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Associate Professor
Institute of Architecture and Space
Katja Bülow
I am an architect specializing in architectural lighting. My research examines how daylight and artificial light operate as spatial and compositional elements within the built environment. Focusing on light as both a natural force and a man-made technology, I explore how its variations, interrelations, and impact on sensory and spatial experience can be studied, established and conveyed.
Katja Bülow
Current Work and Highlights
Teasing Out Light Through 3D-Printed Porcelain
An academic essay co-authored with ceramic designer and Associate Professor Flemming Tvede Hansen, now under peer-review for the Proceedings Series of NAAF - Nordic Association of Architectural Research
The essay reflects on the artistic research project Lightn' Porcelain, in which the compositional integration of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) and 3D-printed porcelain was explored to create new material atmospheres.
Flemming's expertise in ceramic design and 3D printing opened new possibilities for investigating the relationship between light and material. Together, we explored how illumination and materiality can inform one another across scales and disciplines, from product design to architecture. Particular attention was given to the ways colour, pattern, and transparency influence the interaction between light and porcelain, and how these qualities contribute to the perception of atmosphere and spatiality.
Sunlight Entry at the Ostenfeld Farm
A chapter in a coming book on house museums is in final editing proces, co-authored with Alex Hummel Lee, architect and specialist in vernacular architecture and natural phenomena, and brings together a study of sunlight entry into the Ostenfeld farmhouse at Frilandsmuseet (the Open Air Museum).
The Ostenfeld Farm was the first farmhouse to be bought, dismantled and re-build at Frilandsmuseet, ready for the opening in 1901. What initially appeared to be a relatively narrow study developed into research involving Danish farmhouse history, the origins of Frilandsmuseet, and how the sunlight entry into the interiors of the farm was altered when rebuild at the grounds of the Open Air Museum.
Our research revealed that the altered sunlight conditions were most likely the result of a deliberate intervention by Bernard Olsen, founder of Frilandsmuseet, and hightlights the considerations done when utilizing daylight as a historcal narrative at house museums, balancing between a historical home and a museum.
The chapter forms part of Historic House Museums: Nordic Perspectives, edited by members of the Danish Network for House Museums under the auspices of the Association of Danish Museums.
