Retake/Reuse: The Winter Garden

Alejandro Haiek CollMaria Luna NobileMarie Kraft

Winter Garden, Umeå Arts Campus, December 2022

The Retake/ Reuse experiments to reactivate public spaces: the winter garden project explores how participatory processes can be a tool to develop architectural languages and renegotiate a city’s infrastructure in response to the climate emergency and the need for winter public spaces. Working through artistic practices and research explorations, this project investigates how urban winter gardens can have a regenerative social impact in Nordic urban contexts and how temporary structures can help us formulate new architectural languages. Working with members of the public, students and experts in art and architecture, the project facilitates knowledge sharing leading to the realisation of a physical full-scale prototype at the Arts Campus, Umeå University, on Saturday 3 December, 2022. 

Everyone is welcome to take part in this public event starting with a roundtable discussion indoors in the Architecture School (UMA) 10.00-12.00. Followed by an installation of the winter public space which will reactivate the high level courtyard between Bildmuseet and Konsthögskolan 13.00-17.00

This will be the first installation of the Small Visionary Project ‘Retake/Reuse: experiments to reactivate public space: the winter garden’ supported by UmArts. It will explore how architecture can operate as a device for collective practice and public engagement; to investigate how urban winter gardens can have a regenerative social impact in Nordic, urban contexts, and how temporary structures can help us formulate new responsive, ecological environments.

The Winter Garden project is an intersection between culture, art, architecture, human interactions and environmental science, addressing climate emergency and the need for nature, in a transdisciplinary collaboration between:

Umeå School of Architecture

SVP Project Coordinator: Maria Luna Nobile

Project Installation: Alejandro Haiek

Technical advisors: Tomas Mena, Alejandra Diaz

Project team: Rebecca Rudolph, Raffaele Errichiello

Circolo Scandinavo

Director: Marie Kraft

Department of Informatics

UX Lab: Fatemeh Moradi, Umeå University. Team: Hiran Herath, Kevin Charles Dalli, Parisima Alaie , Viktor Sjöström, William Sahlin

Department of Environmental Sciences
Project advisor: Gesche Blume-Werry