University of Gothenburg
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Kristina Fridh

RESEARCH COORDINATOR

The Design
Unit
Mail
kristina.fridh@hdk.gu.se
Visiting address
Kristinelundsgatan 6-8
41137 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 131
40530 Göteborg

RESEARCHER

The Design
Unit
Mail
kristina.fridh@hdk.gu.se
Visiting address
Kristinelundsgatan 6-8
41137 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 131
40530 Göteborg

About Kristina Fridh

Kristina Fridh received her Master of Architecture degree in 1987 and her PhD in 2001 at the Department of Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. She was also a student in Interior Architecture at Konstindustriskolan, now HDK, in 1985–86. The title of her doctoral thesis is Japanska rum (Japanese Rooms) – also published as a book in 2004. Kristina is now a researcher and the director of studies - doctoral education at HDK.

From 2006 to 2009, she was the project leader of “The Materiality of the Surface”, a research project financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR). The project focused on use of materials connected to different cultures’ conceptions of space, with references to Swedish and Japanese architecture, and glass as a building material. The Japanese architectural offices were Kengo Kuma & Associates and SANAA. Their Swedish counterparts were Wingårdhs and Claesson Koivisto Rune. The research project was presented in the form of an exhibition at the Röhsska Museum and a book was published, Ytans materialitet (The Materiality of the Surface). This project was a continuation of Kristina’s thesis, where traditional and contemporary Japanese architecture was examined, the point of departure being Japanese conceptions of space.

Kristina is part of the network  “Architecture in Effect”, a strong research environment in architecture theory and methodology funded by the Swedish research council Formas 2011-2017. Within this framework, she worked on the research project “The Uncompleted Materiality of the Void”, where connections were created between matter and consciousness, starting from a discussion about traditional Japanese expressions for beauty and contemporary architecture in Japan.

Focus in the new research project “Urban Materiality – towards New Collaborations in Textile and Architectural Design” is on the field of textile architecture, and the project is ongoing from 2016 to 2018 with funding from the Swedish Research Council (VR), Artistic Research. The project starts in the question: “What is textile architecture?” The three participants’ fields of competence in this project are textile design and architecture, including acoustics, and the ambition is to build a new interdisciplinary research platform for collaborations in textile architecture in a joint research environment. In the project, textile and architectural structures will be designed and explored to melt them into something new, with benefits from the two fields, and to show new applications for the field of textile design on larger scales in urban environments, which could enlarge and enrich both fields.