Nymphengarten (AIT 4.2020)
These days, the topic of eating divides society unlike any other. Apart from all the diverse trends, however, the communal, cosy togetherness turns every meal into a communicative event. Yet for judges and lawyers, high security requirements exist for specific times. In her master thesis at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Johanna Uhland focused on the exciting balance between communality and separation and explains her concept for a restaurant pavilion with very special requirements.
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Yooth rooms (AIT 5.2020)
An unusual initiative started by the Hanover Protestant regional church is to increase the awareness for youth work and assist in providing newly designed premises for the adolescents of three parishes – this is the goal of the Jugendandachtspreis 2019 (AIT 5.2019 and AIT 11.2019). 16 teams of architecture students at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences participated in the competition for the room concepts of the three winning parishes. With their prize money, the designs of the respective first prize winners are to be turned into reality.
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Mobil-Home (AIT 10 | 2017)
Since 2015, the start of massive refugee immigration into Germany, the situation for homeless people in the major cities has been changing – 35,000 are affected by homelessness. Working nomads and students are also suffering due to the increasing housing shortage and are frequently no longer able to afford the overpriced apartments in the metropolises. Angelika Plessow, a student of interior design in Rosenheim, describes how to deal with the issue and the search for solutions.
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Tunnel Airplane (AIT 11 | 2017)
The “Tunnel Airplane” project is a cooperation of the Mainz University Medical Center and students of the discipline Communication in Space. 16 students set themselves the task of designing the underground passageway from the paediatric-surgery ward to the operating theatre so it has a more calming and positive effect on the little patients. The design was shown as a full-scale model at the Rheinland-Pfalz-Ausstellung. Nina Nöth describes how this topic was dealt with and the search for approaches to find an anxiety-reducing solution.
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Spreeblick (AIT 07/08 | 2017)
There is no doubt that it is a choice piece of property in a prime location beside the water in the midst of Berlin! The site measuring four hectares is situated to the east of Schillingbrücke and inspires the imagination of numerous investors. Most recently, a real-estate entrepreneur from Stuttgart tried his luck with apartments which were to be built largely sealed off from the rest of the neighbourhood. Since this did neither please the district nor the senate, the urban-development authorities are now trying to find new ideas.
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High Altitude Rush (AIT 1/2.2021)
The design of a residential tower by Jan Neflin and Lucas Apfelbacher has been developed under the supervision of Professor Piero Bruno, the director of the Institute Housing and Design at the University of Stuttgart. The construction gets its stunning quality from famous reference objects such as the Milan Torre Valesca and the Unité d’Habitation. Planned for a Stuttgart non-place and developed during the isolation that was caused by the Corona crisis, the design tries to give answers to the big questions of the present.
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Together (AIT 7/8.2021)
The pluralisation of lifestyles in our society has resulted in the need for housing that provides more space than the classic single-family home. In her master's thesis at the University of Kassel – supervised by Professor Claus Anderhalten – Sophia Kaufhold investigates the special features of a communal way of living and designs a neighbourhood
for the Medebach location that is intended to simultaneously facilitates exchange between generations, promotes the integration of refugees and strengthens the residential area.
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Reflection (AIT 6.2021)
Consciously perceiving what one has experienced and reflecting on it – in their master study project, Ann-Sophie Lehmann and Gisa Lankenfeld at HS Düsseldorf focussed on different sensual perceptions and spatially transferred these impressions onto a bathing ritual. A former church building is the stage for an interplay of actively demanding, calm and neutral zones. In combination with water, tactile, visual as well as acoustic stimuli can be experienced which predefine scopes of action for the bathers.
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Urban Roots (AIT 4.2021)
How can unused parking areas be restructured in such a way that considerable added value is produced for the neighbourhood community? In her bachelor thesis at Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Laura Pott focuses on this topic in detail and designs modern allotment gardens which easily manage to upgrade to date disused areas and even allow an exclusive view of Berlin at the same time. An optimum way of life for city dwellers who do not want to miss their rural roots.
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Sustainable living (AIT 3.2021)
Symbiosis between man and nature — a relationship from which both benefit — was the aim of the design by a team of students from Delft University of Technology: the Symbiotic Urban Movement. In a large-scale case study in De Dreef, a district of The Hague, the students designed a sustainable approach to a solution for all 847,000 rental flats. With their project, they are part of the international Solar Decathlon Europe 21 competition and are trying to convince the jury of their Movement!
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The Disc (AIT 10.2020)
The fact that architecture is not only a creative expression but also an essential content of a student project is an exception. For Maximilian Scheffel it was surprising to find out that there is no central contact point in Stuttgart, a city shaped by architecture, that promotes a creative discourse and exhibitions on architecture and urban development along with its communication to the general public. For this reason, he developed an
impressive architecture forum in his master's thesis at the University of Stuttgart.
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Objet Trouvé (AIT 12.2020)
A “tiny house” constructed of products from the hardware store for less than 3,000 euros: This was the task entitled “Objet trouvé” which Gerhard Kalhöfer, professor of theory of building and architecture at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, assigned to his students. The designs were planned to be later implemented during a summer workshop in Georgia – Corona intervened! Despite this, extraordinary designs resulted. Gerhard Kalhöfer selected
three of them for our contribution. He explains them personally!
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Writing about Architecture (AIT 12 | 2019)
Every summer, the Institute of Public Buildings and Design of Stuttgart University organizes a one-week seminar with the title Writing about Architecture. In the process, the students are to learn to formulate their ideas on architecture in texts. In order to provide as concentrated an atmosphere as possible, this year’s destination was Castasegna in the Bergell Valley. Here the new-old ensemble around Villa Garbald serves as a study centre. The students were given the task of analysing the existing elements of the architecture.
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Schlachthof (AIT 06 | 2017)
The “cheap is cool” attitude towards food appears to be changing. This is at least what the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung found out on behalf of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Ernährungsindustrie. Thus every fourth consumer today no longer primarily looks at the price when buying his or her food. Instead, moralethic criteria and freshness are in the foreground. Barbara Kiesel sees this as a chance for the old slaughterhouse in Bad Kissingen and developed a concept for revitalizing it.
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Brenzkirche (AIT 05 | 2017)
Since 1933, the church building of the Nordgemeinde at Killesberg has been standing between the Weissenhof and the Kochenhof Estate. That this sacral building is “caught between two stools” – the two estates – not only as to its location but also to its architecture, can be noticed on the building to this day. The parishioners are dissatisfied with this ambivalent situation and want the clear position of the original state back. The thought of a reconstruction became the questioned starting point of the concept.
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Adolf Loos (AIT 04 | 2017)
Can students of interior design still learn from the work by Adolf Loos today? In her master thesis at HfT Stuttgart, Theresia Maria Hug focused on the question whether Loos – who counted personalities from music, art, literature and politics among his acquaintances – continues to be relevant for contemporary interior design. A focal point of her thesis is the analysis of his interiors in Pilsen which were restored and made publicly accessible when the city was awarded with the title of European Capital of Culture in 2015.
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The Loft (AIT 03 | 2017)
At Hochschule Kaiserslautern and supervised by Professor Jens Wendland, students were given the task of converting an already existing loft in the London district of Shoreditch for a fictitious couple. For her storytelling, Susanne Scholl chose a homosexual couple of retirement age and designed a living concept which focuses in its architecture on the district of Shoreditch, the topic of living in old age and on homosexuality. The result is a loft which allows the couple to live together without restrictions.
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Conversion spaces (AIT 11 | 2019)
The Jugendandachtspreis 2019 by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover awarded four parishes with a cash prize for the redesign of their youth rooms. Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences supported the project with a competition for students in their second semester. They were asked to use an element system to construct a room-independent piece of furniture allowing a variety of uses by communities without a youth room. We present the winners in the categories Shelving System, Screen and Modular System.
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Spatial impressions (AIT 10 | 2019)
Designing spaces was not the only concern of the architecture students Philipp Vögele and Ender Cicek, they also wanted to fundamentally question the development and design of spaces. In their joint bachelor thesis they approached the process of architectural creation together with philosophical theories, conventions and symbols. They were surprised by the scope of this subject. Philipp Vögele describes their approach and own composition of spatial perception.
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Chinas red (AIT 09 | 2019)
Exhibition concepts freely created by students frequently show very fancy approaches – and this is definitely a good thing! Sometimes, however, there is an actual client behind a task who comes with his real ideas and a restricted budget. To familiarize herself with this “reality”, Leonie Seemann from Coburg University set out to combine ideas which can be implemented and those which are far what is from ordinary. The result is an interactive presentation between tradition and modernity in China.
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A shadow roof (AIT 07/08 | 2019)
Under the project management of Sarah Pallischeck, 13 bachelor students of TH Köln travelled to the Omomas Care Center, a home for orphans and street children in Namibia. The aim of the excursion was – on the basis of an elective module – to implement the jointly developed design of a shadow roof on site. The project was realised with the financial support of the Foundation for Art and Building Culture – Britta and Ulrich Findeisen. Eva Maria Thümling reports on the design process and the experiences on site.
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Airport Hotel (AIT 06 | 2019)
Almost a case study: In this project, 13 interior design students are all dealing with the same real hotel room layout of the Globana Airport Hotel at Leipzig/Halle Airport. With regard to the existing components, there were two basic approaches: To derive a room concept from a significant piece of furniture or to construct a piece of furniture via the detailing of the room. Pascal Fabian Rätzel presents his way from and with his concept "Aloof" to a "heavy valet".
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Kultur aufgelegt (AIT 05 | 2019)
The project task of "Ministry of Sound Dreispitz" included a fictitious usage concept and a spatial implementation idea for the former warehouse of Burkhardt-Jundt AG on the Dreispitz Area in Basel. The local institutions, such as RadioX, the Haus der elektronischen Künste, and the Academy of Art and Design (HGK) itself, are creating an interesting starting point with great potential to turn the centre into a hotspot for electronic art and music. Sarah Frey presents her interpretation of the play of and with cultures.
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Ceramics factory (AIT 04 | 2019)
Sina Pauline Riedlinger and Franziska Käuferle, Master's students at TU Berlin, have intensively dealt with the subject of ceramics. For the manufacturer B.O.S. Keramik, they designed a new factory building at the company's premises in Velten and thought about how the company could position itself in a contemporary way. Their impressive design and in-depth research into the material clay also earned them the student prize of the Caparol Caparol Architectural Prize Colour – Texture – Surface 2018.
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Landlabor Wiehe (AIT 03 | 2019)
In this real-life student project, the task was to design in Wiehe Castle in Thuringia, which is badly in need of renovation, an appealing bedroom that was fully functioning, has electricity and water and also meets all the usual requirements of a hotel room. The students were allowed a period of six weeks for coming up with a completed construction
documentation for such a room. Nikolai Gemmecke reports on what the experiences were that he made as an undergraduate with his fellow students in the course of this project.
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Work To Go (AIT 01/02 | 2019)
Which are the demands the young generation makes on the work of the future? This question was the origin of the idea to focus together with young students and on the basis of an actual project. The overall project goes back to the initiative and the idea of Susanne Bandherm and Sabine Krumrey, brandherm + krumrey interior architecture, Joachim Müller Wedekind, Steelcase, and Kristina Bacht, AIT-Dialog. Susanne Brandherm and Sabine Krumrey provide insight into the project from the point of the concept to its implementation.
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Can Lis - Texts (AIT 12 | 2018)
To convince clients, critics and juries, architects cannot exclusively rely on their images and drawings but also have to resort to the means of language. Writing about architecture is, however, practiced very rarely in the course of their studies. This is the reason why the Institute for Public Buildings of the University of Stuttgart has initiated the “Über Architektur schreiben” summer course. Together with our editor Uwe Bresan, the participants spent one week on Mallorca. We here publish excerpts from the texts they submitted.
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Old Guest House (AIT 11 | 2018)
Demographic change presents rural regions with major challenges. Classical family structures, with several generations living and working in close proximity, are increasingly dissolving. With his project "Neue Begegnungen im alten Logierhaus" (New Encounters in the Old Guest House), Christian Rühlmann is searching for forms of togetherness that
offer new perspectives in particular for older people. A building that has been vacant for years — the Logierhaus in Alexisbad — provides the starting point for a new lively place of encounter.
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Flooring Lab (AIT 10|2018)
Interior designers-to-be at Hannover University of Applied Sciences developed innovative floor coverings as part of the "Innovative Flooring" project. The creative processes were influenced by bionics. All natural-inspired floor coverings were subsequently presented at Domotex 2018 on an exhibition stand, which was also developed as part of the "The Biomimetic Flooring Lab" project. The students Sarah Gerner and Johanna Luise Kolb give us an insight into both exciting project areas.
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Exhibition concept (AIT 09|2018)
As part of the “Pop-Up Luxury” projects, ten students from the bachelor course of studies in interior design at Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Art designed an exhibition concept for the project partner Vedder GmbH and its stand at the Monaco Yacht Show 2017. Vedder GmbH specializes in the interior construction of luxury yachts, private jets and residences. With her parametrically oriented concept, Stephanie Kloß managed to convince and tells about its development and implementation on 36 square metres.
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Young Talent 2018
"The Heart of the City - Shaping Social Diversity" is the motto of the Hugo Haring Young Talent Award 2018, which the BDA State Association of Baden-Württemberg awarded to two student groups: the implemented project "Begegnungsraum" creates a meeting place for locals and refugees in the centre of Stuttgart. "Breathing Monument", on the other hand, breathes new life into a long-forgotten flyover structure at Stuttgart's main station. Here, both student groups report on their concept.
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Poetry of light (AIT 05 | 2018)
Students at the Swiss Academy of Art and Design in Basel developed prototypes for future lighting concepts and luminaires with the theme of mobile light. They were professionally supported in this by the Swiss Ribag Licht AG luminaire manufacture. For the Milan furniture exhibition in April, the future designers were allowed to display their works in the context of the young-talent platform Salone Satellite. Darja Studer tells about the steps from the idea to the specifically made and functioning prototype.
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Modular Working (AIT 04 | 2018)
Students of architecture at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and trainee carpenters developed and realized their idea of the workspace of the future in cooperation with the Cologne Chamber of Crafts. With the help of computer-aided design- and manufacturing methods, the modular Randomize Box/Co-Working Space room concept resulted where both disciplines find a space to work. Timo Stürmer and Klara Maria Keller, bachelor students at Cologne University, describe the process and the experiences they gained.
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Bathhouse (AIT 03 | 2018)
Graduate from Cologne University of Applied Sciences Hannah Tholen designed as part of her master’s thesis a bath completely in line with the high art of bathing in ancient Rome as a new form of relaxing in the heart of the city. In the Düsseldorf Medienhafen and in a vertical building structure, bathing is now possible from hot to cold, from inside to outside, from bottom to top. Rooms of different sizes and the various physical states of the water contribute to a relaxed as well as communicative atmosphere.
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Manifantatsisch (AIT 12 | 2017)
The analysis of the newly built residential- and commercial district in Stuttgart caused Lena Engelfried and Tara Hariri to draw up a manifesto on saving architecture. In it, the students address the ethical and economic problems which they feel are confronting contemporary architecture. For seven days, the university became a stage for daily
representing one of the points from the manifesto and for calling on fellow students as well as on professors to change their attitude and to jointly make a difference.