Architectural Design V-IX: Forum (E. Christ / C. Gantenbein)

Abstract

Online communication has transformed how people connect, enabling digital communities to form around shared values and interests. While these communities primarily exist online, many also seek physical spaces to meet. The studio explores online culture sharing and how to design physical spaces that represent these communities and give them a presence in the city of Zurich.

Objective

Analysing and portraying a specific digital community across various formats will allow students to discover and develop an independent, critical stance towards the addressed topics. We are interested in the diverse range of needs within the multitude of fractured online communities, seeking to be specific with the spaces and architecture we design. Reacting to the modes of interaction and the subtle requirements these groups may need, the architecture will respond to our discoveries. Round tables and discussions with invited guests will enable the creation of a multidisciplinary studio culture, allowing us to tackle sociological, political and spatial questions through open-ended exchange. The city of Zurich will serve as the backdrop to explore the possible relations between established forms of social life, the digital and the physical realms. Matters of belonging, representation, visibility, and shelter will be addressed through architectural form. Throughout the semester, we will cultivate informed design approaches, collectively imagining physical spaces for digital communities.

Content

Online communication has transformed our modes of interaction. Digital platforms and their communities offer safe spaces where like-minded individuals find one another based on shared conditions, values and interests. While online exchange has become the norm for most of us, many communities which interact online also seek a physical space to gather. During the semester, we will look into the specificities of online culture sharing, designing spaces that reflect these communities' distinct characteristics, and offer them a presence not only online but also in the city of Zurich. Historically, social movements have relied on physical spaces to meet and challenge established forms of sociability. For example, the French Enlightenment rose to prominence through intimate gatherings organised by salonnières in their homes. Similarly, Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire played a fundamental role in the birth of Dadaism. While pertaining to the past, these examples remind us that public life often develops outside institutional frameworks and finds space where it was not originally intended. Today, the lack of spatial alternatives and the commodification of third places have shifted the locus of informal social life from cafés, nightclubs, and workshops to the digital realm. This semester, the studio will imagine new places of assembly, discussion, and leisure, more precisely, Forums. We will research the interests and rituals of different communities in order to translate their particular needs into spaces that reflect their activities. Together, we will look for residual sites in Zurich, reclaiming them for new uses. The projects will develop throughout the production of big physical models that explore presence, atmosphere, and spatial intensity. Eventually, we ask: how could these Forums take shape? Can we translate what is not tangible into physical space?

Resources