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Architectural Design (Prof. F.C. Girot)
Entwurf (Prof. F.C. Girot)
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 15:25:02
Abstract
The Allmend Brunau in Zürich will be the subject of a spatial rogramme concerned with open space and designed to enhance the experience of the city walker. Students will focus on questions of distance, scale, scenography, programme, materiality and atmosphere in relation to a chosen walk across the new territory.
Objective
Our semester encourages a heightened spatial awareness from the perspective of the walker in the practice of design at the city scale.
Content
Walking is one way of engaging with city space. As we transect the city on foot, we internalise the relative positions of our spatial surroundings in relation to our own body and pace, and add measures of distance and personal experiences to our idea of the world. When representing the city accordingly, from a walker's perspective, our spatial awareness is potentially intensified. It requires us to consider the specific qualities of the spaces we encounter and our subjective responses to them, spanning from our cultural associations with a particular spatial typology to, for example, our feeling for an expanse of horizon. This semester explores how, alongside city maps and models, plans, sections and analysis documents, the perspective of the walker might better inform our decision-making when we set about design on a city scale. The students' of our semester will walk and represent by means of 'A Series of Spatial Events' one of two transects across Zurich, bisecting the relatively large former common land of Allmend Brunau in Zürich. The Allmend Brunau will then become the focus of a subjective spatial programme. Rather than attempting a comprehensive dealing with the whole territory, students will simulate a walk through the imagined new territory. By means of a series of 'stage-sets' they will deal in detail with spatial qualities such as scale, sequence, view and perspective, materiality and atmosphere.. Simultaneously this detailed spatial handling will inform a general strategy for the reorganisation of the Allmend Brunau.
Resources
Lecture Notes
Will be delivered at the beginning of classes.
Literature
Bibliography (All recommended books available to borrow from the Assistenz.) Burckhardt, Lucius, Die Spaziergangswissenschaft, Martin Schmitz Verlag, 1980 Careri, Francesco, Walkscapes. Walking as Aesthetic Practice, Walk & Scape Series 2001 De Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, 1984 McDonough, Tom, Guy Debord and the Situationist International, MIT Press, 2002 Solnit, Rebecca, Wanderlust. A History of Walking, Penguin USA, 2001 Valena, Tomas, Beziehungen. Zum Ortsbezug in der Architektur, Ernst&Sohn, 1984
General Information
- Language
- German
- Levels
- BSC , DS , MSC
- Frequency
- Semesterly recurring
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| exercise |
Entwurf (Prof. F.C. Girot)
Does not take place this semester.
Permission from lecturers required for all students.
|
No time listed | 16 h weekly |