Lighting up the darkness

International students rarely cite the long dark winters as a reason for choosing Sweden as a study destination, but Isabel Villar came to Stockholm in 2006 for precisely that reason. As a student in the Architectural Lighting Design Program at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), the native Chilean was drawn to studying in a country where artificial lighting is so important.

“Everyone here is conscious of light so it’s a very good place to learn about this subject,” she says.

Although the lighting design program is held in the School of Technology and Health’s Lighting Laboratory, the one-year master’s course is aimed at students with an undergraduate degree in architecture or related fields. Agneta Ejhed, program coordinator and course lecturer, says that lighting is central to the architecture profession. It involves health and well-being, as well as safety and security.

“You take light for granted, but the more you work with it, the more the field grows,” she says.

Lighting project in Jordbro, south of Stockholm. Photo: KTH

Although many architecture programs offer short courses in lighting design, the KTH master’s is one of only four degree programs of its kind in the world. Individual modules include “Light and humans,” which looks at the basic human need for light and provides the theoretical basis for lighting design and as well as an overview of light sources and materials. Other modules cover outdoor lighting and indoor lighting, as well as daylight and the design process.

There is a big focus on getting students out into the field. “You can’t learn about light just by reading a book – you have to experience it,” Ejhed says.

Design on ice

Many students who complete the lighting design master’s also choose to stay in Sweden after the course order to participate in “Winter landscape and buildings,” a studio course that runs each fall for professional architects and recent graduates. Students create the lighting concept for the Ice Hotel in the northern Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi. “We were ten young lighting designers from eight different countries,” Villar says, who was one of the course participants.


Lighting up the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi. Photo: Peter Grant / www.imagebank.sweden.se 

They spent almost two months developing the project, and then traveled to Jukkasjärvi where they spent an intense week realizing their concept – including drilling into the ice to mount lighting fixtures. “It was a very extreme situation,” says Villar, adding that it was also a once in a lifetime opportunity.
 

Virtutecture

Lighting design is not the only innovative program offered by KTH. The Department of Architecture offers a five-year program, after which students graduate with a master’s degree. Architecture students choose a specialization in their fourth year by selecting one of six studio tracks, which can vary from year to year. “There is a wide range of choices when it comes to courses within the master’s program,” says lecturer Tor Lindstrand.  “There are very dedicated teachers who all have quite specific tracks.”

Lindstrand says one of the distinguishing features of the KTH architecture program is that all lecturers are also practicing architects, which means there is a lot of emphasis on the practical aspects. Students also have a lot of freedom in choosing which projects they work on, which means that they are expected to take a lot of initiative.

Lindstrand has taught a track called “Production of Architecture” since 2003. One course in the track, entitled “Unreal central perspective,” looked at the representation of architecture in Second Life, a 3D virtual world. The 3D tools used by Second Life developers are similar to those used by architects, and Lindstrand wanted to explore the relationship between computer gaming and architecture, as well as between design tools and production.

In Second Life, architectural design is not limited by the physical constraints of the material environment. This allows students to stretch their thinking about the possibilities of architecture, as well as to try to critically imagine their own future. “In Second Life, as an architect, you can build almost anything,” Lindstrand says. “And that’s challenging – and thrilling – to think about.”

The two Houses of Sweden. Virtual architecture emulates the real world. Photo (left): Åke E:son Lindman / www.imagebank.sweden.se

The Second Life course at KTH served as a springboard for several students to launch their own architecture firm, studio un/real, founded by Michael Matèrn from Sweden and Daiki Kobayashi from Japan. Since completing the course, they have received commissions for several other projects integrating new media and architecture. This includes Virtu-Real, an installation at the Swedish embassy in the United States, which was part of a larger exhibition on innovation and technology. 


studio un/real sets up the Virtu-Real installation at the House of Sweden. Photo: Stefan Geens

In May 2007, the Swedish Institute launched the Second House of Sweden as one of the first virtual embassies in Second Life. In January this year, Matèrn and Kobayashi, together with fellow classmates Kristin Gausdal from Norway and Markus Wagner from Sweden, traveled to Washington D.C. to build the installation at the House of Sweden. Virtu-Real linked the real embassy with the Second House of Sweden through the use of video streaming and voice technology – blurring the boundaries between the real and the virtual.

Visitors to the embassy entered a room where they saw a video screen projecting a simultaneous exhibition from Second Life. At the same time, Second Life residents, in the form of avatars, could see “real life” visitors. Video streams between the virtual and real worlds created the spatial experience of actually being in Second Life, and vice versa. Visitors to the embassy could look – not only into – but actually through the virtual room and back into real life. A giant red telephone also allowed visitors to speak with the avatars in the virtual world.

Kristin Gausdal from Norway dials up Second Life in the Virtu-Real phonebooth. Photo: Thomas Quiggle

“The Virtu-Real concept is basically about trying to merge second life and real life in a spatial way. When you physically move in real life, you also move in relation to the virtual world, thus creating a new kind of spatial interface,” explains Matèrn.

“We use Second Life in a different way than many other people who might use it as a communication tool. We use it as a tool to explore space and to do architectural experiments,” Gausdal says.

studio un/real at the House of Sweden, and Second House of Sweden. Photo: Thomas Quiggle  

Matèrn and Gausdal both say that they never would have been able to create their “in-between worlds” architecture studio without Lindstrand’s course. Gausdal says that although many educational programs in media/communication and computer programming might deal with Second Life, Lindstrand’s program was unique in that it was offered by an architecture school.

“The course itself gave us the tools and the business connections to start up studio un/real,” Matèrn says. “The crazy idea to start an architect office as a school project was our own, but we never could have done it without the track.” 

Links

www.arkitekturskolan.se — KTH School of Architecture
www.kth.se  — Architectural Lighting Design Programme at KTH
www.secondhouseofsweden.com — Blog about the Second House of Sweden
Virtu-Real on Fox News — See the exhibition
www.studiounreal.com — studio un/real
Sweden opens virtual embassy 3D-style — Article at www.sweden.se

Charlotte West

Charlotte West is an American writer and editor living in Stockholm. She has written about design and architecture for publications such as Icon and Varoom. She came to Sweden as an international student in 2002, and never left.