Beschreibung
des Entwurfs-programmes |
Every architectural project is an act of world-building. We, humans, actively shape and inhabit our bodies, clothes, houses or apartments, cities, and landscapes, as well as the narratives that give form to them – political, commercial, aesthetic, etc. Architecture is both a physical and an imaginary enclosure, another layer of ‘world’ that conditions and reassures its users. Cities and landscapes, as giant works of architecture that are also designed, managed and maintained, constitute further tangible and fictional layers of ‘world’.
Our current world is, however, unsustainable in the long term and destabilized by multiple crises. In order to face these, we are asked to fundamentally change the way we live, think, inhabit and build – in short – to reworld. Architects, urban designers and other spatial practitioners could and should take up a key role in imagining these potential alternative realities.
In architectural history, there is already a longstanding tradition of radical propositions by visionary architects ranging from Claude-Nicolas Ledoux or Étienne-Louis Boullé to the futurist groups of the 60s such as Superstudio or Archigram. These have remained, however, mostly discursive projections of distant futures.
Science fiction writers such as Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin have been perhaps more successful at imagining more just and equitable realities within a genre that stretches the imagination of the possible and challenges seemingly inalterable conventions with its radical investigations into other forms of being and living in the world, of fearing and hoping. Further, fashion and game designers and filmmakers, such as Hayao Miyazaki, have engaged with climate fiction movements such as solarpunk or hopepunk, speculating on optimistic postapocalyptic futures. They inspire to embrace worlding as a radical act of creating conditions – physical, social, economic, political – for new forms of cohabitation.
This semester, we will become prophets of new worlds yet to come. We will start by searching for the cracks, the discontents, and the dysfunctions that interrupt the seamless unfolding and advancement of accumulative logics of excess and surplus. These will prompt us to start imagining differently. We will learn from existing world-building practices, ranging from science-fiction literature to architecture and game design, that is, radical imagination practices that venture into the utopian, the postapocalyptic and the fantastical. We will develop empathy for other beings, humans and more-than-humans, and their respective worlds, to design futures for and with the many. The way to start, however, is to look around, to listen, and to look for the unseen.
The studio is structured in three phases. The first one will introduce students to a methodology of world-building, speculative science fiction practices to be studied and actual architectural case studies. At the same time, students will have to find a reason, dissatisfaction or “itch” with the current world, from which to build a new world. In the second phase, students will start building their own worlds by designing a character and the world they live in, building different components at a 1:1 scale in the studio space. Finally, the worlds will come alive through a “Life Action Role Play” and confronted with an architectural case study and the exercise of imagining alternative futures for the RIA Halle, set for demolition, and the urban transformation of Oerlikon.
First Phase - Itch
Second Phase - World
Third Phase - Case
In parallel to this design studio, the chair is running a master thesis, a seminar week to Paris, a lecture series, and a summer school, all of which will be centered around world-building. We will work together with the partners of the shared Marie-Curie doctoral training program “Reworlding”, and the Chair of the History of Art and Architecture, Prof. Philip Ursprung. |
Lernziele |
WORLD BUILDING
Learning from world-building practices across different disciplines: architecture, visual arts, game design, fashion, literature and science. Studying science-fiction storytelling tools to develop powerful and convincing proposals for alternative futures and narrative structures. Develop language and communication tools that allow for precise argumentation and positioning.
CRITICAL POSITIONING
Develop critical positions concerning contemporary pressing issues such as ecological thinking, the commons, gender and postcolonial theory, gentrification and urban renewal etc.
EXPERIMENTATION
Trying and testing experimental methods and tools that help you to imagine, shape and test new worlds and spatial concepts.
URBAN TRANSFORMATION
Gaining experience in taking up a variety of roles in processes of construction and planning, environment-making and urban transformation. Developing understanding and empathy towards other world views and perspectives of humans and non-humans in different positions, as well as their relation to urban transformation processes.
REPRESENTATION
Find powerful, clear and adequate means of representing the different worlds and their components through different media: plans, renders, models, 1:1 mock-ups, devices, fashion etc. Curate and present the outcome in a meaningful way.
DESIGN IN DIALOGUE
Contributing to a shared learning environment and collective production of ideas, design concepts and real-life actions. Learn how to take part and communicate in debates and discussions. Bring forward ideas, suggestions and inputs to the group. Take responsibility for organizing collective studio endeavours. |
