Dugnad Days, Oslo Architecture Triennale, Norway, 2019

The renovation of a community house within the suburbs of Oslo. Designed and facilitated through dugnad (mutual support). 

Titled “Enough: the Architecture of Degrowth” – the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019 - was a call to arms for  alternatives to the unsustainable premise of economic growth.  Dugnad Days explores such an alternative through the Norwegian practice of mutual support, Dugnad, which predates both the nation state and market logic. The project started as a series of workshops with the community of Sletteløkka, to collectively plan, design and renovate a vacant building into a community center for the area. By mobilizing through the Dugnad the project demonstrates how direct action through mutual support can create a space for deliberation and action that is already rooted in people’s everyday lives.  The process was documented and presented as a film, exhibition and booklet for the Oslo Architecture Triennale, at the National Museum in Oslo. Reflections in the catalogue includes a historical account of Dugnad by sociologists Håkon Lorentzen, and Nicole Curatos reflections and practice of deliberative democracy.

Team: Alexander Eriksson Furunes, Mattias Josefsson,
Maria Årthun, Lucy Bullivant & Sudarshan Khadka
Partners: Bydel Bjerke & residents of Sletteløkka
Sponsor: KORO – Public Art Norway (Lokalsamfunnsordningen)