Admission requirements
The course is connected to the following study programs
- Master of Architecture
Course description
The objective of the studio course is to strengthen the students’ architectural reflection and ability to articulate spatial idea and form through making. The course emphasizes the integration of scientific research and artistic development within a mutually explorative process, where daylight and structure are the main elements.
Architectural investigations will consider how proportions of space, order of the structure, material surfaces, geometry and the placement of light openings, affect daylight conditions in architecture at high latitudes. The aim is to foster an understanding of how local climate, culture, and context inform architectural decisions.
The spring 2026 program, Productive Housing in Estonia, seeks to rethink what it means to live well in the Nordic-Baltic context today — questioning globalized models of housing that prioritize efficiency and profit over spatial, social, and material quality. The studio explores housing as a framework for participation, production, and coexistence, inviting alternative forms of living and working that strengthen local identity, social resilience, and resource awareness.
A central concern is how we use the daylight available on the site — a free and ever-present resource. The studio discusses how we live, and how we build at high latitudes, where diffuse light, low sun-angles, and substantial seasonal variations influence human behavior, health and well-being.
The studio is part of an international collaboration with Studio Boltshauser at ETH Zürich, the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA), and TalTech University in Tallinn. Initiated by the Louis I. Kahn Estonia Foundation, this collaboration explores the continuing relevance of Kahn’s ideas and their potential to inform contemporary architectural practice.
Learning Outcome
Knowledge:
After completing the course, students will have:
- An understanding of how proportions of a room, placement of light openings, choice of structure and material surfaces affect daylight conditions in the interior.
- Insight into how scientific research and artistic exploration on daylight and structure can be integrated in architectural practice.
- Knowledge of how local climate, culture, and context influence housing typologies in the Nordic–Baltic region.
Skills
After completing the course, students will be able to:
- Conduct architectural investigations with a precise relationship between daylight, structure, material, program and place.
- Analyze and assess spatial qualities that respond to site-specific daylight conditions.
- Communicate and represent spatial intentions through models, drawings, text and images.
- Assess daylight quantity and quality.
General competence
After completing the course, students will be able to:
- Reflect critically on the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative aspects on daylight in architecture.
- Engage and contribute to the discussion on the program “Productive housing” and “how we live” in a Nordic-Baltic context.
- Integrate reflective, research-based thinking and artistic making in the development of spatial and architectural form.
- Articulate how daylight and the choice of structural principles and material contribute to architectural quality and human well-being
Teaching
The studio is structured in four modules that combine theory, tools and methods, and architectural investigations. The pedagogical approach aims to achieve deeper learning through making, integrating knowledge into intuitive and creative processes. Teaching is based on dialogue, discussion, and peer-to-peer feedback.
Students begin with tools and methods for assessing daylight from a quantitative and qualitative perspective (case study, Module 1), followed by architectural investigations in the 1:1 Daylight Lab exploring light, structure, and materials (Module 2).
Module 3 includes the field trip Along the 60th Parallel to Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, and Saaremaa, in collaboration with Louis Kahn Estonia Foundation.
The final module develops an individual project, Productive Housing (700–1000 m²). Through analogue, digital, and AI-based methods for measuring daylight, students “build to understand,” exploring daylight conditions in the interior by building models.
The studio will focus on daylight, structure — and time. The making of the exhibition will be integrated into the studio work.
Course structure:
Monday: Studio talk, desk talks, lectures.
Thursday: 1:1 dialogue and peer-to-peer feedback.
There will be 1 presentation from each Module and a Mid-Review and Final-Review with Studio Boltshauser and LKESA as guests.
Examination
Mandatory activities:
In order to be assessed in this course, you must at least participate on 80% of the course activities. You must Hand In and present all 4 Modules. Mid-Review and Final Review are mandatory activities. Physical attendance at lectures, supervision, and excursion is expected and necessary to achieve the learning outcomes.
Form of assessment: Project
Grouping: Individual
Grading scale: Pass/fail
Description of the assessment: The hand-in consists of models, drawings, images and text and will be assessed orally.