Urbanization has long resembled a relentless sprinter – driving the economy, increasing production, and streamlining processes at an ever-accelerating pace. Ahead lies a major challenge: to break free from this acceleration and instead imagine what happens when we slow down. What would occur if everything moved slower – instead of faster?
Through an open call, Form/Design Center together with CAFx has selected projects and works in which aspects of time are central – projects that shed light on how tempo shapes our lives. The exhibition Slow Down presents works that both document and question how speed has become the norm, but also those that invite reflection and open up new perspectives. Using both concrete methods and speculative ideas, the exhibition explores what architectural slowness might mean in our contemporary context. The presented projects do not regard our living environments merely as isolated sites for linear development, but as parts of larger systems – ecological, geological, and social – where alternative perceptions of time become possible.
Through installations, models, films, and texts, visitors encounter proposals that challenge the familiar and point to alternative ways of living, building, and thinking. The exhibition asks: What happens to us, to our architecture, and to our living environments when we slow down? Can a conscious deceleration create space for deeper connections to time, nature, and society?
Slow Down is a collaboration between CAFx and Form/Design Center, with financial support from the Danish Arts Foundation and Architects Sweden. Presented in two parts, the exhibition invites visitors to slow down and move through both time and space to take in the full narrative.
