WINTER SEMESTER 2015 /16
REVIEW
Master of Science in Architecture Institute of Architecture and Planning
Review
The Winter Semester 2015-16 was defined by the three design studios’ amazing seminar weeks that took the students to some of the most extraordinary places on our planet. The studio of Prof. Dietrich Schwarz and Martin Mackowitz travelled to Israel, the studio led by Prof. Conradin Clavuot and Robert Mair went all the way to Ladakh in the very north of India, while the students of Prof. Peter Staub’s and Georgia Papathanasiou’s studio investigated remote derelict industrial sites across Europe. The destinations of the studio trips coincided with the project sites. Their different socio-political and cultural contexts provided a challenging yet very fruitful basis for a series of spatial investigations into sufficiency in architecture that opened up debates about values, specifically the value and role of architecture in improving the quality of life for the people in conflicted areas. Experiencing and working within conditions far removed from the ones we encounter in the Alpine Rhine Valley is imperative to provide students with an understanding of the world’s complexity and thus their role within it. In this sense, it was not so much a “learning from a place” but rather a “learning by engaging directly with a place and culture” that will offer the students not only food for thought, new ideas but also a valuable experience for life that will have an impact on their work in more familiar contexts. PETER STAUB Academic Director of the Master’s degree Programme
Photo MARTIN MACKOWITZ
Studio Conradin Clavuot Tutor: Robert Mair
Design Studio
Learning from Ladakh
«To understand your closest surroundings, it helps to travel to the other side of the world» — Hansjörg Hilti, guest reviewer Studio Clavuot went to the Himalayas to study mud architecture, from the past and under
construction and to meet incredibly interesting people. Unknown locals as well as people from NGOs, fighting for the heritage of the old city centre and a responsible tourism development, guided us in our research in and around Leh.
Presentation Samuel w端st
Design Studio
Photo Andrea egle
On five self chosen plots, always two or three students developed their very local projects. Local in the sense of social programmes, but also materials and atmospheres. The level of project development was wide in range and reached the scale of 1:1 in rammed earth examples as well as in unique but low tech and earth quake resistant constructions. Supported by civil engineer Andreas Galmarini and Zurich based Architect Roger Boltshauser (Haus Rauch, Schlins) the knowledge of the excursion materialised in form of focused projects as the one by Samuel W端st published here.
Design Studio
Samuel w端st
Along the existing wall of the so called garden plot, Samuel lines up the whole chain of production process for pashmina shawls. His proposal allows locals to scale up the value of the locally produced hair of these famous goats. By that, they get something back of their independece they have lost by serving tourism only. In a totally relaxed way, his architecture sketches a possible future of quite a large programme for that plot, without loosing its garden like qualities for the urban fabric.
Design Studio
Samuel w端st
samuel w端st
Studio Dietrich Schwarz Tutor: Martin Mackowitz
Jerusalem Cultural concentration
Design Studio
Photo rodrigo alba krasovsky
In the winter semester 2015/16, Studio Schwarz was focused on concentration. On the one hand on our own, on the other hand on the design, which was leading into the condensation of culture. Culture can be defined as the concentration, conservation and communication of any kind of knowledge and practice through time. We tried to find a
Design Studio
Daniel gonzalez
Design Studio
Cristina ammann
Presentation Daniel gonzalez
relation between culture and architecture and their link to society and nature. One of the places that serves as an ideal case of study for this subject is Jerusalem. A city and a society that has the influence of many cultures and that represents a main or an important centre for the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Design Studio
Claudia spรถrri
Our task was based on the observation and the understanding of the place and its ideals, and then translate it into a project, which satisfies the needs of its society through concentration. In order to raise questions about these values, we had first to recognize the essence of things. During this exciting semester a number of projects were developed that deal with our specific access to sufficiency. Linked with the values of UNESCO we tried to give answers to cultural conflicts with architectonical projects.
Studio Peter Staub Tutor: Georgia Papathanasiou
The hinterlands of production
Design Studio
EKATERINA NAGIBINA
Sufficiency is an attitude that cannot be embodied without understanding the bigger picture. During the Winter Semester 2015–16 Studio Staub was on a mission to reveal the often hidden processes and forces that shape our consumer society and the spatial consequences our actions provoked and provoke still. The production of goods and its associated production of space are often linked to specific times, places and demands. Productive industries go out of business when the goods they produce are no longer in demand. Spaces of production and manufacturing become obsolete due to economic, political or natural changes and events. What is left are spaces, infrastructures and synthetic landscapes, no longer used for what they were built and shaped for, but now derelict and abandoned, lifeless.
In a primary research phase students traced, studied and documented dozens of abandoned and derelict production sites around Europe, before selecting nine for further investigation. Thereafter, during an intensive seminar week, students travelled to their chosen sites (in Berlin, Sardinia, Lake Garda, Prora on the Island RĂźgen, Sevilla, Dresden, Charleroi in Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands) mapped and documented them from close-up, found real or imagined traces and clues for how the site could be resurrected, reinvented, reimagined.
Design Studio
vladimir sergeev
vladimir sergeev
vladimir sergeev
The final visionary proposals challenged the preconceptions of what we imagine as productive infrastructures today and provoked intriguing discussions about a post-industrial, post-consumerist society of the future. The projects carefully responded to each of the different specific cultural, socio-political and geographic conditions, promoting new values in accordance with sufficiency and thus new forms of communal co-existence.
Design Studio
Extract of Vladimir Sergeev´s thesis projectRadio Kootwijk: According to the WHO, electromagnetic pollution is one of the most widespread and rapidly growing man-made environmental influences. Therefore, starting with the small effect caused by the electromagnetic fields, it could cause substantial harm to public health. In 2011 the International Agency of Research on Cancer has identified electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic for people, however solutions for its limitation have not yet been developed. Electromagnetic radiation occurs today at different levels with the whole population. Nowadays we see a rising number of people suffering from a new disease called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome, also known as EHS. These people are vulnerable even in front of a minimal amount of electromagnetic radiation and therefore they are forced to search for wild areas free from radio and electromagnetic waves, where they do not have to tolerate pain. The former Radio Kootwijk park in the Netherlands, was built in 1923 to establish a wireless connection to the Dutch colonies in Indonesia. With the invention of satellites it lost its importance. The park became a concentration point of the investigation and destination for the field trip. A mapping of the sources of electromagnetic pollution (such as cell towers and Wi-Fi) situated on the investigation site and its surroundings showed that the site itself is free of such sort of sources. Moreover the territory of the Radio Kootwijk and neighbouring Grand Veluwe National Park is one of the least polluted area in the entire Netherlands. These findings, together with the interviews conducted with locals helped to reveal its hidden potentials, and build up a coherent story for the possible future of the radio park.
Design Studio
vladimir sergeev
This project develops a new type of Electromagnetic Fields Free community within the boundaries of the former Radio Kootwijk. A habitable wall repeats the shape of the opening in the forest, which was created to host a transmission antenna. The wall encloses and marks a “safe� space within. This spatial organization offers a restful garden for private and communal uses inside and production spaces outside. The community design aims for a new level of sufficiency, and tries to prove that it is possible to live enjoying a moderate level of comfort without a strong dependency on electricity and wireless technologies.
Sufficiency Less is difficult Sustainability is carried by three pillars: efficiency, consistency and sufficiency. Whereas efficiency and consistency got immediate attention from science and technology, sufficiency became the stepchild – because it is the one that hurts. Especially consumption society lives in denial – reduction as a term is not very often used nor focused on. What does sufficiency mean to architects? Less material? Less space? Or even less buildings? One possible solution could be to pay more attention to the „common denominator“ and less to the «individual». Not necessarily to downsize space but enlarge the perspective, the space of observation – to understand the impact of any project on nature and society. If outstanding, then outstanding in the sense of contribution – to social, ecological and economic aspects. Throughout the last year teachers and students put their focus on sufficiency – in the design studios as well as in the classrooms and the lecturehall. The work included in this brochure shows how different the approaches and resulting perceptions can be. However, in any case they underline the effort to relate to a position and to take responsibility as a profession. Sufficiency is essentially the search for the essential.
Annual topic
Hugo Dworzak Head of the Institute of Architecture and Planning
Jerusalem studio schwarz Photo: Andreas Lehner
Studio Clavuot Mud Building Workshop with Martin Rauch
Ladakh Studio Clavuot Photo: Andrea Egle
Semester Impressions
Studio Schwarz Mindmap Workshop
Excursion Studio Staub Photo: Vladimir Sergeev / Radio Kootwijk
graduation ceremony Photo: Paul Trummer
Semester Impressions
Studio Staub Seminarweek
Laurentiu Tiberiu Stancu wins european architectural Medal Laurentiu Tiberiu Stancu has received first prize for the Best Diploma Project under the auspices of the european architectural Medals. european architectural Medals for the Best Diploma Projects is an annual european competition which awards prizes for outstanding performance in the transitional phase from the study of architecture to professional practice.
News
This year 84 projects were submitted by students from 22 different countries for the european architectural Medals. after an initial scrutiny by the jury – which included the architects Luciano Lazzari (President of aCe and president of the jury), Professor karl Otto ellefsen (President of eaae and a professor at the Oslo School of architecture and Design), Professor Zeno Bogdanescu (Rector
of IMUaU), wolf D. Prix of Coop Himmeb(l)au and Leo van Broeck of Bogdan & van Broeck – a short list of 30 projects emerged. along with innovation and originality, marks were awarded for a responsible and sustainable approach to social and environmental resources. The jury’s verdict on Laurentius Thesis Project: «This project contains all the qualities which are crucial for the competition. Starting from a detailed historical and typological analysis, it achieves a building design which is rooted in tradition. The jury is convinced that this is a truly accomplished project.»