Form, construction, void and porosity

Exhibition from 09.04. to 17.04.2025

Models and sketches from the 3rd semester of the bachelor's degree in architecture under the direction of visiting professor Michael Wallraff

Exhibition opening on 08.04.2025

© Michael Wallraff

In these exercises, students were encouraged to think speculatively and present these thoughts in imaginable spaces. The tools used were experiments, drawings, and models.

The working method was intended to be both methodical and intuitive. The students developed spatial strategies, which they were also allowed to abandon and break through. It was a kind of “para scientific” approach, emphatically subjective, but by no means arbitrary, and in any case extremely speculative.

Drawings and models by the students

© Michael Wallraff

New, unexpected configurations emerged during the implementation in models, which were included in the thought possibilities, evaluated and sometimes pursued against all logic and against better knowledge. This gave rise to unexpected ideas and concepts for the next steps.

The aim of this semester was not to achieve a specific, predetermined result, but to explore the design process. This process was documented step by step.

The exercises were divided into two consecutive tasks:

1. Metamorphosis of a box

Models of one or two 8 x 8 x 35 cm boxes in a stable state or unstable equilibrium. Investigation of the spatial relationship to each other and to the ground. Deformation of these boxes through a spatial strategy with light and shadow and sculptural interpretation of their own and impact shadows.

2. Inside out

Plaster casts of spaces between a cube-shaped formwork and implemented spatial fragments. Exploration of space-forming conditions, interstitial spaces, spatial bridging, and negative spaces.

Drawings and models by the students

© Michael Wallraff

In both tasks, the students learned to plan experimental design processes over several work steps, to think methodically and spatially and to evaluate the results of initially open processes.