Artist in residence, Stockholm, 3 March–25 May 2025

Jamie Hignett is an architect based in London and co-founder of Unit 38, an architectural co-operative. Unit 38 offers design services to working-class communities typically excluded from processes of urban change—ranging from migrants and refugees to low-income groups threatened with displacement from their neighborhoods. Their work combines co-research and design at the intersection of low-carbon architecture, democratic ownership, economic policy, and political action.

© Jamie Hignett

As an example, they manage Pelican House, a cooperatively run social centre in Bethnal Green, London. Pelican House is home to progressive organisations, including workers’ unions, tenants’ unions, migrant and refugee organisations, climate organisers, and think tanks.

Jamie is also a researcher into the role of sound, dancing, and nightlife in urban development. With artist Giorgia Chiaron, he led Reflections, a series of participatory workshops on co-designing new club spaces.

During his IASPIS residency, he will carry out research and engage with groups tackling the urban politics of Stockholm, exploring self-management, democratic control, and alternative economic models. He will examine how these models operate to understand what lessons and strategies can be learned from Sweden and applied in the UK.

Jamie Hignett studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture and the London School of Architecture. He is a frequent visiting tutor at the Sheffield School of Architecture, Westminster University, and the Architectural Association. He has self-released music, and his research has been part of Theatrum Mundi’s cohort (How We Relate to the Body, 2022), aired on Resonance FM (A Brief History of Rave, 2020), and supported by the Adam Architecture Travel Scholarship to document Fernand Pouillon’s housing projects in France and Algeria (2018).