Supervisor: Dietrich Schwarz
Assistant: Daniel Penzis
The tendency that the landscape will be urbanized seems unstoppable and obvious, also that as a consequence we will lose our arable land. However, this is the basis of our emotional and cultural identity, but also of our life resources. This linear process that seems functionally reasonable is also questionable. For this reason, in the winter semester, as architects and urban specialists, we want first to comprehend the landscape and then to overcome the primacy of the urban to the landscape. In the summer semester both spatial qualities will be worked out, urban and landscape are mutually dependent and must therefore be considered simultaneously. The studio is built as a year course. The two semesters will complement each other, but are not mutually obligatory, thus individual semester projects are possible.
Place and space:
... therefore the spaces receive their essence from the place and not from the space itself ...
Martin Heidegger describes with this in "Build, Dwell, Think" that the abstract, physical space does not do justice to the relation of men with their respective environment. Rather it is the places in the landscape on which each of the human perception depend and thus the human existence in space and time is arranged.
Genius Loci:
In architecture, the term genius loci refers to the structural requirements and characteristics of a place, which may be the determining factor for a design. Each plot is initially defined from its location and the integration into its surroundings, here it gains its significance, its characteristics and uses. But the genius loci comes not only from the ground, the size of an area and other measurable factors, but rather includes the atmosphere and aura of a place. In this sense, the Genius Loci is a construction in which knowledge, memory, perception and interpretation merge as interpretive power of the human mind.
Agropolitana:
Starting from the idea that it could be more useful to read the Veneto „città diffusa“ not only as an urban sprawl region with rural/urban conflicts, but instead also as a small metropolis with agriculture inside. This research is trying to explore the possible coexistence between urban spaces and agriculture in an interwoven agro-urban pattern.
Dott. Viviana Ferrario, PhD, Assistant professor IUAV
Collaboration:
In the following two semesters, we will collaborate with the University of Venice. We will work on the landscape and the productive land of the Veneto, also known as the mainland, the "terra ferma" of Venice. We will build on the thesis of "Agropolitana".
In a globalized world where merchandise goods and population circumnavigate the world seemingly free, comes the question of the cultural identity of the individual; is the environment on which we act as humans, original or artificial, real or virtual? What makes us people from, that what we consume, or what we produce?
To stay in the landscape; flow and be rooted-there is no contradiction, river and tree complement each other, far and near are mutually dependent, intimacy and openness guide us.
Genius House:
The Latin term Genius Loci literally means "the spirit of place". Spirit meant originally in Roman mythology a guardian spirit (Genius), often presented in the form of a snake. The term genius loci in ancient Rome belonged closely to religious places such as temples and places of worship on secular areas such as provinces, cities, public places, buildings or individual rooms within these buildings.
We will commit as a starting point in our search for the essence of the landscape, on a place next to the Venetian lagoon and a place in the Friulian Mountains. Both places are characterized on one hand by its impressive landscape and on the other hand by the urban, infrastructural oppression. We will sharpen our own concentration to be aware to the Genius Loci. To „him“ we will dedicate our full attention and build „him“ a house - The Genius House.
Program Winter Semester:
The other bathhouse - the other mountain hospice
Program Summer Semester:
The Agropolitana