Ren Fyriså

The course is given as part of the Landscape Architecture Programme in Ultuna.

It is about making a project from idea to proposal in the scale of 1:1. The project can consist of installations in public places, exhibitions, sculptures etc. The project is ten weeks long and we had a budget of 3.000 SEK from the SLU and could also try to find some sponsors for our idea if we wanted. We worked in a group with three persons with different nationalities.

We are...


Anna Büttner

...I'm here for an ERASUMS-exchange for a half year. I study landscape architecture in the fourth year at the Technical University Dresden/ Germany. I really love to be here in Uppsala. The city has a nice charm and reminds me a little bit on my hometown with the historical centre and river Fyrisån.

Markus Haselberger

...I'm a student of landscape architecture on an exchange-semester in Uppsala. My home University is the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna / Austria. I really appreciate that Uppsala is a vibrant city with a lot of students and a lot of beautiful nature surrounding it.

Annika Lundvall

...I'm a student in my fourth year at the program of landscape architecture at Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet (SLU) Uppsala, Sweden. Working with students from other countries and with other languages has been both expounding and challenging. It has given me the opportunity to look at Sweden and Uppsala from an outside perspective, using different eyes in looking at my surroundings.

All of the attendants in the course divided into 2 groups during the second week, our group early decided that we wanted to work with Fyrisån. We think the river is important for the city and the people. We wanted to investigate what kind of problems there are in the river and have a strong environmental message for the citizens. We wanted to illustrate this by working with a sculpture and/or installation.

to make people to think of Fyrisån in a positive way. The river was really dirty in former times and but it's clean today. We want people to take better care of the river. The river is the pulse of Uppsala and the vein shouldn't be messy and blocked.


Stuff in the river

Fyrisån is Upplands longest river; it has its source in the surroundings of Dannemora and its outlet in Ekoln south of Uppsala. Fyrisån was first named Salaån and got its "new" name from Olof Rudbeck among others in the 1600-century. In the year 1841 the river was dammed and the islandfall was built to collect the power from the water. The dam made it impossible for the fish to travel upstream and play. The river was also for a long time considered a dirty ditch where all of the towns waste was dumped.

Today the water in the river is clean and fishstairs have been built by the waterfalls to help the fish to travel upstream. The Asp fish is Upplands landscape fish and it is on the IUCN Red List of endangered species. It lives in Mälaren and will hopefully start to travel upstream through Uppsala city and play. The shores have been made in to a popular recreational area and an indispensible addition to the city. People can come close to the water by walking on boardwalks and paved quays. Every year on Valborg (30^th of April) there is a rafting arranged by teknolog- och naturvetarkåren (Technologist- and Naturescienceunion). The participants dress up in costumes and go down the river on their homebuilt Styrofoam rafts.

Dombron