On Medicinareberget in Gothenburg stands Zoologen, a building from 1967 designed by White architects. It consists of a tall concrete tower and a lower laboratory building, once filled with research environments and live animals. In Näckrosen is the Old Court of Appeal, a brick building from 1948 designed by Hakon Ahlberg, formerly the Court of Appeal for Western Sweden and later the university's archaeology department. Today, both buildings are empty, waiting for new uses.
But this spring, they have been given new life – at least on the drawing board.
Master's students in architecture at Chalmers University of Technology have been working on visionary proposals for how the Zoologist and the Old Court of Appeal could be transformed and reused in the future. One of the prerequisites in the assignment has been to create a meeting place for students in the buildings. The results were presented for a full day of final presentations and an exhibition that will be on display until August in A Working Lab at the Chalmers area.
Building on – instead of starting over
How do we build sustainably at a time when the climate requires us to rethink? One answer is not to build new at all – but instead use what already exists.
Transformation, reuse and adaptation are key strategies for extending the life of existing buildings. In the course, the students have based their work on the principles of Refuse, Rethink, Reduce – where the most important thing is to question, think new and minimize the need for new resources. With the help of physical models, analyses and design, the students have developed proposals that both take advantage of the past and look to the future.
Collaboration with real roots
The work has been done in close collaboration with Akademiska Hus, which owns both buildings. Through the collaboration, the students have been able to work with authentic conditions – and Akademiska Hus has been able to take part in new perspectives and ideas on how to make use of the environments more sustainably.
"It is both inspiring and instructive to see how the next generation of architects interpret our buildings with new eyes. The fact that parts of the teaching and reporting have taken place in our premises at A Working Lab – and that the students' work is now being exhibited here this summer – also enriches that building exactly as we wish," says Karolina Ganhammar, Property Manager at Akademiska Hus.
A warm thank you to Chalmers and all committed students for the collaboration!
