VVZ API is not affiliated with ETH Zurich. Data might be outdated or incorrect. Please view the official ETHZ Vorlesungsverzeichnis for binding information.
Architectural Design V-IX: Public House II (A. Puigjaner)
Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:13:58
Abstract
During the spring semester 2026, the Architecture and Care design studio will address public care infrastructures through the lens of what is considered to be private, domestic, reproductive space. The studio aims to subvert the dichotomy between public and private, productive and reproductive spheres, and imagine what a “public domestic” could be.
Objective
RAISING CRITICAL ARCHITECTURAL POSITIONS Formulating clear and precise questions, using abstract ideas to interpret information, considering diverse points of view, reaching well-reasoned conclusions, and testing alternative outcomes. Performing qualitative and quantitative architectural research and translating it into an architectural language. Gathering, assessing, recording, and comparatively evaluating relevant information and performance in order to support conclusions. DESIGNING SOCIAL IMPACT Designing responding to territories of care and their characteristics, including urban context and historical fabric, soil, topography, ecology, climate, economy… Using formal, organisational, social, and environmental principles and informing two- and three-dimensional design. Understanding construction systems and their coherent formalisation. Considering the environmental impact and the reuse of the design. COMMUNICATING ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS Writing, performing, and speaking effectively about an architectural design, using representational media appropriate for both the profession and for a wider audience. Making clear architectural drawings and constructing props at different scales that illustrate and communicate an architectural research and design technically, experientially, and aesthetically.
Content
During the spring semester 2026, the Architecture and Care design studio will address public care infrastructures through the lens of what is considered to be private, domestic, reproductive space. The studio aims to subvert the dichotomy between public and private, productive and reproductive spheres, and imagine what a “public domestic” could be. We will question normative constructs surrounding the body in order to design spaces and architectures that can support expanded daily care practices outside the privacy of the house. Architecture and space have historically contributed to promoting and perpetuating normative, gendered, and discriminatory models of inhabitation and public space that segregate and marginalise the mainly feminised bodies performing domestic work – waged or unwaged. Prejudices around gender, as well as their overlaps with sexuality, age, (dis)ability, racialisation, nationality, and other taxonomising categories have been and still are central to the ways we structure urban and social realities. While it is no longer true that wage labour is predominantly performed by men, the larger part of reproductive labour is still performed by women, most often in addition to work performed outside the home. The home, understood here in its most paradigmatic Western form of the nuclear family house or apartment, has long been considered the primary space of reproductive labour; this is where child-bearing and -rearing takes place, where the elderly are often taken care of, and where people are fed, washed, and cared for – physically and psychologically. These domestic care practices have largely been erased from the public realm, excluding them from social and affective life, and isolating the people who perform them. By critically analysing the different spaces seen as elements of normative, single family, domestic housing, we will rethink these spaces beyond the private sphere. Bedroom, kitchen, living room, bathroom, toilet, laundry room, storage room, dining room, and spare room will be the starting points from which we will reimagine the domestic as public infrastructure. The site for our public house will be the Parkhaus Hardturm in Zürich, constructed between 1984 and 1987 by Hubacher & Issler Architekten. By moving the domestic spaces from the private to the public, we will rethink them as collective rather than individual spaces. This has the potential to communise care practices in a shift towards a more egalitarian society. Looking at different aspects of the domestic, from everyday dependencies to rest and leisure, we will design architectures, institutions, and infrastructures that can trigger multiple forms of interdependency, cohabitation, and kinship. Working at multiple scales, from the body to the city, the studio will speculate on this relocation of domestic care practices, from the realm of the private to the public, from one-directional provisions of care to reciprocal, transversal, and pleasurable forms of social care.
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: Public House II (A. Puigjaner)
No course 17.3./18.3.2026 (seminar week).
|
|
16 h weekly |