Course syllabus

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ACE550 Community Architecture and Urban Design

lp2 HT26 (15 hp)

Course is offered by the ACE Department, MPDSD Program
Link to syllabus on the student portal: https://www.chalmers.se/en/education/your-studies/find-course-and-programme-syllabi/course-syllabus/ACE550/?acYear=2026%2F2027 

Contact details

Examiner: Carrie Bobo, carrie.bobo@chalmers.se, 031 772 18 69

Marco Adelfio, adelfio@chalmers.se, 073 303 20 76
Emílio Brandão, brandao@chalmers.se, 076 234 36 47
Jessica Lundin, jessica.lundin@chalmers.se
Marli Swanepoel, marlis@chalmers.se 

General information

  • The studio starts on Monday November 2nd, 2026, at 9.00.
  • The daily schedule for the course is usually between 8:00-17:00 (check canvas calendar for updated times and events at bottom of this page)
  • The course’s main location is in Hammarkullen
    • The address is Hammarkulletorget 62B (the entrance is in front of you when you exit the tram station, between Folkets Hus and the library). For the first day you will have to ring the bell and/or call a teacher (numbers available above) in order to enter the building. Then take the elevator (or the stairs) up to the 7th floor . You can get to Hammarkullen with tram 4, 8 or 9 from the city centre towards Angered, then get off at the station “Hammarkullen".
    • All lectures, workshops, course moments, etc. will take place in the hammarkullen studio unless otherwise noted in the calendar or mentioned by the teachers.
    • After the first day you will receive a key-tag that gives you access to the building, activates the elevator to the floor 7 and let's you enter our floor. For entering on floor 7 you will have to use the key-tag and after that press the code 8101+OK.

Course purpose and description

This course explores architecture as a social, spatial, and material practice that both shapes and is shaped by society. Situated in Gothenburg’s suburban districts, neighbourhoods developed during Sweden’s Million Homes Programme of the 1960s and 1970s, the course engages with urban environments shaped by welfare-state planning, migration, socioeconomic inequalities, and stigmatizing narratives of segregation and exclusion.

The course combines theoretical readings with situated investigations through walking, observation, interviews, sketching, audiovisual narratives, and relational mapping. These approaches introduce the concept of the relationscape: an understanding of space as an evolving network of relationships among people, buildings, infrastructures, public policy, cultural histories, materials, and the daily lives of people of all ages.

Through engagement with residents, local governmental and community based organizations, housing companies, and other stakeholders, students encounter multiple perspectives. Students design for and with the communities they are embedded within.

The course emphasizes critical reflection, communication, system level perspectives, and collaborative design methods, giving students essential skills for contemporary architectural and urban design practice.

Schedule

The studio runs during study period 2.

A calendar overview for the entire course can be found on Canvas. Students get access to the course material at Canvas, after admission and respective course registration.

The daily schedule for booked events is generally between 9:00-17:00 (aiming for short breaks within every 1 hour working session).

We do not use TimeEdit in this course. Please always refer to the Canvas calendar.

Course design

This is a fulltime study course (per Chalmers, 〜40 hours a week of scheduled activities and 5 hours a week of homework) consisting of lectures, seminars, study visits, workshops, exercises, literature studies, project work, presentation and project evaluation feedback.  The course follows a pedagogical process based on a co-creation methodological framework. Through such a process students co-create their project with stakeholders from the local suburban context and also critically reflect on the process:

Co-initiation (1 week)

Students learn about the Gothenburg suburban context where they work, develop knowledge and understanding of the course’s theoretical and conceptual frameworks and have a co-initiation workshop to define the scope and content of projects in collaboration with local stakeholders. Project groups are defined at the end of this phase.

Co-analysis (2 weeks)

Students focus on how they, in preparation for their future profession, can work with different collaborative methods for inquiry and collection of information on their study area, such as audiovisual narratives and relationscapes. At the end of the co-analysis phase, students present in groups the results of their analytical work.

Co-design (4 weeks)

Students work with their design projects and develop them in close contact with citizens, organisations and other stakeholders, active and involved in the areas. It is a phase for creating, testing and drawing design concepts and ideas. Such processes are rarely linear and skills such as re-planning, adaptation and improvisation in combination with your creative approach to all types of encounters will help you to define your design project.

Co-implementation (3 weeks)

This phase is not a classical implementation in the sense of a physical execution of the project, but rather the period where students work together to refine their design and give it the coherence of a final design product. The design project will be handed in in the format of a design booklet, whose content will be explained on a specific Canvas page. Furthermore, a selection of material from the design project shall be composed into a clear narrative to be presented in an exhibition.

Co-evaluation (1 week)

Co-evaluation of students’ projects occurs in collaboration with the respective stakeholders, in order for students to receive feedback on the entire process and outcome. In the same phase, students will critically reflect on their process with a debate in the class.

The Community Architecture toolbox

During the co-analysis and co-design phases students will be testing different methods and tools for analysis and design, from which they can select the most adequate to use in their projects. These methods can be adapted every year. Examples of such methods include audiovisual narratives, how to run participatory workshops, how to develop games for co-design, how to use hand-built models in dialogue processes.

Canvas

The canvas page consists of 6 modules, they can be found on the HOME page. The first is Course Information, where you will find general course info such as the Course PM, etc. In the other 5 Modules (Co-Initiation, Co-Analysis, Co-Design, Co-Implementation and Co-evaluation) you will find all the corresponding documents, workshop information, hand-ins etc. associated with each of the course modules. See the below in 'Course Design' diagram for an overview of how these modules correspond to the calendar.

Learning outcomes

(after completion of the course the student should be able to)

Knowledge and understanding

  1. Describe, analyse and understand the local suburban context such as a Swedish Million Home Programme area in relation to its physical and natural environment and socio-cultural characteristics:
  2. Describe, analyse and understand the potential differences in perspectives between different stakeholders related to the local suburban context

Competence and skills

  1. Carry out planning and design projects in collaboration with citizens and other local actors by identifying, (re)designing and applying participatory tools and methods
  2. Design a proposal that aims to contribute to social inclusion and sustainable development in the studied area, with an emphasis on socio-cultural and socio-ecological local conditions
  3. Communicate the work through oral presentations and graphical visualizations to a broad target group of local and external actors and project partners

Judgement and approach

  1. Reflect critically on your role in the project group
  2. Reflect critically on how your project relates to the local community but also to relevant global trends such as socio-spatial segregation, ethnic discriminations, gender inequalities and so on.
  3. View oneself capable of appreciating, through and during your project work, the potential conflicts between different aspects of sustainability, and between different stakeholders' interests
  4. Reflect on the professional role of architects in a broader sense, including its socio-political dimension

Examination including compulsory elements

To pass the course and receive a grade:

  1. Presence at scheduled activities is required. For short absences, complementary assignments can be required as compensation.
  2. Active participation at seminars, workshops and in group work;
  3. Course exercises of sufficient quality (i.e. that fulfils the course objectives and presentation requirements);
  4. Timely submission of hand-ins.


Criteria for grading (3, 4 or 5) is found in the Assessment and Grading table available in the course folder on Canvas.

The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers about disability study support.

Course summary:

Course Summary
Date Details Due