Integral Design Studio

ARBEITSWELTEN

This semester, the design studio at the Instituteof Architecture and Media explores open architectural forms that enable customizable and flexible work environments.
Using a playful and interactive digital design method, variation is created through participation and complexity through collective design decisions.
During the semester, these projects are developed collaboratively in a step-by-step process. The course is accompanied by a variety of input workshops and lectures that allow students to create interesting design proposals and visions even without prior knowledge of digital design methods and concepts.

The design studio uses a variety of cutting-edge digital design methods that cover all the skills that can come into play in a competition entry:
from ideas to concept drawings and diagrams to architectural visualization and professional presentation techniques. Above all, interaction and participation are at the heart of these collaboratively planned workspace architectures. In addition, modular construction methods and contemporary workspaces will be  ddressed as well as anchored in the context of current discourses in architecture.

This module is dedicated to architectural design. Corresponding to the teaching and research content of the respective institute, a project task is assigned, which is then thoroughly worked through, from the comprehension/elaboration of the matter, through the idea and development, to the visualization and presentation of the work. Depending on the institute’s focus, architectural design includes object design down to the architectural detail, urban planning, as well as the landscape architectural scale.
The aim of the module addresses physical form as spatial and tectonic structure or the spatial unfolding of development processes. Designing is project-based learning that builds on scientific, technical, cultural and artistic knowledge; and at the same time reflects and expands this knowledge in creative debate. The result of this discussion is a design process, in which students position themselves within the discipline by addressing social issues and climatic, economic and cultural challenges in our field using both traditional as well as new methods of planning and implementation. A successful design process finds solutions to current social, economic and ecological issues of building and attempts to address these issues in a constructive manner.

After successful completion of the module, the students will have acquired in-depth theoretical, technical and practical knowledge of design and a practical understanding of design methods and processes. They will gain an increased sensitivity in dealing with material, structure, context, resources, space, atmosphere, architectural expression, and are able to integrate these qualities, depending on the institute’s orientation, into the design of the building down to the architectural detail, the urban planning design, as well as the landscape architectural scale. They will learn to synthesize all the design decisions within a completed project.