open call

 





COURSE SYLLABUS - SPRING 2023




Seminar 01 - 23.02.2023 - HIL.E5 - INTRODUCTION - UNMASKING SPACE

An introduction
…to talk about our values
… to identify our motivations
… to come together for the first time

Course material
>>Welcome to Unmasking Space

>>Tumblr Tutorial


Unmasking Space is a student-led course in the Department of Architecture in ETH Zurich. It aims to reflect critically on the current knowledge production in architecture education and bring attention to learning forms, voices, and methods that are currently under-acknowledged in the institution. Through multidirectional knowledge exchange and immersive activities, it experiments with other forms of learning, offering a critical lens on current pedagogies.






Seminar 02 - 02.03.2023 - HIL.E5 & ONLINE - LEARNING ARCHITECTURE - CARTHA

CARTHA is a curated platform that focuses on sharing different forms of critical thinking regarding architecture and society established in 2015. Through opinions, experiences, and works, it aspires to map out the contemporary architectural landscape. CARTHA aims to generate a collective critical dialogue open to everybody. The Editorial Board comprises Pablo Garrido Arnaiz, Holly Baker, Ainsley Johnston, Francisco Moura Veiga, Amy Perkins, and Rubén Valdez.







HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 08.03.2023 - GTA FOYER - DECONSTRUCTING THE INSTITUTION - IFA_DIASPORA, VOLTA, UNMASKING SPACE, GENDER TASKFORCE, DR.NAZLI TÜMERDEM

A walk through the campus
…to talk about power issues and student problems
…to exchange and connect across universities
…to learn from each other and find new ideas





Seminar 03 - 09.03.2023 - HIL.E5 - DECONSTRUCTING THE INSTITUTION - IFA_DIASPORA, UNMASKING SPACE, VOLTA, GENDER TASKFORCE

An open and inclusive platform
…to unmask structural problems and forms of discrimination in institutions
…to exchange and connect across universities
…to learn from each other and find new ideas

Course material
>> Lets Talk About Race (open text)

>>"The postcolonial studies reader" (edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin)

>>"Hyper-visible Invisibility: Tracing the Politics, Poetics and Affects of the Unseen" by Marie-Louise
Richards


>>"Black Vernacular: Architecture as Cultural Practice" by bell hooks in "Art on My Mind"

>>"Race and Modern Architecture" by Cheng, Davis, Wilson

>>"When statues fall" article by Paul B. Preciad>> Monumental Shadows – Koloniales Erbe neu denken by Savy Contemporary

>> The Race & Podcast 


>> Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2000.

>> Richards, M. (2022, October 28). Pedagogies of Power: Education within and without the Institution

ifa_diaspora is a student initiative, platform, and safer-space of architects, planners and urban researchers at TU Berlin’s Institute of Architecture (IfA), consisting mainly of post-migrant and PoC students. Our overarching goal is to expose structural and institutional racism in the fields of architecture and the broader built environment. Starting at the IfA, we are primarily concerned with highlighting, questioning, and actively dismantling racialized hegemony in architectural teaching. We advocate for a more critical planning environment through sustainable and multi-perspective knowledge production within the industry.


Volta is a space for collective critical thinking within the academic and professional environment of architecture, born through the acknowledgment of gender disparity and persistent deficiency of female and non-binary representation among teachers and role models at the Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio.






Seminar 04 - 16.03.2023 - HIL.E5 - CLIMATE LEXICON - CLIMATE WORDS 

A workshop
…on intersections between architecture, climate, activism and language,
…on possible paths as an architect in an age of climate crisis
…on the meanings of the words we use

Course material
>> Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, The Future We Choose, 2020 (book)

>> Earthrise Studio, The Breakdown, 2021 (docuseries)

>> Alex Pritz, The Territory, 2022 (film)


Valentin Abend, Co-Founder and Director at Climate Words
Architect (MSc AAM), University Teacher and Climate Advocate
. Valentin studied architecture at the University of Kent (BA) and the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio (MSc). He has worked for Herzog & de Meuron in Basel and SO – IL in Brooklyn. He teaches Sustainable Systems at Parsons School of Design in New York. He has been a coordinator for various groups in the climate movement, including Extinction Rebellion, Polluters Out and Greenpeace International, leading campaigns at prominent universities in the USA and at the UNFCCC COP 26.







Seminar 05 - 30.03.2023 - HIL.E5 - SOUTHERN URBANISM - JHONO BENNETT

A dialogue
…on urban design through a southern lens
…reflecting meanings of the word southern
…between students of different backgrounds

Course material
>>Miro Board

>> Bhan, Gautam. “Notes on a Southern Urban Practice.” Environment and Urbanization 31, no. 2 (January 2019): 639–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247818815792

>>
Bruns, Antje, and Jennifer Gerend. “In Search of a Decolonial Urban Transformation.” Gaia 27, no. 3 (2018): 293–97. https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.27.3.9.

>> Caldeira, Teresa Pires do Rio. City of Walls : Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo / Teresa P.R. Caldeira. Berkeley: Berkeley, 2000.

>> Caldeira, Teresa P.R. “Peripheral Urbanization: Autoconstruction, Transversal Logics, and Politics in Cities of the Global South.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35, no. 1 (2017): 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816658479.


Jhono Bennett is Jhono Bennett is the co-founder of 1to1 – Agency of Engagement, a design-led social enterprise based in Johannesburg. 1to1 was initiated in 2010 in support of the multi-scalar work being done to re-develop post-Apartheid South African cities in the face of systemic spatial inequality.
Jhono is currently a Unit Tutor in the BSc Architecture Programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture and enrolled at the Bartlett School of Architecture as a doctoral candidate in the TACK / Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing network. His practice-led research interests are driven by issues of inclusive design approaches, spatial justice, critical positionality, and urban planning in South African cities.









Seminar 06 - 06.04.2023 - D&D KITCHEN (TBA) - RECONSTRUCTING THE INSTITUTION - IFA_DIASPORA, VOLTA, UNMASKING SPACE

An intervention
…based on observations from the first session
…created collectively
…opening up space for critical action

A hands-on cooking workshop
...to circulate information, inputs and tools from the everyday
...to build a common ground and establish a participatory relationship within different institutions
...to create a didactic input, to reflect on teaching methods and tools for knowledge building

Course material
>> Rosler, Martha. The Art of Cooking: A Dialogue between Julia Child and Craig Claiborne

>> Rosler, Martha. Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975

>> Symon, Michael. Simmel’s Gastronomic Sociology: An Overlooked Essay, in: Food and
Foodways, January 1994, p.333–351

>> Wigglesworth, Sarah and Jeremy Till. The Dining Table, in: Architectural Design, Vol.68, N.7-8, July/August 1998, p.32


Volta is a space for collective critical thinking within the academic and professional environment of architecture, born through the acknowledgment of gender disparity and persistent deficiency of female and non-binary representation among teachers and role models at the Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio.

ifa_diaspora is a student initiative, platform, and safer-space of architects, planners and urban researchers at TU Berlin’s Institute of Architecture (IfA), consisting mainly of post-migrant and PoC students. Our overarching goal is to expose structural and institutional racism in the fields of architecture and the broader built environment. Starting at the IfA, we are primarily concerned with highlighting, questioning, and actively dismantling racialized hegemony in architectural teaching. We advocate for a more critical planning environment through sustainable and multi-perspective knowledge production within the industry.







Seminar 07 - 21.04.2023 - D&D LAB (EVENING) - GTA FOYER (MORNING) - INFORMAL LEARNING - OFFICE PARTY

Office Party is an international research and design collective specializing in the production of temporary events, installations, and exhibitions. With attention to sustainable material systems and community resource-pooling, the office critically examines the role of parties and similar ephemeral spaces as the origin of complex social and material networks with urban, political, and environmental effects. Office Party further investigates the ways that parties provide insight into the development of architecture as a temporary and responsive mode of space-making through written and editorial work. The second volume of the office’s annual publication, Party Planner, is available now. Workshop directed by Chase Galis, Christina Moushoul, and Sonia Sobrino Ralston.






Seminar 08 - 27.04.2023 - DREISPITZ

Seminar 09 - 04.05.2023 - GTA FOYER - HOME MAKING - KEVIN LAI, KATHERINE WONG


Kevin Lai (HK > NL) , and Katherine Wong (HK > LDN) were born and raised in Hong Kong and completed their Bachelor’s degree in architecture together. They then went on to their own exploration in other contexts in Zurich and Tokyo. Now, they are furthering their education in the TU Delft (Netherlands) and the AA (London). Both are writing a graduation thesis that reflects upon the construct of the home through critical translations of research and design.






Seminar 10 - 11.05.2023 - HIL.E5 - MORPHOLOGY OF IDENTITIES - SEKUNDOS

A sonic walk
…of reimagining and recreating institutional spaces
…sharing sounds and thoughts on identities and differences
…exploring the impact of sound on the perception of space

Course material >> Férdia J. Stone-Davis (2015) Sense Making and Place Making Through Music, Contemporary Music Review, 34:1, 1-4, DOI: 10.1080/07494467.2015.1077561

>> Campos, Ricardo, and João Sardinha. Understanding acoustic peformativitives, youth Subjectivities and mobile identities. Transglobal Sounds : Music, Youth and Migration. Paperback edition. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2018. Print.

>> Edna Martinez, Champeta: A Colombian Caribbean Cultural Resistance, Music and the Revolution. 18-21 Paris: The Funambulist, 2021

>> Music Picnic Workshop, Parity Talk 2022


SEKUNDOS is a student initiative that aims to recognize background identities in public spaces and to upkeep differences in the DARCH ETH in the form of a musical podcast and live events. 






Seminar 11 - 18.05.2023 - IN THE CITY (TBA) - APPROPRIATE PUBLIC SPACE - MIKE ZWEIDLER, SOPHIA TRUMPP

An experiment
…on living in the city
…on the functionality of public spaces as living spaces
…reflecting on accessibility and appropriation

Course Material
>> Der Mann unter der Brücke, SRF RE Reportage

>> "La riappropriazione della città" by Ugo La Pietra

>> “Outside Again” by Adrian Heathfield, Hugo Glendinning
 
Mike Zweidler: 12 years ago I started my architectural education. 10 years later I enrolled at ETH to spice up my practical knowledge with some intellect, let's see how successful this attempt is


Sophia Trumpp studied architecture at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio and the ETH Zurich. She completed a BSc degree in Sinology at the Hamburg University in 2016 and spent many years living in Hong Kong and across China. Today she works as an architect based in Zurich and Germany.