Elective course (6 credits)

The global population is increasingly urban. This raises questions about the urban context. When all buildings are built and settlement and urban arrangements are fixed what remains to be done when the resulting conditions are unsatisfactory? In such cases is there any room left for intervention?

Auxiliary architectures are a potent means to organize space and modulate micro-climatic environments in situations and contexts in which it is not possible to modify the urban fabric or building designs. Such supplementary interventions can provide protection from exposure to harsh climate, whether precipitation, sun, or wind. Moreover, differentiated screen-like surfaces can provide spatial organization and micro-climatic modulation without strict separation into an inside and an outside. Instead, they facilitate intermediary spaces with regulated, yet diverse conditions, resulting in a heterogeneous space that enables choices for the user and a variety of activities that benefit from the presence of such spaces. The aim of the studio is to examine this powerful potential of auxiliary architectures, an ideal meeting ground for architecture and industrial design.

Students can choose from a number of material systems (membrane and cable net systems, wood systems and lattices, etc.) and work either individually or in teams of two on a particular site. Site conditions will be carefully recorded and documented. In parallel material systems will be developed in a ‘bottom-up’ manner starting from basic elements and proceeding towards complex assemblies, investigating the environmental performance and spatial provisions of the system as a design driver.

Students will acquire detailed knowledge of the notion of ‘performance-oriented design’ and the research area of auxiliary architectures. (For information see: www.performanceorienteddesign.net .) More specifically the learning outcomes include:

• the ability to intervene in what is considered ‘completed’ contexts and to conceive off and develop related design proposals;
• knowledge and skills in the choice and deployment of appropriate research and design methods;
• knowledge and skills in the choice and deployment of analytical approaches and methods;
• knowledge and skills in commencing designs based on the development of material systems;
• knowledge about an alternative approach to questions of sustainability;

The studio will be taught in a ‘hands-on’ manner, focusing on seminar, workshop and tutorial sessions that are geared towards production. The work will be conducted in a ‘research by design’ manner.

At the beginning of the semester a series of seminar sessions will introduce the key concepts and methods that underlie the studio-work.

Intensive work-sessions will take place in the appropriate workshops of AHO. The work will be developed through carefully set up physical and digital modelling and analysis processes, commencing with simple material elements and developing them into complex assemblies with high performative capacity.

The excursion will take us to Istanbul were we will study close up a variety of context-specific historical approaches to designing highly articulated building envelopes, oftentimes supplemented with auxiliary architectures. Particular focus will be placed on the Ottoman kiosks in the Topkapi Palace, with guidance by a local expert.

Some reading will be required, but most knowledge and skills will be acquired through direct experience and making. 

The studio will be taught in a ‘hands-on’ manner, focusing on seminar, workshop and tutorial sessions that are geared towards production. The work will be conducted in a ‘research by design’ manner.

At the beginning of the semester a series of seminar sessions will introduce the key concepts and methods that underlie the studio-work.

Intensive work-sessions will take place in the appropriate workshops of AHO. The work will be developed through carefully set up physical and digital modelling and analysis processes, commencing with simple material elements and developing them into complex assemblies with high performative capacity.

The excursion will take us to Istanbul were we will study close up a variety of context-specific historical approaches to designing highly articulated building envelopes, oftentimes supplemented with auxiliary architectures. Particular focus will be placed on the Ottoman kiosks in the Topkapi Palace, with guidance by a local expert.

Some reading will be required, but most knowledge and skills will be acquired through direct experience and making.

Deliveries are the final portfolio and research documentation including all physical prototypes and digital models and analyses produced during the semester. The work will be presented at the end of the semester and the presented work will be assessed by the external examiner.

The evaluation is pass/not pass.

Students are required to attend 90% of all presentations, workshops, seminars and tutorials to pass the course.  Some reading is mandatory.

The course is assessed as Pass - Fail, subject to the Regulation for Master's degree programmes at AHO, § 6-14

Mandatory reading:

The mandatory reading will be supplied by the course leader as a set of color / B&W Xerox copies.

Hensel, M. (2010). ‘Performance-oriented Design from a Material Perspective – Domains of Agency and the Spatial Material Organisation Complex’. Performalism.  London: Routledge.

Hensel, M. (2010). ‘Performance-oriented Architecture – Towards a Biological paradigm for Architecture and the Built Environment’. FORMakademisk.  Online Journal.

Hensel, M. and Sunguroglu Hensel. (2010). 'Extended Thresholds I: Nomadism, Settlements and the Defiance of Figure-Ground’. Turkey : At the Threshold . London: AD Wiley. 14-19.

Hensel, M. and Sunguroglu Hensel. (2010). 'Extended Thresholds II: The Articulated Threshold’. Turkey : At the Threshold . London: AD Wiley. 20-25.

Hensel, M. and Sunguroglu Hensel. (2010). 'Extended Thresholds III: Auxiliary Architectures’. Turkey : At the Threshold . London: AD Wiley. 76-83.

Hensel, M. (2008). 'Performance-oriented Design: Precursors and Potentials'. Versatility and Vicissitude – Performance in Morpho-Ecological Design . London: AD Wiley. 48-53.

Recommended reading :

Hensel, M., Menges, A. and Weinstock, M. (2010). Emergent Technologies and Design: A Biological Paradigm for Architecture. London: Routledge.

Hensel, M., Hight, C. and Menges, A. Eds. (2009). Space Reader – Heterogeneous Space in Architecture. London: John Wiley and Sons.

Hensel, M. and Menges, A.  Eds. (2008). Form Follows Performance – Zur Wechselwirkung von Material, Struktur, Umwelt . Arch+ 188

Hensel, M. and Menges, A. Eds. (2008). Versatility and Vicissitude – Performance in Morpho-Ecological Design. London: AD Wiley.