Faculty: Alex Schoefield with guest faculty Casper Mork-Ulnes

Program Orientation: May 18, 2026

Before traveling abroad, the class will hold a required online orientation.

Program Dates in Norway: May 24-June 20, 2026

Zoom Meeting May 18

• Housing Check-In: May 24
• Housing Check-Out: June 21

Program Description

Open to undergraduate and graduate students.

Norway’s deep forest cover and enduring wood-building traditions offer a setting where material, culture, and environment are inseparable. Elemental Assemblies is a four-week design-build studio that explores wood as both living substance and architectural medium. Students will investigate how acts of felling, joining, and assembling craft not only form, but support human relationships and ecological awareness.

The course begins in Oslo and travels up to the Gudbrandsdalen Valley with a research tour of contemporary timber architecture, museums, stave churches, agrarian structures, and CLT lumber mills—situating wood within its environmental, social, and industrial systems. Through documentation, 3D scanning, and drawing, students create a Wood Atlas, mapping the life of wood from forest to construction.

Building on these studies, students translate traditional and contemporary craft techniques into speculative timber fragments and full-scale experimental structures constructed in a rural setting outside of Oslo. Emphasizing hands-on making and direct correspondence with material, the studio invites participants to test how craft, ecology, and design converge in acts of assembly.

By the end of the course, students will have produced both analytical and built work - experiential research that asks how architecture can emerge from the essential nature of its materials.

About the Instructors

Lead Faculty Alex Schofield

Alex Schofield is a designer, researcher, and educator whose work explores the intersection of emerging technologies, material innovation, and ecological design within the built environment. Based in Oakland, California, Alex operates through Objects and Ideograms, a design workshop. His projects make up the parts and pieces of architecture, they span material invention, design fabrication, and ecologically conscious interventions which have been internationally recognized through exhibition, publication, and various awards. He currently serves as Associate Chair of Graduate Architecture at CCA and Co-Director of the Architectural Ecologies Lab. Alex’s contributions reflect strong commitment to expanding disciplinary boundaries of architecture through experimental practice and collaborative frameworks.

Learn more about Alex Schofield

Guest Faculty Casper Mork-Ulnes

Norwegian born, Casper was raised in Italy, Scotland and the United States, which has brought a broad perspective to his eponymous firm’s work. In 2015, Casper was named one of “California’s finest emerging talent” by the American Institute of Architects California Council. He was selected by the Norwegian National Museum as one of “the most noteworthy young architects in Norway” with the exhibit “Under 40. Young Norwegian Architecture 2013.” and in 2019 was nominated for The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. In 2020, he was awarded the Emerging Voices award by The Architectural League of New York. He has been invited to speak about the firm’s work internationally and has served on design and awards juries. Casper holds a Master of Science degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the California College of the Arts. Casper is also the co-author of The Craft of Place by Mork-Ulnes Architects, a book that explores the intersection of architecture, context, and materiality.

Learn more about Casper Mork-Ulnes

Prerequisites

Completed Study Abroad Sign-Up Form

• Architecture Undergraduate Students: completion of at least sophomore level (57 units) by summer 2026
• Undergraduate Students from other majors: completion of at least sophomore level (57 units) by summer 2026
• Graduate Students: completed Study Abroad Sign-Up form

In addition, all students must be in good academic, conduct, and financial standing for the 2025–26 academic year. Students who are on probation in fall 2025 are not eligible to enroll in a 2026 summer study-abroad program.

Course Satisfies

• Architecture Undergraduate Students: this course satisfies an Elective credit (ARCHT 5600) and Advanced Studio (ARCH 5070).
• Undergraduate Students from other majors: this course satisfies an ECO Studio Course (for Ecological Practices Minor)*
• Graduate Students: This course satisfies a Architecture Grade Wide Elective (MARCH-6400)

*Pending approval

Program Tuition

$8,000 tuition + $50 summer registration fee

Included in program tuition:

• 3 credits, housing, welcome and departure meals, most local transportation, guest artists, field trips, museum entrance fees, and workshop materials.

Not included in program tuition:

• Airfare to Oslo, Norway and return airfare from Oslo, Norway; ground transportation to and from airport; most meals; health insurance.

Questions

Please read the Summer Study Abroad Registration & Related Information in its entirety.

Email ask@cca.edu with any questions.