K. 101–2n1 storytelling, film-making 150,
Schneider, T. 161 151–4, 160
Schön, D. A. 13 Stovner Library 122, 123, 124–7
Scott, F. D. 172 Strathern, Marilyn 40
scouting 188 Strebel, I. 17
Seamon, D. 78 Sumartojo, Shanti 259
Selskabet for Billige Boliger (SfBB) sustainable architecture 1, 4–5, 17, 178,
226, 230–3 190, 237–49
sensory experience 37 Sustainable Developmental Goals 4
Sheridan, A. 99 Sylvest, M. 62
Shove, E. 65, 240 symbolic boundaries 53
Sillitoe, P. 7
site-writing 78 Tainio, P. 239
situated knowledge 27 Tamari, T. 145
Skærbæk, M. 91 technological pilot logic 238,
Skov, Rasmus Stahlfelst Holck 35–6, 239–40, 247–8
37, 39, 42–3, 46n2 Teder, M. 166, 172
SLA 208, 211 temporal belonging 136–7, 143
slow architecture 20–1 thick description 3
slow space 141 Thilmany, Drew Nathan 178, 194–206
Smith, K. 40 Thorshaug, R. Ø. 164
Smith, R. C. 4, 254 Till, J. 21, 63, 161
social concepts 194–206 time, homelessness 86
social control 117 ‘tolerated stay’ 91, 97, 102n3
social mechanisms, rendering 219–21 Tolstad, Ingrid M. 136, 141, 143, 178,
social media, balconies 49–50, 56–7, 59 181–93
social sustainability 4 Topouzi, M. 242
social transformative change 150–1, Torffvit, Felicia 152–4
154, 160–1 Torshov asylum-seekers’ reception
social urbanism 110, 112–14, 116 centre 164–76
Society for Applied Anthropology 4 town-planning cinema 149
socio-cultural practices 13, 150; site trailing 187
analysis 140, 144; urban design transport, Medellín 105, 113, 114
studios 207–23 Tshishonga, N. S. 181
socio-material dynamics 9, 32, 105 Tsing, Anna 225, 234
Sollien, Silje Erøy 178, 224–36 Tuana, Nancy 37, 43, 45
Sonne, K. 48 Turner, J. 91, 101–2n1
spatial agency 161 Turner, V. W. 118
spatial belonging see belonging the unbuilt 256–7
spatial difference 149–63
spatiality 252–3, 261–2 Unidades de Vida Articulada (UVAs)
splotting 135–48, 185, 188 109–21
stakeholder collaboration 117 United Nations: Convention on the
Stampe, Zenia 97 Rights of the Child 181; Sustainable
Stappers, P. J. 146 Developmental Goals 4
Stender, Marie 1–12, 31–3, 48–61, 78, urban design studios 207–23
105–7, 111, 119, 150, 165, 233, 252 urban development, youth participation
Stengers, I. 20 181–93
Stenslund, Anette 178, 207–23, 253 urban renewal, rendering 214–15
Støa, Eli 107, 164–76, 177–9 urban space 9, 105–76; ‘Unidades de
Støjberg, Inger 91 Vida Articulada’ 109–21
270 Index
urban youth 135–48 Wang, L. 7
user evaluation 241–2 Weirup, T. 48
user/citizen participation Weizman, E. 91
see participation welfare 6, 169, 171
welfare state 91, 100, 101
Valencia, Horacio 109, 114, 118 Whitney, D. 138
Van der Linden, V. 63 Woods, Ruth 178–9, 237–49, 253
Vandkunsten Architects 226, 228, world-making 17
230–1, 233
Vellinga, M. 1, 2 Y-House project 182–3, 184, 185–91
vernacular architecture 2 Yaneva, Albena 3, 8, 13–29, 225, 251
Vestby, Nina 141 Yordi, S. 240
Vike, H. 8 youth participation, urban development
viscous porosity 32, 35–47 181–93
visualization 23–6, 225; renderings
207–23; splotting 136–48 zero emission buildings 237, 242–8
Zuboff, S. 90
Wagner, Laura B. 45 Zumthor, P. 62, 111
Wallman 52
walls 31–103; noise nuisance 32, 35–47;
viscous porosity 32, 35–47

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Architectural Anthropology

Marie Stender is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Department

Claus Bech-Danielsen is an architect and professor at the Department of the

Aina Landsverk Hagen is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Edited by Marie Stender,

ISBN: 978-0-367-55575-7 (hbk)

List of contributors viii

Introduction to architectural anthropology 1

The method of architectural anthropology:

1 The viscous porosity of walls and people 35

2 An outdoor living room: balconies and blurring

3 Mould, microbes, and microscales of architecture:

4 Homelessness and homeliness: collage technique as a

6 Interdisciplinarity on site: exploring the urban

7 Engaging with mixed-use design: the case of the urban

8 Urban youth, narrative dialogues, and emotional

9 What makes spatial difference? Conceptualizing

10 ‘After Belonging’: a study of proposals for

11 Architectural anthropologists in the making? Paths

13 Rendering atmosphere: exploring the creative glue in

14 Constructing community? A collaborative housing

15 Norwegian pilots: navigating the technological logic of

Afterword: engaging architectural anthropology 251

Bengt Andersen, social anthropologist, senior researcher, Work Research

Architectural anthropology is not the same as the anthropology of

University of Aberdeen, March, 2021

Turning home and towards practice

Nordic and post-human perspectives

Fifteen ways to explore lived space

The interest in architectural anthropology gained its contemporary cur­

Figure 0.1 Architects at work at OMA, Rotterdam.

Setting two: Archiving

Figure 0.2 Archivists and curators at work at the CCA, Montreal.

the nature of design as a collective, heterogeneous, social process, we ex­

Setting three: Dwelling/inhabiting

First: Follow slowly! Do not rush to explain!

Second: Chase up all non-humans! Trace the relations!

Third: Stay on the ground!

Fourth: Visualize and amplify!

Figure 0.4 Mapping visualizations.

Figure 0.5 Mapping visualizations.

Fifth: Re-describe, re-describe, re-describe!

Sixth: Make a difference!

Home, walls, and

From an architectural-anthropology point of view, a home is not to be

On the third floor of a five-story building in central Copenhagen that dates

Human and material inadequacies

The porous self

discussion. A landmark in this discussion occurred when Marilyn Strathern

The intimacy of the home

Professional conceptions of a wall

(Kozinets, 2010) to map how balconies appear on social media, such as

Getting others into one’s living room

I love living in the city, but I am so tired of having to ‘be public’, in

Like many others we interviewed, Anna looked forward to being able to

Private pouches in public space

I enjoy observing how others decorate their balconies. For example,

Domestic light is intricately connected to Scandinavian notions of cosiness

I looked at our balcony and thought it was so embarrassing that it was

The interest in architectural anthropology gained its contemporary cur

the nature of design as a collective, heterogeneous, social process, we ex

Walls and islands are foundational elements of architecture and anthro

Medellín are connected through water infrastructure. Moreover, the an

Filmmaking constitutes an inquiry and form of representation that cap