The Postgraduate Program Urban Strategies offers three types of master courses that have duration of three semesters and conclude with the final presentation of a thesis project, which is presented and discussed in front of a jury.
Each course is headed and taught by international experts from the respective fields of research. Along with the course-specific studio works, lectures, workshops and reviews with guests and visiting professors give students the chance to enrich, discuss and evaluate the progress of their work. To sponsor an intensive communication various classes are open to be joined by all students. The courses 1 and 2 are especially designed for exchange and share parts of their regular curriculum.
1. URBAN TECHNIQUE
Wolf D. Prix / Andrea Börner, Reiner Zettl
Guests and visiting Professors among others: Sanford Kwinter, Andrew Zago, John McMorrough
Urban Technique constitutes a field between urban planning and architecture. It combines research of the organization of the urban territory with architectural strategic thinking in various scales and operates as a laboratory to re-examine the role of architectural discourse within the urban disciplines. The inclusion of the conceptual power of visualization techniques in the formation of urban projects allows for speculative designs that sponsor a different understanding of urban space and mobilizes its potential. It raises the question if it is possible to be contextual and radical at the same time.
> Application open for Spring Entry 2012
A new course will start in November 2012 / the program will be announced in June.
2. POWER PLANT CITY
Wolf D. Prix / Karolin Schmidbaur, Andrea Börner
Guests and visiting Professors among others: Brian Cody, Bernhard Sommer, Reiner Zettl
Power Plant City investigates new urban planning parameters and strategies for urban models based on energy. New techniques towards a better energy performance and new solutions utilizing renewable energy sources are key for securing a sustainable future. With buildings being responsible for the largest part of energy consumption, the built environment has the greatest potential for providing solutions. Energy therefore emerges as a new paradigm for city planning. The city will become its own power plant, utilizing natural resources such as the sun, wind, water and the earth.
> Application open for Spring Entry 2012
A new course will start in November 2012 / the program will be announced in June.
3. EXCESSIVE
Head: Hernan Diaz Alonso
Teaching: Steven Ma, Jose Carlos Lopez Cervantes
Guests and visiting Professors among others: Klaus Bollinger, Greg Lynn, Wolf D. Prix, Marcelo Spina
EXCESSIVE focuses on strategies of architectural design. Many of the ambitions revolve around the topic of excess as a redefinition of beautiful lust and—misfit aesthetics of exuberance and sophisticated conditions of arousal. If design is typically derived from an expertise related to form and proportion, a theory of mutation is possibly an advanced critical stance toward formal traditions. A theory of excessive form is not a rejection of the formal traditions but an extension of them. Further, navigation through the topologies of excessive form can be understood as an intensification of more traditional formal strategies.
> Application open / New Course Starts in June 2012
A new course will start in October 2012 / the program will be announced in June.