Architectural Design III: House / Home (E.Christ/Ch.Gantenbein)

Abstract

Housing is our studio's topic. We begin with a three-day excursion to Turin. Based on selected examples, we study Turin's urban architecture. Collectively we develop both a typology and an architectural vocabulary through inspired drawings. In the second half of the semester, we design a piece of furniture. This architectural object is the ideal house.

Objective

On site survey of built architecture, analysis and recording of architectural characteristics and principles, typologization of various buildings. Accurate and experimental use of architectural drawings. Independent design of a small architectural object, piece of furniture. Working with large-scale models. Architectural and model photography.

Content

This year our studio deals with housing. We start the semester with a three-day excursion to Torino, the northern Italian city on the Po River at the foot of the alps, capital of the Savoy dynasty and briefly of Italy, with its gridded center and city blocks, early workers‘ villages and industrial settlements in the suburbs. Based on selected examples of both anonymous structures and famous buildings, we study the urban architecture of Torino. We start our common journey of discovery with an analysis - open and experimental, but also systematic and critical. Together we discover, examine and document each house, discuss and develop criteria and categories, in order to eventually compare and order them. The result of this process is our own Torino typology. Through drawings, not just mere representations, but inspired and personal depictions of these architectures we develop together a collective, common repertoire of timeless architecture. Playfully and at the same time systematically, we work on a shared vocabulary of architecture. Finding one‘s own architectural language within the vast vocabulary of architecture is the most important but also most difficult task for an architect - and therefore the task of the second half of the semester. Each group creates an independent design. Wether out of a discovered principle or a very personal fascination, each group develops an independent and experimental design: a piece of furniture, a domestic object. Bare of the necessity to fulfill a certain function, a small piece of furniture and a large house are quite alike, as objects both are shaped by formal coherence and constructive, material decisions. The medium of the semester‘s second half is the large scale model. Each of these architectural objects is an ideal house.

Resources