Pia Palo
About
LinkedIn
piapalo@outlook.com
pia.palo@umu.se
I am an architect and urban designer, currently working as a PhD researcher at Umeå School of Architecture (UMA).
My interests lie at the intersection between the social and the physical, in understanding lived experiences and realities, and in how experimental and artistic processes can be used to think and talk about how and for whom we build our cities. In addition to research work, I teach at both BA and MA levels.
My ongoing PhD research is in critical studies of architecture and urbanism, and focuses on just urban transitions in the context of northern Sweden. I explore how spatial practice (and practitioners) can take on a transformative and productive role in imagining radical and inclusive futures beyond growth through theoretical and practical engagements with ideas of care and relationality.
Work
Always open for new collaborations!Architecture/urban planning/research collaborations/graphic design. Get in touch! :)
PhD researcherUmeå School of Architecture (UMA), Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Oct 2024 - ongoing
PhD research in the field of critical studies in architecture and urbanism. Engaging with social, cultural, political and experiential dimensions of spatial practice, the work centres on just urban transitions in the context of Northern Sweden. In addition to the independent research project, the position includes teaching at both the BA and MA levels.
Research Assistant
Dept. Of Architecture and Civil Engineering (ACE), Chalmers University of Technology, Götenburg, Sweden
Apr 2024 - Sept 2024
Supporting research into the relationship between bottom-up practices and circularity initiatives. Planning and conducting interviews and workshops, mapping networks and socio-spatial relationships, analysing research data, drafting and writing research contributions.
Project manager
Nordic Viewpoint
Aug 2023 - Apr 2024
Planning, leading and managing projects in the quantitative and qualitative fields of market research. Participation in the ongoing development of internal practices/processes for project management.
Consultant work, architecture
For Familjebostäder (a local housing company in Gothenburg)
Fall 2022
Preparatory work aimed at developing proposals for the adaptation of existing premises in Bergsjön, Gothenburg, to common spaces.
Projects
[Ongoing]
Storytelling Shifting Grounds - Spatial perspectives on green transition narratives (and their alternatives)
PhD research project @ Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University
https://www.umu.se/en/research/projects/storytelling-shifting-grounds-spatial-perspectives-on-green-transition-narratives-and-their-alternatives/
Narratives of the so-called green transition are not (yet) a reality. What is real about them is the way that they are spatialised and materialised. This project asks what these spatial consequences are, how they are experienced, and by whom. It explores how such consequences can be used to think critically about the narratives driving change and how these are entangled with histories of extraction, displacement, and dispossession. Can they also help us imagine more just, collective futures?
[Previous]
Circular Grassroots
Participation as research assistant in the Formas-funded research project Circular Grassroot (2023–2026), which examines the challenges and opportunities of urban circular grassroots innovations in fostering sustainable and inclusive transitions in European cities.
Info about the project: https://www.vr.se/swecris.html#/project/2023-02228_Formas
Publications
Palo, P., Adelfio, M., Lundin, J., & Brandão, E. (2025). Urban living labs: relationality between institutions and local circularity. Buildings and Cities, 6(1), pp. 862–880. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.629
Palo, Pia, Marco Adelfio, and Emilio Brandão. 2025. “Sharing Practices Workshop.” In Learnings/Unlearnings Reader #4: Spaces and Places of Environmental Learning: Material Community Practices, guest edited by Nicola Antaki, Emilio Brandão, and Meike Schalk. Digital reader published July 17, 2025. Urgent Pedagogies. https://urgentpedagogies.iaspis.se/learnings-unlearnings-material-community-practices/
Lundin, J., Palo, P. (2023). Experiments, imaginaries, desires: Searching for a space of resistance [Master’s thesis, Chalmers University of Technology]. Chalmers Open Digital Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12380/306678
Exhibitions/presentations
Conference presentation - Re-City Conference 2025: Urban Democracy and Radical Care
@Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
October 30-31, 2025
Contribution: (Dis)Orienting the Green Transition: A Multimedia Mapping of Alternative TemporalitiesPresentation of fragments from ongoing PhD research, including reflections on multimedia mapping approaches as a way to build critical spatial perspectives on green transition narratives.
Info about the conference: https://events.tuni.fi/radicalcare2025/re-city/
Book of abstracts: https://events.tuni.fi/app/uploads/sites/1322/2025/10/abstract-book-re-city.pdf
Conference presentation - ATUT Symposium 2025
@Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
October 27-28, 2025
Contribution: (Dis)Orienting the Green Transition: A Multimedia Mapping of Alternative Temporalities
Presentation of fragments from ongoing PhD research, including reflections on multimedia mapping approaches as a way to build critical spatial perspectives on green transition narratives.
Info about the conference: https://events.tuni.fi/radicalcare2025/atut-2025/information/
Conference presentation - Learnings/Unlearnings
@Färgfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden
September 5-7, 2024
Presentation of ongoing research (Relational Networks of Circularity and Sharing:
The Case of Fixoteket in and Hammarkullen), together with Marco Adelfio.
Info about the conference: https://caravanize.nu/conference-2024/conference-learnings-unlearnings-the-call/
Exhibition - Arkitektur i gränslandetMaster thesis “Experiments, imaginaries, desires” exhibited at Röhsskas Architecture days. Röhsska museet, Gothenburg, Sweden. 2023.
Other work
Magazine publicationUMAN Magazine, 7th edition “On Hold”
Editor in chief and creative director
Magazine publicationUMAN Magazine, 6th edition “Beauty”
Forum coordinator
Education
Master’s degree (MSc)
From the program “Architecture and Planning Beyond Sustainability”
Chalmers School of Architecture, 120 ECTS
2021 - 2023
The master's program Planning and Design Beyond Sustainability takes of in real situations, with close contact with local stakeholders and the everyday life of people, and focuses on finding solutions for challenges in a rapidly changing world.
Bachelor’s degree (BFA)
Umeå School of Architecture, 180 ECTS
2018 - 2021
A school with strong connections both to the local and the global, with a focus on exploration and experimentation. Operating in between the artistic, scientific and professional the school works with the notion of architecture as an interdisciplinary practice.
Exchange semester
Aarhus School of Architecture
january 2020 - june 2020
Other courses:
Architecture, gender and norm-creative design, 3 ECTS
Chalmers School of Architecture
HT 2022
Global ethics, 7,5 ECTS
Stockholm University
Summer of 2022
Sociology - Feminist perspectives on crisis, crisis prevention and crisis management, 7,5 ECTS
Mid-Sweden University
Summer of 2022
Sociology - Norrland: Critical perspectives on place and power, 7,5 ECTS
Mid-Sweden University
Summer of 2021