Based on selected buildings we study the basic principles of a timeless, urban architecture. Fieldwork is an essential part of the design. The selection of building includes various periods and purposes. Out of real houses we develop independent, ideal architectures.

The ever-growing built fabric exerts high pressure on land reserves. Reframing existing structures will therefore be one of the major tasks of the architect in the future. Especially as many surprising innovations are rooted on the foundations of other structures or have occurred through a change of use, we want to engage in the topics of extension, alteration and refurbishment.

Bahnhofstrasse is the site of the most dramatic changes in Zurich. 19th century urbanisation saw it turn Zurich from a town on the river to a city on the lake.The end of shopping has been approaching slowly but surely since we became digital, until Covid dealt it a final blow. Manor is gone. The others will follow. But what will happen to Bahnhofstrasse?

We design residential buildings in the urban context of the city of Zurich. From a selection of construction sites, you determine the best suited for your project and develop a specific form of living right down to the materialization in detail. Inspirational buildings, whose architectural elements and spatial situations are the inspiration for your living ideas, serve as the starting point.

We shall design an arena, a public building for performing and watching sport. With origins as landscape structures in ancient times, arenas are typically defined by ground; dug in, cut and sculpted earth and stone. Then they rose out of the ground as pure-structure never fully enclosed.

What about the historic city centre?Design an urban project with a concrete program in four steps:1. Reading of the place, recognition of potentials2. Translation of the findings into a scenario - social, political3. Through architectural principles: Translation into a spatial structure4. Develop a real project

What will the workplace of tomorrow look like?Designing a project in four steps:1. Envisioning scenarios about the future of the workplace.2. Design of a spatial system to the scenario.3. Translating the system into an architectural structure in wood.4. Developing of the real project.

In the 4th semester, we design residential buildings in an urban context. Within the quarter analysed in the 3rd semester, you are going to choose your own site and develop a specific housing project for the respective location. The starting point is provided by building elements and spatial situations, which we measure during visits of buildings at the beginning of the semester.

The provocation that ‘shopping is over’ which opened last semester HS20 has turned out be truer than imagined. Department stores are falling around the world. We will consider a future for the legendary Zurich department store Jelmoli. Not because it is failing, but because of its continued success.

The post-industrial site of Ex-Chimica in Arenella stands as a contemporary ruin within the greater cityscape of Palermo. We are invited by Studio Rizoma to record the current state of the site from the point of view of actors on site and imagine new perspectives for this unique location between the Tyrrhenian sea and the Monte Pellegrino.

The Hermetschloo area is one of the few sites along the Gleisfeld that remain in their original state. In the future, the site will be heavily densified. At the same time, the zone is full of strong architectural characters. How can they be adapted to become fixtures in a new district, which transport the characteristics and identity of the ‘old’ Hermetschloo into the future?

The architecture of the city lies between the buildings. Too complex in nature, form and design to be understood as a single space, ground has become the network of mobility that defines the contemporary city. This semester, earth works will be the primer for a new experimental garden prepared with the Crowther Lab which, will in turn, lead to actions across Zurich’s greatest continuous interior.

To follow

Life on earth is a precarious business. But so far, it is the only option we have. We have learned to make the most of it. But we have built too much. Centuries of over production and extraction have turned into a crisis. It is a cruel irony that our era of over extraction is being solved by doing more, not less.

Atelier Gisel is seeking applications from twenty-four early career architects to resume professional and creative activities of one of Zurich the most important architectural practices. Applicants should demonstrate an interest in documenting, re-imaging and extending the practice’s seminal architectural oeuvre built between the 1940’s and the 1990’s.

How three mature sequoia trunks, measuring up to 1.1m in diameter, became available in Zurich is somewhat vague; accident, sickness, potential danger of falling, overcrowding? What we do know is we have some very precious material and we have the opportunity to make something useful and special. It is a coincidence that allows a new structure to create new space.

No description available.

This semester, we shall look again at building systems. Buildings from the 1970s, 80s and 90s are reaching the end of their first life-cycle and are most vulnerable to being replaced without the confidence and authority of age. Imagine buildings could speak. What might they say?

In this elective course we will interrogate the possibilities of repair as a method for a new kind of architectural design model, as a disciplinary response in the era of climatic change. The course should pose range of questions and challenges to conventional building economies, standards of construction industry ranging in scale from urban to material choices.