New Arts Campus in Kockums’ Historic Shipyard Area

Varvsstaden in Malmö is currently undergoing major transformation. Kockums’ former industrial area is being redeveloped into a modern and sustainable urban district, where the sense of being in a historic shipyard is to remain ever present. A strong emphasis is placed on reuse, with large quantities of materials dismantled in Varvsstaden being repurposed in new developments.

Within this context, Marge designed a new campus for the Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts at Lund University between 2020 and 2025. Our work involved collaborating closely with the faculty’s constituent schools—the Academy of Music, the Academy of Theatre, and the Academy of Fine Arts—to develop the spatial programme and produce a programme brief. Preserving the distinct identities and brands of the individual schools within the new campus was a key design driver, adding complexity to an already multifaceted project with numerous variables.

In a subsequent phase, the proposed solutions were further developed in collaboration with representatives from Lund University, Varvsstaden, and a broad consultant team to ensure that the programme and facilities fully met the operational requirements. The new campus is housed within two early 20th-century industrial workshop buildings of significant cultural and historical value: the Machine and Assembly Hall and the Carriage Workshop. The project establishes a new destination within Varvsstaden and Malmö, attracting both students and the general public for education, meetings, and cultural experiences. The client’s ambition is for the campus to contribute to a world-class urban life.

The architectural approach includes both the adaptive reuse and extension of the two industrial halls, responding to a wide range of critical parameters at both urban and building scales. Through careful calibration of volumes, material choices, and a high degree of reuse in line with the client’s vision, a new temporal layer is added to the site’s unique heritage values.

In parallel with this commission, Marge has also been engaged in urban development and detailed planning work within the area.