Transpolar Studio is a design practice specializing in landscape architecture, urbanism, and design research in the Arctic regions.

Mission

His­tor­i­cal­ly, Arc­tic design has been shaped by colo­nial and state-cen­tric agen­das, often root­ed in south­ern per­spec­tives ill-suit­ed to the unique con­di­tions and diverse com­mu­ni­ties of the North. West­ern-cen­tric design par­a­digms have fre­quent­ly failed to grasp the inter­nal dynam­ics of Arc­tic soci­eties, lead­ing to imposed solu­tions that were some­times vio­lent in their impacts. 

Today, the Arc­tic is trans­form­ing rapid­ly: emerg­ing ship­ping routes, shrink­ing sea ice, inten­si­fied resource extrac­tion, grow­ing mil­i­tary inter­est, shift­ing tourism net­works, and new geopo­lit­i­cal ambi­tions have turned it into an increas­ing­ly com­plex spa­tial and polit­i­cal are­na. While these devel­op­ments present eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties, they also bring risk and ten­sion to the eight Arc­tic states and the Indige­nous and local com­mu­ni­ties they contain. 

Trans­po­lar Stu­dio responds to these inher­ent­ly spa­tial chal­lenges through design and research projects root­ed in Arc­tic and Sub­arc­tic con­texts. Our aim is to crit­i­cal­ly engage with both envi­ron­men­tal and sociopo­lit­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions through con­text-sen­si­tive, col­lab­o­ra­tive, and spec­u­la­tive design practices.

Office

Trans­po­lar Stu­dio is a design prac­tice spe­cial­iz­ing in land­scape archi­tec­ture, urban­ism, and design research in the Arc­tic regions. With offices in Bel­gium and Green­land (Nuuk office cur­rent­ly under devel­op­ment), the stu­dio is unique­ly posi­tioned to engage in site-spe­cif­ic projects across the Cir­cum­po­lar North while fos­ter­ing insti­tu­tion­al and aca­d­e­m­ic col­lab­o­ra­tions through­out Europe and beyond.

Team:
Founder & Prin­ci­pal: Dr. Bert De Jonghe
Project Assis­tant: Zak Jaco­bi
Research Sup­port: Dr. Mia Bennett

Select­ed Clients:
Ser­m­er­sooq Munic­i­pal­i­ty (Green­land)

Projects

Arctic Practices: Design for a Changing World emerges at a critical juncture wherein the very stability of Arctic ecosystems hangs in a precarious balance induced, almost entirely, by humans. This volume assembles forty-six contributors—designers, educators, artists, photographers, filmmakers, some Indigenous, some residents, and some visitors to the Circumpolar North—to create a polyvocal assembly of Arctic practices. This assembly represents an attempt to deliberately depart from traditional academic frameworks that have historically privileged Western voices and epistemologies.

The contributions collected here address critical gaps in published Arctic design literature. They also represent attempts to imagine new forms of design practice that might respond to the urgency of climate change and the necessity of reconciliation. This volume hopes to open new possibilities for meaningful design interventions across northern lands, seas, skies, and ice, always mindful of both the urgency of our present moment and the weight of historical injustices that have shaped these landscapes and the lives lived with them.

Authors: Claudio Aporta, Brandon Bergem, Mari Bergset, Caitlin Blanchfield, Arlyn Charlie, Thomas Juel Clemmensen, Bert De Jonghe, AK Dolven, Jakob Exner, Nadezhda Filimonova, Jeffrey Garcia, Aniella Sophie Goldinger, Maureen Gruben, Nicholas Gulick, Magdalena Haggärde, Peter Hemmersam, Elise Misao Hunchuck, Konstantin Ikonomidis, Morgan Ip, Maaretta Jaukkuri, Caitlin Jakusz Paridy, Jessica MacMillan, Dorte Mandrup, Nicole Luke, Gisle Løkken, Helena Lennert, Akie Kono, Kyra Kordoski, Elena Krapivina, Lasse Rau, Olga Petri, Andrey N. Petrov, Susan Schuppli, Todd Saunders, Anastasia Savinova, Lola Sheppard, Sofia Singler, Inuuteq Storch, Sophy Roberts, Svetlana Romanova, Marya Rozanova-Smith, Michael Turek, Eimear Tynan, Bertine Tønseth, Mason White.

Editors: Bert De Jonghe & Elise Misao Hunchuck

Graphic Design & Cartography: Studio Folder

Research support: Transpolar Studio

Copy editing: Elise Misao Hunchuck

Proofreading: Elizabeth Kugler

Publisher: Actar Publishers

Printing and binding: Gráfiques Jou

Pages: 464

ISBN: 9781638401339

Publication date: April 2025

Book launch: July 24th, 2025, at Columbia University (New York City, USA).

Image credits: Book scans by Violetta Abbruzzino

Available for purchase

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago built on an irreducible plurality of interests and Arctic design traditions. Contesting Svalbard combines a granular understanding of the spatial implications of multinational occupation in Svalbard with a critique of the Norwegian nationalism underlying the Svalbard project. Five distinct challenges in Svalbard’s built environment are identified as fertile ground to inject a range of alternative futures, catalyzing the archipelago’s multinational character. A participatory and scenario planning approach based in design research is central to such an endeavor. In short, this study deals with and speculates about a cross-cultural, fluid, and plural set of issues and actors in an increasingly contested Arctic common.

Extra note: This ongoing study is based on six field trips to Svalbard and four years of extensive research. The participatory aspect of this study kickstarted with three co-design workshops in Longyearbyen during May 2023.

Image credits: Longyearbyen. Photo by Bert De Jonghe, May 2023.

Arctic Design is a weekly seminar course taught at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in the Fall of 2024 and at the University of Toronto in the Spring of 2025.

Description: This seminar introduces students to disciplinary debates on Arctic design, rapidly changing Arctic landscapes, and project precedents from across the Circumpolar North. The course is grounded in a historical understanding of Arctic settlements and landscapes across a range of spatial, temporal, and cultural registers. This diverse, relational, and extensive reading of a plural Arctic is an essential first layer for every designer interested in working with polar landscapes.

The first quarter of the course introduces students to the misguided assumptions and fantasies about inhabiting the Arctic’s vast and heterogeneous landscapes. This establishes a succinct introduction to the broader context surrounding the history and practice of Arctic settlement and infrastructural development. In parallel, it also introduces students to the projection of power and culture from south to north, revealing the complex and troubled history of dominant Western attitudes towards polar geographies and Arctic people groups. In response, Indigenous notions of North and the Arctic will be addressed throughout this course.

Departing from texts published in the 1960s, by architects, and in the English language, the second quarter of the course introduces students to (i) who has dominated the literature on Arctic settlement and infrastructural development (i.e., European, North American, and Soviet/Russian authors), (ii) how they have framed their work, and (iii) how their distinct cultural, social, and geographical contexts led them to identify a very different Arctic settlement/city while, surprisingly, also sharing many of the same arguments. This discussion highlights that, in the past, Arctic settlement and infrastructural development has been largely conceptualized according to national and international frameworks of urbanism, which are not unique to the region and do not adequately respond to the identity and challenges of the Arctic region.

Therefore, based on more recent academic and creative work from key authors, the third quarter of this course introduces students to contemporary approaches in Arctic design—with a particular focus to landscape-driven responses. In this, both directly and indirectly, students also gather knowledge about the Arctic’s complex and diverse climates, ecologies, and more. Following the work by authors/designers such as Joar Nango, Nicole Luke, and Eimear Tynan, among many others, this part of the course indicates that a repositioning of the Arctic design discipline is ongoing and allows for new creative input, such as that by students of this course.

As a result, the final quarter of the course explores a few unique case studies that may inspire the student in their final project. Readings will be minimal in this final module to allow students to dive deeper into a topic related to the course content. More specifically, by the end of the semester, each student is expected to develop and complete an extended visual essay on an agreed topic. All students are encouraged to produce a landscape-driven speculation about the challenges and/or future of Arctic design. This effort will be preceded by three short papers—submitted at the end of each respective module. Finally, members of the course will be expected to prepare for each week’s class by reading a selection of texts and actively contribute to discussions throughout the term.

Developed and led by: Bert De Jonghe

Special thanks to: Gary Hilderbrand and Mason White

Guests: Lisa Bloom, Maureen Gruben, Kyra Kordoski, Olga Petri, Jessica MacMillan, Konstantin Ikonomidis, Mari Bergset, Joar Nango, Brona Keenan, Bertine Tønseth, Eimear Tynan, Leena Cho, and Matthew Jull.

Image credits: Artwork by Inuvialuk artist Maureen Gruben which was discussed at length during the seminar together with the artist. Title: Moving with joy across the ice while my face turns brown from the sun (2019). Photo Kyra Kordoski.

Territorial Practices is a Master of Landscape Architecture studio-based course at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT) taught in the autumn of 2023 by Eimear Tynan and Bert De Jonghe with the participation of fourteen graduate students. The course focused on high-Arctic delta environments in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where delta environments are undergoing rapid change in high-Arctic regions primarily due to rising temperatures. A range of spatial and temporal views of territories was required to address the complex environmental changes. This incorporated the mapping of Svalbard’s aerial, marine, and terrestrial territories from political, climatic, ecological, environmental, and cultural standpoints. It also required site-specific engagement on a human scale where graduate students were asked to design with a delta area in the town of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, to address the present and future needs of human and non-human stakeholders. By doing so, students developed a better understanding of the complex and entangled nature of the chosen delta landscape.

Image credits: Students explored the materials and tidal movements along the spit systems of Longyearbyen’s coast during a field trip. Photo by Eimear Tynan, August 2023.

Through the lens of urbanization, Inventing Greenland provides a broad understanding of a unique island undergoing intense transformation while drawing attention to its historical and current challenges and emerging opportunities. Geared towards architects, landscape architects, and urban planners, this book examines the local cultural, social, and environmental realities with a distinct spatial sensitivity, recognizing the diverse array of relationships that the built environment both supports and produces. By exploring Greenland as a complex and interconnected cultural and geographical space, Inventing Greenland reveals and anticipates transitional moments in the region’s highly intertwined urbanized, militarized, and touristic landscapes.

With contributions of: Bert De Jonghe (author), Charles Waldheim (foreword), and Mia M. Bennett (co-author of chapter one).

Copy Editor: Mia M. Bennett

Proofreading: Elizabeth Kugler

Publisher: Actar Publishers

Printing and binding: Arlequin

Pages: 152

IBSN: 9781638409892

Publication date: March 2022

Book launches January 2023: 1. Architectural Association Bookshop (London, UK), 2. Scott Polar Research Institute (University of Cambridge, UK)

Available for purchase

Across the Arctic, a great deal of commercial aviation infrastructure has its roots in World War II military operations and their protraction during the Cold War.1 Although many of these military imperatives have weakened, the path dependency of air transportation networks, which require enormous amounts of fixed capital, makes them difficult to alter.

As airpower became key to global military might in the 20th century, Greenland’s neighbor, the United States, started building airstrips and missile defense sites in the country as a matter of national security. American interest heightened after April 9, 1940, when the Nazis invaded Denmark, which had controlled Greenland since the early 18th century. With Denmark unable to send supplies to Greenland, let alone exercise sovereignty over it, the Danish ambassador to the United States disobeyed the Danish government and signed an agreement granting American access to the world’s largest island.2 In addition to civilian resupply and the construction of facilities such as weather stations, ports, depots, search-and-rescue stations, and more, this agreement made it possible for the US to establish military airbases on Greenlandic soil. Greenland’s aeroscape was thus originally constructed to the needs of American military colonialism3 rather than those of Greenlanders.

Today, some Greenlandic policymakers are calling for the relocation of certain airports as both a necessary economic step and a move away from Danish and American histories. One example from eastern Greenland involves the proposed relocation of the military/civilian airport on Kulusuk Island (pop. 240) to the main population hub of Tasiilaq, 20 kilometers away (pop. 2000).4 Aligning Greenland’s aeroscape with centers of population and economic activity, however, could disconnect the settlements that initially arose to support American-built airports, and whose continued existence depends on their operation. As postcolonial nations work to reconfigure infrastructural networks to better match local needs, the difficulties that Greenland is encountering within this transition underscore the challenges of including communities whose origins lie in military and colonial interventions within new nation-building projects.

References: [1] M. Farish and P.W. Lackenbauer, “High Modernism in the Arctic: Planning Frobisher Bay and Inuvik,” Journal of Historical Geography 35, no. 3 (2009): 517—44; [2] J. Rahbek-Clemmensen, and L.J. Nielsen, “The Middleman—The Driving Forces behind Denmark’s Arctic Policy,” in Handbook on Geopolitics and Security in the Arctic, (Switzerland: Springer, 2020), 77—96; [3] M. Heymann, H. Knudsen, M. L. Lolck, H. Nielsen, and C. J. Ries, “Exploring Greenland: Science and Technology in Cold War Settings,” Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 33, no. 2 (2010): 11—42; [4] Stine Bendsen, Jesper Nordskilde, and Mads Paabøl Jensen, “The Transport Commission of Greenland,” Association for European Transport and Contributors, 2011.

Image credits: Image 1: The US Air Force providing fuel for Kangerlussuaq Airport, 1951, Bent Helmudt, Courtesy of the Danish Arctic Institute; Image 2: Kulusuk Airport, 2017, Bert De Jonghe.

Positions

FORTHCOMING

Article

Teaching Arctic Design: A Case Study in Interdisciplinary Pedagogy

  • Author

    Bert De Jonghe

FORTHCOMING
  • Editors

    Dr. Isabelle Gapp and Dr. Jonathan Peyton

  • Platform

    Teaching Arctic Environments

  • Institutional support

    University of Aberdeen & University of Manitoba

  • Additional

    Link

book chapter

Designing with coastal change in the high-Arctic: pedagogic perspectives

  • Authors

    Eimear Tynan & Bert De Jonghe

  • Book

    Arctic Practices - Design For a Changing World

  • Editors

    Bert De Jonghe & Elise Misao Hunchuck

  • Publisher

    Actar Publishers

  • Date

    2025

  • Additional

    Link

book chapter

The Trail as Home

  • Authors

    Claudio Aporta, Bert De Jonghe, & Elise Misao Hunchuck

  • Book

    Arctic Practices: Design For a Changing World

  • Type of contribution

    Interview

  • Editors

    Bert De Jonghe & Elise Misao Hunchuck

  • Publisher

    Actar Publishers

  • Date

    2025

  • Additional

    Link

book chapter

A Most Curious Listener

  • Authors

    Todd Saunders, Bert De Jonghe, & Elise Misao Hunchuck

  • Book

    Arctic Practices: Design For a Changing World

  • Type of Contribution

    Interview

  • Editors

    Bert De Jonghe & Elise Misao Hunchuck

  • Publisher

    Actar Publishers

  • Date

    2025

  • Additional

    Link

magazine article

Siedlungspolitik und Architektur: Wer ein neues Grönland will, braucht ein neues Bauen

  • Authors

    Bert De Jonghe & Peter Hemmersam

  • Editor

    Daniel Di Falco

  • Book and Exhibition

    Greenland - Everything Changes

  • Place

    The Alpine Museum of Switzerland

  • Translations

    German

  • Date

    2024

  • Additional

    Link

Visual essay

Brief notes on Arctic extremes

  • Author

    Bert De Jonghe

  • Journal

    Kerb Journal 31

  • Editors

    Hosiasson et al.

  • Date

    2024

  • Theme

    Kerb 31 explores the role of limits in navigating design complexity

  • Additional

    Link

Peer-reviewed Book Chapter

Airport Landscapes: The Case of Qaqortoq Airport, South Greenland

  • Author

    Bert De Jonghe

  • Editors

    Leena Cho and Matthew Jull

  • Book

    Design and the Built Environment of the Arctic

  • Publisher

    Routledge

  • Date

    2023

  • Additional

    Link

Presentation

Imagining Transpolar Futures

  • Venue

    DocTalks x MoMA (Museum of Modern Art)

  • Speaker

    Bert De Jonghe

  • Date

    28 November 2023

  • Additional

    Link

Book Chapter

Climate Change and the Opening of the Transpolar Sea Route: Logistics, Governance, and Wider Geo- economic, Societal and Environmental Impacts

  • Authors

    Mia M. Bennett, Scott R. Stephenson, Kang Yang, Michael T. Bravo, & Bert De Jonghe

  • Book Title

    The Arctic and World Order

  • Editors

    Kristina Spohr, Daniel S. Hamilton

  • Date

    December, 2020

  • Additional

    Link

Article

Tracing the Limits to Climate Adaptation: From the Pacific Small Island Developing States to the Arctic Region

  • Authors

    Begoña Peiro & Bert De Jonghe

  • Publisher

    KoozArch

  • Date

    November, 2022

  • Additional

    Link

Article

Arctic Tourism and Urban Growth

  • Author

    Bert De Jonghe

  • Publisher

    UrbanNext

  • Editor

    Marta Bugés

  • Date

    April 2022

  • Additional

    Link

Presentation

Transpolar Futures

  • Venue

    University of Cambridge's Architecture Department

  • Speaker

    Bert De Jonghe

  • Date

    7 November 2023

  • Additional

    Link

Conference presentation

Chromatic Geographies of Greenland

  • Venue

    Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers

  • Speaker

    Bert De Jonghe

  • Session

    Unstable horizons: Reimagining, rewriting, and terraforming earthly volumes

  • Date

    2021

Peer-Reviewed article

The opening of the Transpolar Sea Route: Logistical, geopolitical, environmental, and socioeconomic impacts

  • Authors

    Mia M. Bennett, Scott R. Stephenson, Kang Yang, Michael T. Bravo, & Bert De Jonghe

  • Journal

    Marine Policy Journal, Volume 121

  • Date

    November 2020

  • Additional

    Link

Contact

Email: info@transpolarstudio.com

Instagram: @transpolarstudio

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