Angaben zur Professur

Lehrstuhl 

Professur A. Fonteyne

Typ 

Professur für Architektur und Entwurf

Standort 

AGS

Webseite 

www.fonteyne.arch.ethz.ch

Assistierende 

Pablo Donet, Serafina Eipert, Thomas Klement, Galaad Van Daele

Kontakt E-Mail 

vandaele@arch.ethz.ch

Angaben zur Entwurfsklasse

Typ 

Entwurf V-IX

Thema 

Empathy — Building Double

Beschreibung
des Entwurfs-programmes 

Empathy is the ability to project oneself into someone else’s position and take their perspective for a while. An understanding based on the temporary weakening of the limit between oneself and ‘the other’. The English term was translated from the German Einfühlung, a concept coined in the 19th century by philosopher Robert Vischer, in his doctoral thesis On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics. From the beginning, empathy was closely related to the way something looks, and to how this allows a viewer to engage with it and ultimately to develop an understanding of it. A crucial skill for the architect, always in need of tuning into new clients and contexts. The Belgian Coast has been a destination since the late 19th century, and was first populated by villas or hotels, with their grand presence and interiors, celebrating the coastal way of life. From the 1950s on, they were largely replaced by the so-called ‘Atlantic Wall' — a 60-kilometer-long strip of high-rises facing the coveted sea view. How to find a new relevance for these buildings, in this dune context turned urban, relying solely on tourism? Public money has run out, so teaming up with private partners appears to be the only way to rescue those few waning monuments of sea side architecture. ‘Building Double’ is contemplated by developers as a potentially viable strategy and a pragmatic way to make the survival of those old hotels economically feasible, and to answer the ever increasing demand for sea side apartments. The semester will focus on three sites, three declining hotels buildings from the early 20th century, which students, in groups of two, will be asked to double, and to open up to new public programs geared toward permanent residents. Like Trojan horses, those programs will inaugurate new positive dynamics and improve social conditions for sea side towns at large, giving them something back beyond touristic accommodation. But how to elaborate on the work of another architect; how to understand the subtleties and logics of those structures to extend them? How to tune into the expectations of a client you might not agree with, and how to meet their ambitions while defending a building’s ‘best interests’? How to find a position towards the harsh urban and landscape condition created by the democratization of coastal tourism in Belgium? This semester, the potential of an empathic attitude in navigating such questions will be collectively explored.

Thematische und methodische Schwerpunkte 

Entwurf, Staedtebau, Modellbau, Visualisierungen

Lernziele 

We will investigate how the attitude of empathy influences our design approach. We will stretch our capacity to engage with the perspective of others and find out how to use this approach to our own advantage. We want to discover the specific moment of being absorbed by the ideas of someone else – in order to determine and describe our own autonomy of thinking. We will develop a posture to continue to work on an existing building, which the original architect considered to be finished. Which relationship with its maker do we wish to develop? We will explore the language of an existing building, defining the elements that interest us to work with, critically evaluating aspects of historical relevance. The focus will be on the spatial quality of the public interiors of the building and on the expression of its façades. We will study how to extend the atmospheric experience into the double, how to find an appearance to fit both the past and the future, the intimate interior and the overall exterior. What will the new double reveal about the already existing half? We will engage ourselves to strengthen the qualities and compensate the weaknesses. We will make projects that give answers to the requirements of the market ruled by mass tourism, without forgetting the needs of the local communities. We will reformulate the questions posed, in order to fit the answers, which we feel to be appropriate. Guests from different backgrounds will help us to understand the logic of arguments we might not fully support, but are willing to listen to and work with. Through this attitude we will offer projects that act beyond the expectations, reaching out to past ambitions and future visions.

LV-Nr. des Entwurfs 

052-1131-19

Zusätzliche integrierte Disziplin(en) 

Unterrichts-sprache 

English

Arbeitsweise 

Nur Gruppenarbeit

Daten Zwischenkritiken 

15.10 / 05.11 / 26.11

Datum Schlusskritik 

17-18.12

Einführungs-veranstaltung 

17.09

Zusätzliche Kosten 

CHF 200 (Schätzung, ohne allfällige Kosten für Modellbau und Seminarwoche)

Verfügbare Plätze 

24

Plakat des Entwurfs-programmes 

Plakat ansehen (PDF Datei)

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