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Architectural Design V-IX: Architecture in Large Quantities (GD G.Retsin)
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 16:31:05
Abstract
This studio will challenge students to develop not just one design but a fully automated system that can generate endless designs for high-quality, inspiring, and sustainable timber housing. Students will work in small groups, each representing a notional “housing factory” that is asked to produce thousands of new homes for Zurich within the next 10 years.
Content
If a building is good, why don’t we repeat it? This studio will challenge students to develop not just one design but a fully automated system that can generate endless designs for high-quality, inspiring, and sustainable timber housing. Students will work in small groups, each representing a notional “housing factory” that is asked to produce thousands of new homes for Zurich within the next 10 years. These homes should be built fast but also sustainable and long-lasting. Historically, architecture has been able to repeat itself successfully. Almost any historic city serves as proof. Architecture was a discipline focused on the serial repetition and iteration of designs, typologies, and construction methods. The modernists made architecture in large quantities their project. Modernist experiments tried to deliver millions of homes using new design and production methods. The most famous - and most singular- houses of modernism, such as Villa Savoye, the Barcelona Pavilion, or the Californian Case Study Homes, were all meant to be repeated in large numbers. Today, this sounds strange and unusual. Economic and cultural circumstances have changed our profession so much that architecture—especially good architecture—is rarely repeated. Good architects work very hard to develop a unique and compelling one-off design, to then start again—almost from scratch—for the next project. When we think about architecture that repeats itself, we often think about the lazy, uninspiring accumulations of anonymous buildings around our cities or the dreary apartment buildings left behind by the modernist building craze. However, after a 50-year pause, the question of architecture in large quantities is back on the table. Under the pressure of a global housing crisis and climate emergency, architecture is again asked to revisit its multiplication and, therefore, its very core. The age-old question of the mass-produced home is back, with all its challenges, controversies, stigmas, and opportunities. This time, it is bolstered by new digital technologies and sustainable materials. The studio will work both in-depth and at scale. In the first half of the semester, students will form groups and develop a detailed timber construction system for a small factory-produced housing unit with the input of BUK. Students will be asked to develop both their idea for a housing factory and a strong architectural idea and expression for the houses it produces that is worth repeating in large amounts. If we build this building in thousands of variations - is it good enough? Or is the design too original and unique to be repeated one thousand times? In the second half of the semester, students will scale and deploy their designs across 40+ sites in Zurich. Students will use a simple AI-driven workflow and the parametric design tool Rhino/Grasshopper to support this exercise. Students will critically reflect on the deployment of their designs, the opportunities and limitations of their system, and the computational tools they use. We’ll reflect on the societal questions surrounding architecture and the discipline itself: how do we work? What are we good at? What would we rather not do? The outcome of the studio will consist of depth and scale: Depth: A factory-produced timber construction system, demonstrated with a detailed 1:10 architectural model and axonometric drawing. Scale: An automated, repeatable timber housing model demonstrated by plans, sections, and renderings for 40+ designs across many sites in Zurich No existing experience with AI or Rhino/Grasshopper is required to take the studio. Critical thinking is the most important skill for the studio.
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- BSC
- Frequency
- Semesterly recurring
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| exercise |
Architectural Design V-IX: Architecture in Large Quantities (GD G.Retsin)
Keine Lehrveranstaltung am 22/23.10.2024 (Seminarwoche).
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16 h weekly |