How can we look for ways in which all parties involved can benefit from the proposed transformation of the port of the greek city Piraeus? You are invited to join us to develop concrete interventions that bring people with conflicting views and interests into dialogue to help create the conditions for co-creation and –habitation in the heart of Newrope.

How can we design a neighborhood for the 21st Century hillside settlements in Sarajevo? Can the idea of the traditional learning space of a Madrasa be translated to city - scale? Can architecture reconcile new productive learning centralities, networks of knowledge production, economic opportunity, digital lifestyles and environmental engagement ?

This semester, together, we will investigate the possibility of the façade as projects in itself, accommodating collective or public functions as well as private ones: hospitable spaces offering a different experience of everyday urban life.

From the age of the dinosaurs, cars have run on gasolineWhere? Where have they gone?Now, it's nothing but flowers(Talking Heads, 1988)The studio will investigate and imagine nature in the metropolitan territory of Zurich. The results will be made public in the form of online investigative reportages, meant to inform design practices and public discourse on ecology and nature conservation.

These strange times. For weeks we stayed at home and could really experience what it is like to be at home, experiencing it differently over time. Objects we knew very well turned out not to be known enough. Habits could be deciphered. Discovering unexplored movements.This studio wants to start from those daily experiences.

At first sight, Offenbach might seem like a rather small and unimportant city. Yet Offenbach is a city of extremes: Highest debt per capita in Germany, highest unemployment rate in the state of Hessen, most international and culturally diverse city in the country, a poor city. We are interested in these edge conditions where things collide, energy is unleashed, and radical change can happen.

The semester is based first on a thorough and precise description on milestones of the history of architecture, second on a comparison between the initially planned, originally built and current condition and third on defining a program and a detailed design to enhance its spatial experience for a larger public.

In support of constructing fewer costly and resource-extensive buildings, we celebrate the potential of new technologies and propose a design studio that brings together virtual and physical space. Students are asked to speculate about a program, the corresponding typology and a specific space that shall be digitized in the future. In groups of two, they will imagine and design the virtual space i

In a time of polarisation and conflict, we want to open our house to continue the conversation.A Swiss Embassy is many things. It is the ambassador’s private home and as such, it belongs to the world of housing. It is also a government building that serves as a tool to represent Switzerland’s values and interests, a building for official meetings and events.

In the design studio OUR HOUSE, we will work in the Limmat Valley, part of Zurich’s industrialised periphery. The students will transform a small-scale industrial structure into cooperative housing.

As citizens and architects, we may suddenly find ourselves confronted with developments that genuinely astonish and intrigue us. This is precisely what recently happened to us. In Brussels.

The studio is evolving around the Pallati I Brigadave in Tirana. We invite you to join us to develop a rich variety of speculative ideas and concrete interventions at different scales. We aim at bringing people with very different or even conflicting views into dialogue in order to help create the conditions for co-creation and –habitation in and around the Palace of Brigades.

The Gauss-Stierli-Areal is on the eve of major transformation. If we want to retain this existing industrial heritage for future generations, could we write the script for its fringes to unburden the original structures from the pressures of development? What if the key to bringing more life and space into the city is not systematic but irregular, specific and opportunistic?

In the Fall Semester 2020 we would like to examine the most important elements in creating a strong sense of place. We design architecture in selected locations in a landscape, aiming to create a house that both reflects today's knowledge and the features and conditions unique to its location.

La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle in the canton of Neufchâtel have developed over time a specific type of urbanism: the “urbanisme horloger.” Craft, patience, time, and care have shaped not only the towns but also their surroundings, that we propose to describe here as a “paysage horloger”: a tranquil landscape, where meticulous maintenance have allowed the emergence of a timeless landscape.

Why do some buildings last longer than others? What makes architectural beauty last longer? Why is open architecture more permanent than functionally determined architecture? How do we guarantee social sustainability? When are projects economically sustainable? Durability is the goal of a more sustainable construction. The age of a house determines significantly use and consumption of resources.

There is no doubt that we as architects, although building for a diverse group of people we often don't even know, respond to a set of preconceived patterns. Mostly invisible, patterns are always present in determining how we live, linger, settle and ultimately dwell in space. Designing in a changing world requires a critical awareness of architecture's complicity in reproducing those patterns.

Who owns and controls the energy we use? During the semester we will explore the Rheinische Revier to find out how energy production has formed this landscape in the past and present, and to learn from the precedents. Renewable energy has the potential to regenerate the social and the ecological fabric of territory. Can we imagine landscapes where energy is not a product, but a common good?

We examine the architectural, social, structural, spatial and visual potential of the existing building and question the common practice of densification by replacing new buildings. It's about dealing with what already exists, transforming something that already exists, reusing it and adding it in a meaningful way.

The alpine landscape is changing at an accelerated pace. This development is contrasted by a rudimentary description of the space as a basis for current planning. Against this background, we argue for a comprehensive and fine-grained profiling of the Alps as a starting point for the design of new landscapes. This under the premise of creating maximum difference.