Three teams selected for research project Transformation – RE:purpose

How can we transform and develop existing buildings instead of demolishing and building new? What needs to change in working methods, financial models, or regulations to make that happen? Here are the three creative teams – including experts in building conservation, property economics, and restoration architecture – who will work on the new research project Transformation – RE:purpose.

Transformation – RE:purpose is a practice-based research project that aims to investigate possible ways to promote a transition in the construction and real estate industry through speculative design. Between January 30 and February 20, ArkDes issued an open call, from which three teams were selected out of more than forty high-quality applications.

In 2025, the selected teams will develop proposals for three properties in Sweden – in Gamlestaden, Gothenburg; Alviks strand, Stockholm; and on the Umeå University campus. Their proposals will aim to make the most of each building’s existing qualities while transforming them for new uses. The work will highlight both the challenges and opportunities of transformation, with the goal of generating innovative policy proposals to strengthen incentives for reuse and redevelopment.

Transformation – RE:purpose is led by ArkDes in collaboration with Boverket, the Swedish National Heritage Board, and the Swedish Property Federation. The project is funded by research grants from Vinnova.

Team members:
Carmen Izquierdo, architect
Mariano Tellechea, architect
Stina Hagelqvist, building antiquarian and architectural historian
Kristina Thimberg, MSc in Land Surveying
Robert Abrahamson, designer

Rationale:
The team’s collective experience, knowledge and interdisciplinary composition testify to the ability to see all perspectives relevant to the call. The ambition to critically identify, analyse and add alternative values and new value chains is central and provides opportunities to challenge prevailing norms.

With a well-systematized methodology and a distinguished design ability, the team’s results will be clearly comprehensible, communicable and comparable. These analytical and communicative strengths are balanced by a testing and listening approach to the stories, characteristics and perspectives that surround the existing built environment.

Team members:
Felix Freudenthal Lotz, restoration architect
Lisa Berglund, building antiquarian and certified expert cultural values
Gustaf Wennerberg, architect
Kajsa Dahlbäck, social strategist
Finn Ahlgren, designer and artist

Rationale:
With expertise spanning from architecture and cultural heritage conservation to community planning and design, the team convincingly undertakes the adaptation of existing buildings to new needs. By combining a careful approach to what has already been built with experimental and proactive design strategies, the team is estimated to have the capacity to challenge existing practice and contribute to change.

The wish to develop methods and processes for resource-efficient development of existing buildings is in line with the team’s ambitious pedagogical strategies for reaching out with the results. The overall experience of complex transformation projects is considered to be particularly interesting to develop further within the framework of the project.

Team members:
Catharina Dahl Palmér, architect
Kristina de Rooij, real estate economist and building antiquarian
Ulrika Lindh, building antiquarian
Ylva Frid, architect
Björn Ekelund, architect and senior lecturer at the Department of Architecture, LTU

Rationale:
The team brings together expertise relevant to the call, spanning transformative architecture, cultural history, real estate economics and urban planning. The work is grounded in a clearly defined division of roles and a well-articulated position in relation to the subject matter. The perspective is broad yet made convincing through carefully selected focus areas.

A consistent ambition to challenge existing frameworks runs throughout the application. The team targets both current governance systems and regulations, as well as the potential of an expanded role of the architect —one that promotes greater recognition of the built environment as a vital resource for the future.