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Master of Science in Architecture

Institute of Architecture and Planning

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Photo MARTIN MACKOWITZ

The Winter Semester 2015-16 was defi ned 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 challen-ging yet very fruitful basis for a series of spatial investigations into suffi -ciency in architecture that opened up debates about values, specifi cally the value and role of architecture in improving the quality of life for the people in confl icted areas.

Experiencing and working within conditions far removed from the ones we encounter in the Alpine Rhine Valley is imperative to provide stu-dents 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

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Studio Conradin ClavuotTutor: Robert Mair

Learning from Ladakh

«To understand your closest sur-roundings, it helps to travel to the other side of the world» — Hansjörg Hilti, guest reviewer Studio Clavuot went to the Himalayas to study mud archi-tecture, from the past and under

construction and to meet incred-ibly interesting people. Unknown locals as well as people from NGOs, fighting for the heritage of the old city centre and a responsible tour-ism development, guided us in our research in and around Leh.

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Presentation SaMUeL wüST

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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. Sup-ported by civil engineer andreas Galmarini and Zurich based architect Roger Boltshauser (Haus Rauch, Schlins) the knowledge of the excur-sion materialised in form of focused projects as the one by Samuel wüst published here.

SaMUeL wüST

along the existing wall of the so called garden plot, Samuel lines up the whole chain of production process for pash-mina 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.

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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

Studio Dietrich SchwarzTutor: Martin Mackowitz

JerusalemCultural concentration

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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.

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CLaUDIa SPöRRI

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Our task was based on the observation and the understanding of the place and its ideals, and then translate it into a project, which satis-fies 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 architectoni-cal projects.

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Studio Peter StaubTutor: Georgia Papathanasiou

The hinterlands of production

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 con-sequences our actions provoked and provoke still.

The production of goods and its asso-ciated production of space are often linked to specific times, places and de-mands. 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 synthet-ic 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, stu-dents travelled to their chosen sites (in Berlin, Sardinia, Lake Garda, Prora on the Island Rügen, Sevilla, Dresden, Charleroi in Belgium, Sweden and the Nether-lands) mapped and documented them from close-up, found real or imagined traces and clues for how the site could be resurrected, reinvented, reimagined.

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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 care-fully responded to each of the different specific cultural, socio-political and geographic conditions, promoting new values in accordance with sufficien-cy and thus new forms of communal co-existence.

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extract of vladimir Sergeev´s thesis project«Radio kootwijk»:according to the wHO, electromagnetic pollution is one of the most wide-spread 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 electro-magnetic 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 Hyper-sensitivity 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 es-tablish 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 conduct-ed with locals helped to reveal its hidden potentials, and build up a coherent story for the possible future of the radio park.

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This project develops a new type of electromagnetic Fields Free com-munity 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 commu-nity 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.

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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 – be-cause 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 un-derstand 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.

HUGO DwORZakHead of the Institute of architecture and Planning

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STUDIO CLavUOT MUD BUILDING wORkSHOP wITH MaRTIN RaUCH

JeRUSaLeM STUDIO SCHwaRZPhoto: andreas Lehner

STUDIO SCHwaRZ MINDMaP wORkSHOP

LaDakH STUDIO CLavUOT Photo: andrea egle

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JeRUSaLeM STUDIO SCHwaRZPhoto: andreas Lehner

STUDIO STaUB SeMINaRweek

exCURSION STUDIO STaUB Photo: vladimir Sergeev / Radio kootwijk

GRaDUaTION CeReMONy Photo: Paul Trummer

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Laurentiu Tiberiu Stancu has received fi rst 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 com-petition which awards prizes for outstanding performance in the transitional phase from the study of architecture to professional practice.

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 pres-ident of the jury), Professor karl Otto ellefsen (President of eaae and a professor at the Oslo School of architec-ture 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 envi-ronmental resources.

The jury’s verdict on Lau-rentius Thesis Project: «This project contains all the qual-ities which are crucial for the competition. Starting from a detailed historical and typo-logical analysis, it achieves a building design which is rooted in tradition. The jury is convinced that this is a truly accomplished project.»

Laurentiu Tiberiu Stancu wins european architectural Medal