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LABLAB – is a non-profit research studio that investigates geographies and perceptions of locality in relation to globalization, technology and large scale spatial transformations.

The Connector Landscape

By Fredreric Cathomas, 2025
International research

This essay follows the Tujetsch Valley and the village of Sedrun as a Connector Landscape: a place where rivers originate, energies circulate, and meanings travel. Through hydropower and tourism, through alpine imagery and solar ambition, Sedrun reveals how the local and the global are quietly entangled.

SpeedLocal, a research project funded by Nordic Energy Research.

2024–2026
International research

LABLAB particpates at SpeedLocal, a research project consisting of a transdisciplinary team from all Nordic countries. It represents social science, landscape architecture, design, GIS experts and energy modelling. The project investigates and develops methodology for understanding the future needs for local electricity production in relation to the level of acceptance when it comes to potential future transformation of landscapes. Regional and municipal partners consist of Trøndelag fylkeskommune (NO), Skaraborgs kommunalförbund (SE) and the municipality of Bornholm (DK).

Leading partner: Energiforsk (SE).
In cooperation with: IVL (SE), IFE (NO), LTU (SE), DTU (DK), EML (DK) and VTT (FI).

Contact: Alexander Marek or Daniel Urey

Undervisning på SLU Alnarp.

2020 - pågående

Large Scale Structures

Under hösten 2025 startar kursen inom ramen för Project Planning – Large Scale Structures med ett särkilt fokus på energiomställnings påverkan på landskapen.

Kursen hålls för femte gången och görs tillsammans med Anders Larsson, Universitetslektor vid Institutionen för landskapsarkitektur, planering och förvaltning.

Hållbar stadsplannering

LABLAB undervisar också inom ramen för Hållbar stadsplanering. Inför 2025 kommer ett särkilt fokus kommer att läggas på indetifieringen av mellankommunala frågeställningar i relation till kust, energi och låga befolkningstal.

Kursen hålls tillsammans med Matilda Alfengård, Universitetsadjunkt vid Institutionen för landskapsarkitektur, planering och förvaltning.

Kontakt: Alexander Marek eller Daniel Urey

Samexistens i omställningens tid
2024 - 2025

Under 2024-2025 har LABLAB, Green Power Sweden (f.d. Svensk Vindenergi), Sveriges Hembygdsförbund och SLU Alnarp arbetat tillsammans i projektet Samexistens i omställningens tid. Projektet har finansierats av Vinnova inom utlysningen Framtidens attraktiva livsmiljöer genom en socialt hållbar industri.

Syftet har varit att utveckla metod för förflyttning från intressekonflikt till gemensam problemformulering om landskapens kulturella och historiska värden i relation till energiomställningens infrastruktur exemplifierat av vindkraftsetablering. Vi har aktiverat samtal i Södermanland och Dalarna med representanter för såväl vindkraftsaktörer som civilsamhället representerat av medlemmar i hembygdsrörelsen med deltagande av Länsstyrelsen Dalarna.

Vår övergripande frågeställning har varit Hur kan dialog och samråd öka förutsättningarna för samförstånd och samexistens kopplat till energiomställningen?

Kontakt: Christina Hoffman

Proudscapes

Feb 2024
Research essay by Friedrich Kuhlman

What makes people proud of their region? I am a landscape architect and grew up in the German Suburbia before the emergence of the internet. After turning 18 in 1985, I got a drivers licence and the radius of personal life rapidly expanded. It was the end of the world as we know it and we felt fine.

New Energy Landscapes

2022–2023
International research

LABLAB and its partners were granted funding from the Swedish Institute for the project ”New Energy Landscapes”. The project aims to develop a cohesive trans-national and trans-disciplinary platform of know-how on how land-based renewable energy impacts landscapes, spatial planning and identity in the Baltic Sea Region.

Contact: Daniel Urey

What landscapes are for and for whom?

2023
Research essay for IBA Thüringen

As citizens we need to be engaged in a democratic dialogue that dares to activate the questions on how we progress new values with the landscapes that withhold collective identities and, simultaneously generate electricity for the European industry and households through the transition. Simply, by means of raising the questions of what landscapes are for - and for whom? This implies European citizens to be involved in and part of a critical dialogue that guides us collectively on how to deal with the climate and energy crisis, yet not to leave the rest of the world behind. As Europeans we need to navigate between learning how to “land on Earth” as well as how to “land among senses” hence, the sense of losing landscapes and progressing to new ones.

Boys will be boys? Ukrainian energy landscapes during and beyond war.

2023
Research essay by Maryna Semenchenko

In this essay, I explore the links between energy production and landscapes, as LABLAB typically does, yet complement this discussion with the third dimension of gender roles. Investigating my home context of Ukraine before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion, I build a narrative in four chapters. Starting with a short introduction to the Ukrainian energy sector, I take a closer look at the coal-mining regions in the East, their experiences of decarbonization, and the gender dynamics established there. Further, I reflect on contributing factors that will affect the future energy landscapes of Ukraine and the potential role of women in this future.

Sights and Sites of Industrial Transition

2022
Research essay by Mattias Malk

This photographic essay is a part of LABLAB’s “Countryside Unfolds” cross-disciplinary research project and explores the notion of industrial transition in the context of the Estonian countryside.

Landscapes and Cables

2022
Research essay by Kate O’ Connor

The cable runs as far as the eye can see, to the top of Tarfala Valley, located in the very north of Sweden, near the border with Norway. Along the ground, the cable is a framing element, drawing our sight up to the mountains, the glacier and the low lying fog.

Hinterland - Beyond Paradise

2020
Essay for the Swedish National Museum

Through European colonization, the term hinterland acquired global and brutal connotations, the traces of which are still tangible today. Landscape and people beyond the Western world were conquered, transformed and incorporated into the rising capitalism. Many of the former colonies, which, nowadays, are sovereign states, still play the part of hinterland in our age of globalisation. They are sources of cheap labour and production, as well as unregulated spaces that allow most forms of exploitation.

This essay was written for the Swedish National Museum and it’s opening of the exhibition Arcadia – A Paradise Lost in September 2020. Our LABLAB co-founder, Daniel Urey, was one of the main curators on the topic of Hinterland. Below you are able to read his contributing essay to the exhibition publication.

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