Current courses

The journey of discovery and imagination in this territorial design studio will be moving between Brussels and Lviv—as a cross-section of a continent, explored through its cities and towns, in a mosaic of observations and projects. Along this section we follow the spin of vibrancy and values connected to European visions—as well as current challenges, war, energy and resource crisis, social division. 35% of Europe is covered by woods—a major resource and inspiration for creativity. On the journey of this studio, they are in the focus in a double sense: woods as symbol and space of peripheries, asking about towns and cities beyond metropolis, their perspectives, their regional networks, city-countryside interaction, larger linkages. And we are keen on material culture of cities related to woods. Wood as natural and renewable material is targeted in strategies to limit climate change and to transform cities, economy, and culture to sustainability, as for example in the New European Bauhaus (NEB). Thus, the studio will follow a Circular Design approach to creatively work with material and cultural flows.

The studio is organised as a platform of individual projects, in four phases: (1) speed section: exploration of topics and places along the section; (2) the choice of a city or town and its designerly spatial investigation (voices, videos, images, mapping, diagramming, atmospheres, structures; 1:50,000 to 1:1,000); (3) formulating a strategic project (urban vision, spatial imagination, unconventional forms in territorial design based on the investigation tools; 1,2000 to 1:500); (4) testing the hypothesis of a “Woods Belt” in Central Europe, built from perspectives and networks of its cities and towns. Individual projects can address cities and towns in and near to the woods along the cross-section: for example, Ardennes (Belgium/Luxembourg/France/Germany), Eifel, Thuringia forests (Germany), Bohemian Massiv (Czech Republic, Poland, Germany), Carpathian Mountains (Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine).

Participants in the studio are invited to join the excursion ZERO about architecture and urbanism in Brussels and Flanders oriented to NEB principles.

ZERO will invent an urban game as a new creative method to imagine, structure, design urban space—how to recycle city, deal with uncertainties, provide mix in space and over time, be adaptive and smart. The urban game will be inspired by digital games, metaverse, and the linkages between digital and material life. Utopic approaches from Cedric Price (fun palace, pottery think belt) or Archigram (plug-in city, walking city) will be referred to actual technological and cultural discussions. The importance of the aim to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent is highlighted by the current energy and materials crisis. Clearly, the challenge will not only be to turn metropolis (much is already on the track there), but periphery: here, to change ways to live, work, move, and build into sustainable models will need major inventiveness and deeper impact. Thus, ZERO will focus on smaller towns and explore how to reach two core aspects of this turn—net zero artificialisation and net zero emission—, focusing on urban projects that recycle space, create new density, proximity, and vibrancy. ZERO – An urban game will show how urban design can support to create liveable spaces and cultural change, referring to but going beyond sectoral targets such as positive energy districts, sustainable mobility, and green and circular economy. With a Circular Design approach, ZERO aims at designerly and spatial creativity for a dynamic turn how to imagine and organise spaces in periphery.

The test ground for the urban game of ZERO is the town network of Western Thuringia, in particular the transformation of former industrial areas into urban playgrounds for sustainable life and work. In inventing the urban game, students will work in parallel on single stories for spaces and processes of the game as well as on the larger range, putting together the playground. The game combines inventiveness in urban design and architecture with new tools to find, channel, express and link ideas for spaces and performativity. ZERO will be organised in three phases: (1) exploration/mapping; (2) piece and figures of the chessboard (1:500 to zoom in 1:200); (3) putting together playground and game (1:2,000).

A short trip to Western Thuringia will connect field survey (drawing, photography, and interviews) with insights into the region and, in particular, into Weimar, linked to the current awareness for the Bauhaus avantgarde spirit.

The excursion ZERO, connected to this urban design studio, will discover new projects of urbanism and architecture in Brussels and Flanders.

The excursion to Brussels and Flanders aims to detect the urban dimension of recent and appraised architectural projects—and urban projects as frameworks for architectural culture. Following the investigation into ZERO, the two aspects of zero new artificialisation (i.e. urban density and transformation) and zero emissions (climate neutrality of urban life and building processes) will be in the foreground. Linking to the iniative New European Bauhaus we will ask specifically about how architecture and urbanism can contribute not only to a sustainable turn of cities and of the construction economy but to a cultural change, to inclusiveness, to new aesthetic paradigms for everyday life, and to urban vibrancy.

Connected to the urban design studio ZERO and the territorial design studio THE WOODS

There is no architecture without the city. Architectural work derives from the tasks and future of the societies and communities for which architects design and build; and architecture refers to the context of material, functional and meaningful space, in a variety of references and scales. When the professional practice and academic nature of the discipline argues its uniqueness and significance in cultural, political and economic discussions, it is today faced with an additional task: to explore and explain what city actually means. We go one step further: by territory we mean the built environment in larger contexts, especially in the interplay of country and city, in a vision of settlement as habitat. How has territory changed, which current and future changes can we name? How can we redefine the interfaces between architectural and urban planning with infrastructure, culture and nature, landscape, economy and society? What is the role and task of architecture not only for the design of buildings, but also for the articulation of spaces on a larger scale of the territory? Which concepts and design tools are necessary for this, how can they be communicated?

In the programme MSc Architecture and Urban Design, OPEN TOPIC can be used to work on research dossiers, especially in preparation for the master thesis. 

In the programme BSc Architecture, OPEN TOPIC can be used for research in preparation and support of an individual bachelor thesis in urban design.

The session City & Landscape of the module Wechselwirkungen is about first insights into concepts and working methods of urban design (Prof. Jörg Schröder) and landscape architecture (Prof. Christian Werthmann). In the two lectures and the exam exercise, design-oriented analytical basics are taught. Selected case studies are approached by different scale levels. The aims of the session are:

(1) To recognise interactions between the architectural case studies and their context and to be able to explain them,

(2) to develop a basic understanding of city and of landscape and the complexity and significance of their spatial forms and structures, 

(3) combined with the ability to synthesise spatial knowledge and to adequately explain it.

The course offers an insight into the basics of integrated transport planning. 

In the first part the basics of integrated transport planning are presented. In addition to classic parameters for the design of traffic areas, such as functional requirements, cross-sections, radii, etc., current developments in mobility are examined, such as car sharing, electromobility, automated driving or the promotion of cycling. 

At the same time, spatially differentiated mobility cultures are presented, for which different new mobility offers must be created in the regional context. Building on this, it will be shown what future-oriented, integrated mobility concepts for cities, residential areas or companies could look like. 

Using the example of a current development project, concrete designs for integrated, target group-differentiated mobility infrastructures are developed. In addition to the question of the design of road cross-sections in relation to the urban space, solutions are also being developed for the integration of the traffic and parking space infrastructure into urban design and architecture.

The course is conducted by Mr. Henrik Sander, who as partner of the office orangeedge in Hamburg has extensive topical knowledge.