Duration: 12 weeks

Project start: Tue 16.04.24  
Presentation Ma_01: Wed 24.04..24        
Excursion Urbino : Sat 27.04.24 - Thu 02.05.24     
Presentation Ma_02 : Wed 22.05.24     
Final Presentation Ma_03 : Wed 09.07.24                                                                   

Introduction:

Urbino is located in the heart of the Marches, a region in central Italy on the eastern side of the country. Wide swinging hills embrace a Renaissance city that originally served as the northernmost outpost of the Vatican state. It was here where the Duke of Montefeltro erected a grand Renaissance palace complex, and where the painting "La città ideale" originated, a utopian concept of the perfect city based on mathematical principles. It is also where architect Giancarlo De Carlo designed and built the University Colleges of Urbino complex. For De Carlo, a prominent figure in Team 10, social practice was inseparable from urban design, and the city of Urbino served as both model and laboratory. He advocated for a critical dialogue with history and place. Throughout his involvement with Team 10, as well as through his editorial work and publications from his International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design, De Carlo actively contributed to architectural discourse, understanding design as nuanced interactions between the landscape and the city-region. His architecture, deeply rooted in context yet decidedly modern, aimed to address contemporary social needs, making it of pertinent interest for study and revisitation today.

Objectives:

This semester, we will focus on the concept of architecture based on an interpretation of the context, broadly understood both as landscape and culture. Working in Urbino will immerse us in the presence of history, at the heart of the Renaissance historical center with its magnificent Palazzo Ducale, as well as in relation to Giancarlo De Carlo's University complex. The working process throughout the semester will unfold in three stages: beginning with an initial interpretation based on literary texts, then progressing to a second stage involving the real perception and experience of the site in Urbino, and finally culminating in the development of a specific architectural project in the university campus. In this sense, the underlying motive refers to understanding architecture as a language, whether physical, found in stones or landscapes; metaphysical, found in stories or memories; or strategic, based on locations, lines of sight, orientation, natural light, or movement patterns.

Site:

Collegi Universitari di Urbino, Italy

Project Phases:

Phase I 

Wed 17.04.24 – Wed 24.04.24

In Phase I, each student will read one of the texts from a suggested list. Each person will give a presentation of their understanding and interpretation to the entire class group.

Excursion

Sun 28.04.24 – Fri 03.05.24

During the excursion to Urbino, students will directly experience the context, the territory, the historic city, and the complex of university colleges designed by DeCarlo. The firsthand experience of what can be seen, touched, tasted, and felt should be represented through different forms and techniques that allow an approach to the language of the place, whether through drawings, paintings, engravings, sculptures, models, videos, sound, collages, etc.

Precise schedule and costs will follow in the next days.

Phase II 

Wed 08.05.24 – Wed 22.05.24

In Phase II, back in Berlin, each student will receive an object (drawing, model, video, etc.) developed in Urbino by another student. The piece will carry a name and a theme, under which it will be explored in relation to the university complex in Urbino, in the form of a model.

Phase III 

Wed  22.05.24 – Wed 09.07.24

In Phase III, students will design an extension to the University Complex at the base of the hill. The original site plans show that there was supposed to be a sports facility that never got built. From this void and the findings and experience of previous phases, students will design their projects for a sports area in relation to the context of the place.

During the first week, the group will build a common model of the site.

Teams:

The different phases of the semester will be developed in teams of two students.

Ref: (Literature):

1. Collage City - Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter

2. Transparenz  - Colin Rowe & Robert Slutzky

3. Mythen des Alltags - Roland Barthes

4. Träume von Räumen - Georges Perec

5. Poetik des Raums - Gaston Bachelard

6. Sehen - John Berger

7. Der Trost der Dinge - Daniel Miller

8. Die Besteigung des Mont Ventoux - Francesco Petrarca

9. Italienische Reise - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

10. Bukolisches Tagebuch - Wilhelm Lehmann

11. Programme und Manifeste zur Architektur des 20. Jahrhunderts - Ulrich Conrads

12. Silence and Light - Louis Kahn

13. Team 10 Primer - Alison Smithson

14. Bedeutsame Belanglosigkeiten - Vittorio Lampugnani

15. Fleisch und Stein - Richard Sennettt

16. A Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander

17. Eupalinos - Paul Valéry

18. Das Schöne und das Erhabene - Edmund Burke

19.  Über die Schönheit - Umberto Eco

20. Marcovaldo oder die Jahreszeiten in der Stadt - Italo Calvino

21. Orlando - Virginia Woolf

22. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemmingway

22. Last Words - Joan Didion (New Yorker, October 28, 1995)

Time schedule:

Tue 16.04.24                      Semester Presentation Start Ma

Wed 24.04.24                     15:00-18:00 Presentation Ma_01                              

Sat 27.04.24 - Tue 02.05.24 Excursion Urbino                       

Wed 22.05.24                     14:00-18:00 Presentation Ma_02                       

Wed 09.07.24                     14:00-18:00 Final Presentation Ma_03   

Semester organisation:

Lehrstuhl Grundlagen des Entwerfens

Prof: Enrique Sobejano

Gastdozentin: Helene Peters

Lehrbeauftragte: Stefana Dilova

Tutorinnen: Annalena Mach, C. Tobias Rivera Hisge

Studio: Wednesday 15:00-19:00

Room: 303

Rules of the chair:

- Studio Wednesday attendance is mandatory

- Working in the studio is expected

- Interim and final presentation project, with guest critics

- Interim corrections with Professor and assistants are important; also discussions of other projects should be followed by the other students

- The documents requested must exist and are not filed during the duties/presentations

- Regular checking of emails for announcements and events is expected