Architectural Ecology

Abstract

In this seminar we will, on the one hand, deal with the central strategies in the context of the climate crisis and get to know them by reading theoretical key texts. On the other hand, we will analyze concrete architectural case studies from Europe and Japan on this basis and thus examine these as well as the theoretical strategies for their potentials.

Objective

By combining textual foundations and practice-based approaches, the course aims to develop a deeper understanding of theoretically grounded ecological architecture while capturing and questioning the methods of current practice from a variety of perspectives.

Content

Climate change confronts architecture with a series of new and complex challenges that are reflected in a specific vocabulary. Terms like sufficiency, circularity or cohabitation are shaping the debates around this crisis or are standing for possible ways out of it. At the same time, the immediate nature of the situation forces us to critically question or revise common standards in the built practice - without having established new reliabilities in advance. Instead, a wide variety of isolated, sometimes contradictory strategies are being pursued simultaneously: Replacing fossil building materials with ecological ones, striving for "less" or a "different" way of building, low-tech and high-tech approaches, simple or multi-layered constructions. Theoretical and practical perspectives seem to be little connected so far. In this seminar we will, on the one hand, deal with the central concepts and strategies of the current debates and get to know and question them by reading key theoretical texts. On the other hand, we will analyze relevant case studies from Europe and Japan on this basis and thus examine both the theoretical strategies and the concrete projects for their potentials. By combining theoretical foundations and practice-based approaches, we thus aim to develop a deeper understanding of an academically informed, ecological architecture, while at the same time capturing and questioning the methods of our current practice from a variety of perspectives.

Resources