Participatory Design and Build

This year, the course is taking place in Dals Långed, a site of HDK-Valand Campus Steneby, under a working title Floating neighbourhood. It is the fourth in a series of Design build projects in Dals Långed, where architecture, landscape architecture and design students collaborate with the local population to create public meeting places in Dals Långed and thereby develop the town's living environment. During 2018 and 2019, Långed park was built, with a public sauna, an outdoor kitchen and other amenities.

The park was warmly welcomed by locals and tourists, and the sauna has become a successful place for community and social exchange with over 400 bookings per year, and winning several design awards.

Summer 2024 was the start of prototyping a public space on water, with the ambition to further connect Dals Långed to water, as the element of water is very essential to the character of the place. It also builds on a legacy of many iconic projects where water enabled materialisation of ideas which were difficult to conceive on land: from Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo to Raumlabor’s Floating Berlin. During the period of 4 weeks in 2024, several rafts were built: two as performance pavilions for cultural events, a fire raft, and several more dedicated to swimming and experiencing water.

During the coming summer, the idea is to continue building further floating experiments, and test them together with local audiences through organisation of several small events. Although this experimental public space is largely dedicated to different cultural events, we will strive to cover a wide range of target audiences, and also a range of preferences when it comes to active vs. passive participation. Thus the project is not only about participatory creation of public space in the community, but also about the interlace of different categories of activities, which will hopefully embed the vessel in the community without it feeling estranged or removed from the non-art oriented people.

The venue is an addition to existing public space of Långed Park, and as it is envisioned as collection of several floating platforms, it would also have the possibility of traveling through Dalsland Kanal to other places. Besides being a stage for music and theatre performances, a list of possible activities includes artist in residence studio, vegetable garden, grill place, bathhouse, outdoor classroom and more. The exact program would be developed through collaboration of all interested stakeholders—local inhabitants, students, business owners and more.

The project is carried out in partnership with University of Washington and Dals Långeds Utvecklingsråd.    

Pre-application info sessions

Find out more and ask questions about the course info sessions held via zoom on February 27 at 15:00 or March 13 at 15:00.

Participate via zoom link

Apply in three steps

1. Apply for the course at universityadmissions.se. Deadline March 17, 2025.
2. Submit your portfolio in SlideRoom. Deadline March 17, 2025.
3. Submit documentation proving you meet the entry requirements of the course on universityadmissions.se. Deadline April 17, 2025.