40 672 Re-store: Elements (Spring 2026)

Re-Store: Elements is an experimental preservation studio exploring how architecture can be redefined through the reuse, transformation, and preservation of what is already built. This semester will be dedicated to Elements, focusing on architecture as an assembly of tectonic parts rather than a singular whole.

In the twentieth century, ready-made elements flooded the market and created the basis for bold architectural experiments, forming a new way of producing architecture. Elements could come from all over the globe, each with their own histories and provenance. Systematized into a variety of types, formats, and sizes, they created the opportunity for buildings to be constructed in record time, with an efficiency like never before, and with constructive logics that differed from their in-situ counterparts.

In transforming buildings from our recent past, we are immediately confronted with elements. Rather than thinking of them as waste, how can we find new ways to utilize what is already there? How can we build with and upon these constructions in ways that give value to these materials? How can we wrestle with the heritage of materials that have troubled histories and were not made to last? This studio will investigate these questions and more, using architectural experiments and the lens of the element to uncover new ways of constructing and transforming architecture.

The semester will be divided into three phases: Element, Assembly, and Project. Students will begin by focusing on a single element, understanding the past, present, and future for a given building block through registration and archival research. In the second phase, students will focus on creating tectonic assemblies, understanding elements in relation to one another. Finally, in the last phase, students will be tasked with defining their own project that they will use as the testbed for further experimentation.

At the end of the course students should have the knowledge of

• The discourse of preservation and reuse of architecture
• The theoretical framework for working with existing buildings
• The concept of provenance and how preservation is embedded within this concept
• The material and technical culture of architectural elements

At the end of the course students should have the skills to

• Work with archives and archival based research
• Analyze, decipher, and describe key aspects of preservation theory through discussions on readings
• Conduct and present a survey of an existing building through the lens of an element
• Define, execute, and communicate an architectural project through models, drawings, sketches, and photographs.

Through the course students will have acquired the following general competence

• Ability to critically communicate and participate in the public discourse
• Ability to examine their own disciplinary position through individual studies and group discussions

The method of teaching will follow the phases, and is a combination of lectures, discussions, desk crits, pin ups, and excursions.

The study trip will visit sites and projects that sit at the cross section between transformation and the study of elements. The exact location of the trip will be announced prior to the start of the course but will be within continental Europe. For those unable to attend, visits to projects in and around Oslo will be arranged.

Physical attendance in lectures, supervision, discussions, and other educational activities is expected and necessary in order to achieve the learning outcomes

Form of assessment: Project

Grouping: Idividual

Grading scale: Pass/fail

There will be a review after each of the phases as well as a midterm and final review with guest critics. The assessment is based on the aggregate of all reviews.