Report: To Cultivate a Square in Every Hometown

A square is the heart of every community—a place where people gather and create shared traditions. But what happens when the square becomes a parking lot? How can a village reclaim its square?

In 2021, the project Odla torg (Cultivate Squares) was selected as one of five initiatives to receive funding through ArkDes Think Tank’s Open Call. Collaborating with residents and stakeholders in the village of Sollerön, nestled in the heart of Siljan, the project team—Gaia arkitektur ↗, Lisa Maria Eizenhofer, and Återbruket Klippen ↗—tested and developed methods to create architectural strategies for building squares in rural areas. The project yielded valuable insights and inspired a follow-up initiative to further explore rural meeting places, resulting in a report and a manual.

The report, To Cultivate a Square in Every Hometown, developed by Gaia, summarizes years of exploration of local meeting places.