Angaben zur Professur

Lehrstuhl 

Gastdozentur D. Retzepi / P. Buchs / C. Dayer / T. Buache (Sujets Objets)

Typ 

Gastdozentur Entwurf

Standort 

HIL

Webseite 

arch.ethz.ch/departement/faculty/visiting-faculty.html

Assistierende 

Lieselotte Düsterhus, Sofia Scarpis

Kontakt E-Mail 

hopeful-monsters@arch.ethz.ch

Angaben zur Entwurfsklasse

Typ 

Entwurf V-IX

Thema 

Hopeful Monsters

Beschreibung
des Entwurfs-programmes 

Architecture is understood as a mutation, a continuous evolution, a process measuring time. Transformation explores the improbability of a “new” world –in its physical and material substance as much as its theoretical and ideological formulations– inevitably exploiting that which already exists. That, which is already there, whether built or natural, social or bodily, is a continuous architectural resource. Going beyond a logic of conservation of architectural heritage, transformation confronts the informal, the unexceptional, the rapidly built, the profit-oriented and, finally, the obsolete, manufacturing potential on the fringes of obsolescence. Experimenting with processes of architectural transformation, the studio will investigate ordinary urban situations in Kloten and their potential for spatial and programmatic change. Through intensifying the use of these existing structures by adding housing and further programs, the studio aims to reframe the prevailing logic of demolition and replacement of that which no longer serves. This studio proposes to look at the built environment through the lens of Hopeful Monsters, architectural hybrids which simultaneously resist the logic of the market, while proposing architectures which inhabit it from within. Rather than treating existing buildings as fixed entities to be preserved or renovated, we will approach them as living organisms carrying dormant evolutionary potential. Through precise architectural interventions –cuts, additions, displacements, contaminations, occupations, and hybridisations– the students will investigate how ordinary buildings can undergo unexpected mutations. Small interventions may generate disproportionate consequences. Existing typologies may crossbreed. The objective is not to improve existing types but to create new ones. Hopeful Monsters aim to reverse the obsolete, reframe the profit-oriented, and profit from the informal. Far from seeking to create a new generation of icons and singularities, the architecture of Hopeful Monsters happily finds its place in the theoretical territory of “trans-formation” –in its etymological sense of “after form”– where context is the center, existing is the key, and evolution is the grammar. The semester is structured in three phases. Starting with a phase of site analysis and research, the scope is to explore the context. During the second and third phases the students are to give form to their architectural hypotheses through drawings, models, and images. The students will be supported weekly by table discussions, lectures, and specific workshops, aiming to approach transformation as a concrete physical method. We will be working in groups of two, and each group will work with a different existing structure, its history, and its context.

Thematische und methodische Schwerpunkte 

Entwurf, Konstruktion, Staedtebau, Handwerk, Visualisierungen

Lernziele 

Analysing the urban context, taking into consideration all existing ecologies (natural, social, political, etc…), developing a precise understanding of the structural, programmatic, and architectural potential of the existing constructions, fabricating a narrative that links various scales, developing a project which carefully negotiates between the new and the existing, and imagining constructive details and junctions between proposed and existing materials.

LV-Nr. des Entwurfs 

052-1143-26

Unterrichts-sprache 

English

Arbeitsweise 

Group work only

Daten Zwischenkritiken 

14.10.26 / 17.11.26

Datum Schlusskritik 

15.12.26

Einführungs-veranstaltung 

15.09.26, 9h00, HIL C 15a

Zusätzliche Kosten 

CHF 250 (Schätzung, ohne allfällige Kosten für Modellbau und Seminarwoche)

Verfügbare Plätze 

24

Plakat des Entwurfs-programmes 

Plakat ansehen (PDF Datei)