Architectural Design IV: Real Architecture: Home (Christ/Gantenbein)

Abstract

What will the home of tomorrow look like?Designing a project in four steps:1. Envisioning scenarios about the future of housing.2. Design of a spatial system to the scenario.3. Contextualize the abstract project within a selected site in Basel.4. Developing of the real project.

Objective

Cultivate an independent, responsible and visionary attitude to a current social issue using the medium of (plan-) collages. Learn to critically read and discuss (architectural) theoretical texts and relate them to the question. Develop a project that is coherent in terms of urban planning, typology and form, which deals constructively with the issues approached during the first steps and is presented mainly through drawings.

Content

In the first semester, the two methods - analytical-rational planning and artistic-personal design - were examined independently of each other. In the second semester, we combine them. The design task changes from the small-scale design of an ideal "domestic object" to the real design task of an urban residential building. Within this context, a series of paramount questions arise: What do we mean by «Home»? What is a contemporary home or what does it take to feel at home in today's world? To what extent do demographic transformations, social changes or the climate crisis affect housing typologies? Are there alternatives to traditional residential buildings that can deal more efficiently with today's needs and demands? Based on these questions, the aim of this semester studio is to imagine new paradigms of living for the individual and the collective. Critical texts, presentations from a diverse range of experts, and joint discussions, will provide a reasonably solid basis for visions and scenarios of tomorrow‘s housing. In the first step, the scenario of a "home" is developed through the medium of collage. The objects of everyday life are placed in relation to people and space, creating a visual representation of the scenario. In the second step, these scenarios are converted into spatial, typological and formal systems through the use of plan collages. Not everything has to be reinvented to develop a visionary architecture. The extensive studies and the large collection of examples from Turin have already provided us with a wide range of formal and functional solutions and principles that will prove useful in the design of new spaces. By combining typological, general principles with an individual, specific scenario, the third step will focus on the design of a housing project in the city of Basel. In this step, inputs and information from urban planning and the urban environment of Basel will help us to better understand the situation of the specific urban context. With the positioning of the typological project developed from the scenario in a real context, the vision initially formulated as an ideal architecture will eventually be translated into a real architecture.

Resources