SuperLine

SuperLine proposes a new framework for urbanism and housing architecture to be implemented in northern Sweden. Through a housing proposal and a superstructure alike, it expands the notion of city as a spatial system, introduces a region-specific mode of dwelling, and proposes an innovative position in the Swedish architectural debate on housing.

SuperLine is developed in two parts: how the superstructure plugs in to the territory, and how dwellings in turn plug in to the superstructure. The proposal works in two perpendicular axes across the territorial scale: a transport axis and a domestic axis. The former follows the coastal railway extension and parallels several vital roads situated inland. The latter axis works perpendicularly and extends across the landscape. Their intersections allow for clusters of dwellings at points of access to road or railway.\nThere is a pre-existing string of domesticity between Umeå and Skellefteå which anchors the proposal. To document the domesticity, and situate the proposal, I conducted a SuperTrip through the region. I aimed at finding a context in both explicit domesticity like hotels and more abstract fragments of infrastructure and production. \nOn a dwelling scale, the proposal triangulates its footing in the territory - by soil, landscape, and installations. Soil addresses the access between dwelling and territory through an inhabitable façade and stairwell alike. Landscape is created when framed, and therefore the window design was constructed in a 1:1 scale. Installations are collected in the SuperWall that runs vertically between units. A split beam with a central gap enables installations that branch off and up into the cluster of dwellings. This solution allows units to be prefabricated and thus facilitates accommodation of a fluid population.\nAs urbanism mediates territory and domesticity, it can be used to either disconnect or connect them. Often the focus of current urban development is a disconnection between domesticity and the territory by creating a city grid as a blank canvas. The present proposal instead seeks to connect territory and domesticity with a spatial reframing of urbanism which is put in relation to domesticity – a domestic urbanism.