Studio course

2011

The means of architectural production. A connected house in a wild environment
Course code	H10AS10
Department	Institute of Architecture
Professor in charge	Assistant Professor Neven Fuchs-Mikac
Additional staff	Visiting professor Philippe Rahm Arch. EPFL, Siv.arch Helge Lunder, Siv.arch. Ines Almeida, Siv.arch. Joana Sa Lima
Prerequisities	Passed 7 semesters
Instruction language	English
Max no. of students	24
ECTS credits	24

Related courses

Elective course (6 credits)

Course description

The course offers a project-oriented Visiting Professor Master Studio in advanced architectural design. The guest teacher through H10 will be Swiss architect Philippe Rahm from architectural office Philippe Rahm Architects from Paris/Geneve. See: www.philipperahm.com

For studio H10 we propose to make a project for a new village in the Vallée du Trient (http://www.trient.ch/ ) high up in the Swiss Alps.

This valley had an important and quick development during the 19 century with the uprising of English tourism. It fell back in the 60-ies because the mountains there are too difficult for building the infrastructure and for development of mass ski-tourism. Today, people are still leaving this valley and the political government proposes the free tax-system to attract them to continue to live there. So, the task will be to imagine a new sustainable village in this wild mountain environment, very related to wireless communication and high def. internet. How to architecturally mitigate the lack of contemporary economic, cultural and free-time activity, the life without cinema, without school, without young people, etc in this valley? How to bring money there? What kind of jobs to initiate? And of course, what kind of village-urbanism and architecture to imagine in our time of globalization and sustainability?

At the beginning of the studio work each student will get/choose the assignment to make his/hers design of “A Very Connected House in a Wild Environment” in this new village. The architectural program could be, for example, a larger family residence with a workshop, a pension, a small school, a meteorological research station, a students sport-centre, an infrastructural object with a living quarter, a pharmaceutic mountain farm, a rescue and climbing centre, a local cinema or a library, or a small factory, etc. The program will be of medium size, max. 1000 – 1500 m2.

The main focus of the assignment will be to make design of a self-sufficient, sustainable, “atmospheric” house in this wild environment, very connected with the world. In addition, the organization of material, light, temperature, and other energies & activities involved in the program shall be very important for development of architecture and architectural space. The idea is to construct a kind of local architectural ecological system where a new relation between energy, time and space shall inform each individual design approach. The site: Trient Valley.

The Means of Architectural Production 6:

In working with architecture architects work with various themes. Construction, space, program, site, context, form, sustainability and materiality are just some of them. The choice of themes and the way of working with them varies from one project to another. Sometimes the themes are more recognizable identities, sometimes less. Developing one’s own clear, consistent and creative attitude towards the chosen themes is what studying architecture is all about.

During H10 semester the studio work shall focus on themes like sustainability, climatic design, atmosphere, “light, warmth & air landscape”, self-sufficient architecture, efficiency, spatial generosity and living-quality, etc – the themes that clearly denote Philipe Rahms approach to architecture. These themes will be studied in discussion with the teachers, to be used as design-tools in the architectural process.

The underlying theme of the course will focus on development of the individual working methods through what one calls “the project-oriented architectural research”. That means that in parallel to the main project another “project” would go on: the investigation of means and processes necessary for its production. By organizing the semester work in a matrix-like structure that combines both the conceptual and intuitive approach to architecture, the Studio would like to disclose the potential that usually remains hidden behind the end-result of the architectural project. By pursuing the exploration within partly self-defined, partly given framework, the Studio wishes to question the preconceived images and norms of a traditional project-work and to initiate the process that is permanently revised by new cognitions, opened to unexpected architectural reactions.

Learning outcomes

After finishing the course, the students should:

develop their own clear, consistent and creative attitude related to the architectural themes the studio will be working with
understand the potential of medium-size complex programs by defining his/her own working method and interpretative scenario and to use them as tools in the design process.
understand their own working process, both through the individual studies and small assignments and as the architectural whole in a situation where a real architectural task is actively combined with the architectural research.
be able to develop the principles for structuring of complex architectural material into a final project
be able to develop and to draw precisely (and in detail) the architectural project in scale 1/100 and 1/50
be able to present and communicate the final project by studying the different forms of representation & presence of architecture – to learn to work with drawings in different scales, with models, architectural diagrams, photos, 3D, with film, etc.
benefit from the work with the foreign guest-teachers and from the confrontation with their architectural thinking, knowledge, experience and imagination.

Contents and teaching methods

The studio-work during the semester will be conducted in 3-4 singular steps. Each step will be discussed both independently, as infiltrated into each other and connected into the main project as a whole. Each of the chosen themes during the small assignments will hopefully leave the traces onto the final project. Weaving the research on the different themes in and around the main project would lead the students to make visible another story – the story of their own making of architecture. The small assignments will be developed and presented at the reviews by architectural drawings, diagrams, models, photos, 3D renderings etc.

During the work our particular interest will be to investigate the relationship between architectural presence, materiality and image, starting from an idea of architecture that coherently fuses representation and its internal spatial qualities. Therefore, the architectural themes will be investigated and developed with the help of large-scale architectural models. The final project will be worked out and presented with drawings and models in scale 1/100 and 1/50.

The form of teaching will consist of the studio-work, the individual discussions and guidance, lectures, seminaries, with 4 common reviews/ critiques during the semester.

The study-trip will be to Switzerland, including the visit to the sites in Trient Valley and the organized individual presentation/workshop after the first working phase. The last part of the trip is planed to go by buss to Venice to visit the Architecture Exhibition at Bienalle 2010 (this year the manifestation is directed by Sejima and Nishizawa).

Exams and assessment methods

The active presence and work on the project in the studio during the semester
Developed project-material & presence at 3 individual part-reviews during the semester (the dates will be decided later)
Delivered complete project for the final review. Date: 15. 12. 2010
Presence at the exhibition AHO Works

The studio-work is evaluated with Pass – Fail, jf. “Regulation for Master Studies at AHO” pt. 6-14.

Literature

Mandatory reading:

The Architectures of Atelier Bow-Wow: behaviorology, (2010). Rizzoli.

Banham, R. (1969). The architecture of the well-tempered environment. London, Architectural Press.

Caminada, G. A., B. Schlorhaufer, et al. (2005). Cul zuffel e l'aura dado: Gion A. Caminada. Luzern, Quart Verlag.

Clément, G., P. Rahm, et al. (2006). Manières d'agir pour demain. Milano, Skira.

Rahm, P., & Décosterd, J.-G. (2002). Physiological Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser.

Deplazes, A. (2008). Constructing architecture: materials processes structures : a handbook. Basel, Birkhauser.

Diener, R. (2005). Switzerland: an urban portrait. Basel, Birkhäuser.

Guallart, V. (2009). GeoLogics: geography information architecture. Barcelona, Actar.

Harvard design magazine no. 30, 2009: "Sustainability + pleasure".