Christoph Gantenbein: Catalogue data in Spring Semester 2021

Name Prof. Christoph Gantenbein
FieldArchitecture and Design
Address
Professur f. Architekt. u. Entwurf
ETH Zürich, HIL H 47
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
8093 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Telephone+41 44 633 49 52
E-mailgantenbein@arch.ethz.ch
DepartmentArchitecture
RelationshipFull Professor

NumberTitleECTSHoursLecturers
052-0542-21LArchitectural Design IV: Real Architecture: Workspace (E.Christ / Ch.Gantenbein) Information
Please register (Link) only after the internal enrolment for the design classes (see Link).
Students who do not wish to change the design class don't have to participate in the internal enrolment.

Project grading at semester end is based on the list of enrolments on 2nd April 2021, 24:00 h (valuation date) only. Deleting or enrolling after the aforementioned date is prohibited!
14 credits2V + 14UE. Christ, D. Mettler, A. Spiro, T. Crowther, T. Emerson, C. Gantenbein, D. Studer
AbstractWhat will the workplace of tomorrow look like?
Designing a project in four steps:
1. Envisioning scenarios about the future of the workplace.
2. Design of a spatial system to the scenario.
3. Translating the system into an architectural structure in wood.
4. Developing of the real project.
ObjectiveDevelop an independent, responsible and visionary attitude towards a current social issue. Ability to critically read and discuss (architectural) theoretical texts and relate them to the question. Develop an independent project that is coherent in terms of urban planning, typology, form and construction in a methodically controlled process.
ContentOur studio’s second semester is the conceptual counterpart of the first semester: research and examination of history is contrasted with a real project, in the here and now where the office of the past will become the workplace of the future.

The starting point of the design is a reflection on today's working environment. How and where is work performed and with what means? Is the much-cited "home office" really a desirable alternative to the office desk? And what role does the physical space play in this choice? Which are the spatial needs when it comes to being creative and productive? Texts, lectures, seminars, and discussions will help us to develop various theses on tomorrow’s working environment. Drawing on these inputs, the students will develop scenarios for their individual project at a specific location.
The here and now involves a confrontation with the challenges of our environment and calls for action. In our case, it also means to design responsibly. Thus, working with a renewable building material is one of the many contributions in reaction to climate change. As a sustainable material, wood offers unexpected possibilities, especially for contemporary urban architecture and it will become the compulsory material in all student projects. In the course of the semester we will visit historical as well as contemporary wooden buildings, and exchange ideas with experts.
Methodologically, "Workspace" directly draws on the previous semester "The Office": the typologies and principles studied during the first semester are further developed in the second semester’s project and linked to the specific aspects of scenario and location. The broad idea of an architectural form and type thus gets a concrete and specific formulation. And there, in its real application in a definite case, the architectural form also acquires its social, economic and ultimately political relevance. When ideal becomes real.
LiteratureBook recommendation BUK I - IV: "Construction";
A reference work on contemporary construction
German or English
360 pages, 171 images, 20 color images, texts
ISBN 978-3-0356-2225-6
Online reference source: https://www.hochparterre-buecher.ch/ Konstruktions.html
052-0544-21LArchitectural Design IV: What's in Store? (T.Emerson) Information
Please register (Link) only after the internal enrolment for the design classes (see Link).
Students who do not wish to change the design class don't have to parcitipate in the internal enrolment.

Project grading at semester end is based on the list of enrolments on 2nd April 2021, 24:00 h (valuation date) only. Deleting or enrolling after the aforementioned date is prohibited!
14 credits2V + 14UT. Emerson, D. Mettler, A. Spiro, E. Christ, T. Crowther, C. Gantenbein, D. Studer
AbstractThe provocation that ‘shopping is over’ which opened last semester HS20 has turned out be truer than imagined. Department stores are falling around the world. We will consider a future for the legendary Zurich department store Jelmoli. Not because it is failing, but because of its continued success.
ObjectiveCritical thinking, personal attitude:
-Demonstrate, through design work, a critical understanding of climate change and the ethical responsibilities of the architect
-Reflect on pieces of work in progress or already completed both individually and in conversation with peers and faculty
-Demonstrate, through design work, a growing knowledge of contemporary and historical architectural discourse
-Critically interpret requirements and working priorities in light of constraints to work practice arising from Covid and home working. Communicate with teaching team if difficulties arise.

Working methodology:
-Conduct qualitative site/building analysis through photography and observational drawing
-Perform basic topographic surveying
-Use archives to conduct systematic analysis into social history, uses, materials, etc.
-Interpret and synthesize information into a concise and ongoing knowledge base for the design of a project
-Develop an understanding of the geology, climate, ecology, etc. of a place
-Assimilate small, fragmentary observations into broad understanding of place

Acquisition of subject-specific knowledge:
-Consider and understand the relationship and impact of a design on a wider landscape
-Understand the impacts of construction on ecology
-Demonstrate an understanding of the impacts of time on the repair and maintenance of a project
-Demonstrate an understanding of contemporary and historical construction techniques
-Demonstrate a critical understanding of the use of materials in relation to non-renewable resources, embodied energy, recyclability

Conversion of a conceptual intention into an architectural project:
-Develop an integrated and relevant structural, constructional and environmental concept for the project
-Formulate a spatial concept for a project, demonstrating an understanding of conceptual, spatial and programmatic decisions
-Design with reference to historical, political, cultural and other creative and technical fields
-Demonstrate an ability to assimilate a broad range of working practices, identifying and engaging especially with those which help to demonstrate and further your ideas

Capability to design:
-Demonstrate an ability to design interior and exterior spaces, as well as the thresholds and the surrounding spaces
-Demonstrate awareness of a design project’s environmental performance in construction and in use
-Demonstrate a good understanding of professional regulation and ethical responsibilities of the architect
-Design buildings, spaces and landscapes which are fully accessible

Representation and presentation in different media:
-Develop a critical eye in photography of place, space and design work with reference to broad photographic traditions
-Develop model making skills of small conceptual models (carved and cast for the Atlas and design working models made of everyday household materials with precise conceptual purpose
-Demonstrate high technical and critical proficiency in 2D and 3D CAD drafting and modelling
-Develop an understanding of the status and purpose of different kinds of representation, and deploy them effectively
-Use detailed drawings and models to illustrate the constructional concept of a project
-Demonstrate high technical and critical proficiency in image making and collage
- Clearly and concisely describe a concept, working practice, and outcome through written and oral material in English or German.
-Explore use of film and short film clips to present three-dimensional work. Note, advanced editing skills is not required.

Engagement in the studio:
-Actively participate in group projects such as the garden
-Actively listen to others
-Be able to learn alone, as part of a group and as a whole studio
-Demonstrate an ability to work comfortably with ambiguity as circumstances change
-At all times demonstrate honesty, integrity and respect for fellow students, teachers and staff.
ContentWhen an ancient tree falls in a closed canopy forest, far from being the end of life, light enters the dark space, “mixing new nutrients into the soil from debris, and initiating a race for succession.” [1] The old tree simply and naturally makes space for the new. This universal cycle, which is as much spatial as it is biological, may explain at least in part, the fascination for ruins in the modern era. In the nineteenth century Romantic imagination, the ruin showed architecture at its most pure, freed from the burdens of complex function, at one with nature. But today such processes may be more than nostalgia, they may just be the beginning of another age.

The provocation that ‘shopping is over’ which opened last semester HS20 has turned out be truer than imagined. Department stores are falling around the world. We will consider a future for the legendary Zurich department store Jelmoli. Not because it is failing, but because of its continued success. Jelmoli’s evolution has not only witnessed the emergence of metropolitan Zurich, it has participated and even anticipated many of the urban and social transformations which are once again pressing in our own time.

The future department store lies within the existing walls if only it were allowed to diversify naturally. We need to shift our attention towards what already exists, to be attentive to architecture, materials and techniques which have given us the spaces of everyday life. Today’s new reality requires us to look more closely, to document, to excavate, to release new spaces in existing fabric and breathe new life into the city. Each stone block, steel column, sheet of glass, plasterboard partition has been placed in space according to the rules and needs of its time. The architecture, reimagined as an Atlas which can be edited, cut, thinned, renewed with the precision of the architect and the care of a gardener.

The porosity of the city is central to its ecological recovery. New species of plants, insects and mammals are rediscovering habitats in the unseen corners of the city. Perhaps now is the moment to welcome them into the heart of things by looking at urban development in reverse. But not a return towards origins per se, but to acknowledge that the world is cyclical and after the growth comes decay followed by recycling in order to grow back stronger, more diverse and resilient.

But as much as this question may be about the future of cities and the culture of retail, we shall approach the project by direct means of architecture. We shall initiate a series of simple constructional operations on the site of Jelmoli at Seidenhof; the first is to record what is there through the act of surveying; measuring, photographing and drawing what we see. The second will be to excavate material from the sealed city fabric (like the ancient tree falling in the forest) to create or recreate new spaces for new ecologies. And the final stage will be to re-inhabit the excavated city to propose the future of retail that contributes to the human and non-human ecologies of the city.

We shall initiate a series of simple constructional operations on the site of Jelmoli at Seidenhof; the first is to record what is there through the act of surveying; measuring, photographing and drawing what we see. The second will be to excavate material from the sealed city fabric (like the ancient tree falling in the forest) to create or recreate new spaces for new ecologies. And the final stage will be to re-inhabit the excavated city to propose the future of retail that contributes to the human and non-human ecologies of the city.

[1] S Denizen, The Flora of Bombed Areas (an allegorical key), The Botanical City, M Gandy and S Jasper (eds), Jovis, 2020, pp 40.
Lecture notesAtlas
The act of surveying will be expanded by what cannot be seen but can be deduced from archives documents and social histories. And what is neither visible in the place or contained in records can be induced by speculation into and beyond the walls of Jelmoli. The materials extractions and transformations that constitute the built and the supply chains interacting with social habits to constitute its uses. And finally, the traces that bear witness to the passage of time.

Excavation
With the Atlas, we shall ask you to excavate the built fabric of Seidenhof; to introduce spaces for an enlarged and more diverse environment. By stripping away layers of construction or cutting segments, we will ask you to open the city block for re-inhabitation. The new spaces may be invented from within the city block or simply rediscovered from its evolution. Their potential lies in how they will extend the range of environments for human and non-human users and in the re-use of the materials produced in the process.

Inhabitation
With the Seidenhof opened for earth, light water and air to play their natural role, you will design the next layer of re-inhabitation by Jelmoli. How can the future department store be model for a botanical city? How can the interaction of environments respond to the social, ecological and commercial needs of the city? And most importantly, what how will architecture and construction find the form and expression that connects the past with most pressing issues of tomorrow?
LiteratureEssential Texts

Ms. Consumer. The making of public space.
Chuihua Judy Chung. 2000
in: Harvard Design Guide to Shopping. p. 504-525

The science of the concrete.
Claude Levi Strauss. 1962
Chapter one in: The savage Mind.

The Ruin
Mark Pimlott. 2016
in: The Public Interior as Idea and Project.

Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary
Eva Horn. 2016

Dasgupta Review: Nature’s value must be at the heart of economics.
Fred Lewsey. University of Cambridge. 2021



Extended Reading

Garden as Theater as Museum
Dan Graham. 1993
in: Rock my Religion

Congestion Without Matter. Parc de la Villette. Paris. France. Competition 1982
OMA. Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau. 1995
in: SMLXL

Collision City and the Politics of ‘Bricolage’
Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter. 1978
in: Collage City



Book recommendation BUK I - IV: "Construction";
A reference work on contemporary construction
German or English
360 pages, 171 images, 20 color images, texts
ISBN 978-3-0356-2225-6
Online reference source: https://www.hochparterre-buecher.ch/ Konstruktions.html
052-0546-21LArchitectural Design IV: "Small Pleasures of Life" (A.Spiro) Information
Please register (Link) only after the internal enrolment for the design classes (see Link).
Students who do not wish to change the design class don't have to participate in the internal enrolment.

Project grading at semester end is based on the list of enrolments on 2nd April 2021, 24:00 h (valuation date) only. Deleting or enrolling after the aforementioned date is prohibited!
14 credits2V + 14UD. Mettler, A. Spiro, E. Christ, T. Crowther, T. Emerson, C. Gantenbein, D. Studer
AbstractWe design residential buildings in the urban context of the city of Zurich. From a selection of construction sites, you determine the best suited for your project and develop a specific form of living right down to the materialization in detail. Inspirational buildings, whose architectural elements and spatial situations are the inspiration for your living ideas, serve as the starting point.
Objective- Design of an urban residential building with a specific form of living that relates to the context
- Getting to know standards and typologies in residential construction
- Anchoring the project in urban space through intensive analysis of the access from the street to the apartment, development of your own access idea including the entrance situation
- Taking a stance on the ground floor in the city dwelling
- Understanding of the relationship between space, structure, construction and detail
- Development of a spatial and atmospheric quality based on the approximation via component references and their materialization
- Development of personal components in the interior and on the facade on a scale of 1:10
- High quality representation in collage, line (floor plan 1: 100, floor plan 1:50, detailed drawing) and model (interior model 1:20)
ContentSmall Pleasures of Life is the name of a series of sketches by Alison and Peter Smithson. The episodic drawings of everyday living situations illuminate functional issues, but at the same time stimulate the senses and leave room for the imagination to visualize the in between ’.

In the spring semester we deal with the topic of living. The architect's ultimate task is simple and difficult at the same time, it requires precision, hard work and imagination. Providing people with a home is perhaps the oldest, but certainly the most elementary task of architecture. The basic needs - protection and comfort - have changed little over time, but the way we live together has changed. In the past year in particular, the living range has acquired an additional function: In addition to living, space should now also be created to work. This new coexistence will also occupy us in the coming semester.

In the spirit of Smithson's ‘Small Pleasures of Life’, we first examine the elementary situations of living and ask ourselves: What does it take for an everyday living situation to become a spatial experience? What makes an apartment so unique that I don't want to exchange it for a bigger one despite the limited space? Can I set up a nice workspace without needing another room?
First you ‘reconstruct’ the floor plan and section based on pictures of selected interiors of existing houses and invent something new. By closely observing reference buildings and reading excerpts from the text, you will acquire a wealth of knowledge about the most diverse elements of a living situation - from the kitchen to the stairs to storage space. Building on this, you develop your own living idea and design an "ideal" apartment floor plan in which the situations studied at the beginning play a key role. Only now do you come to the construction site, locate your ’ideal’ apartment in the urban space and adapt it to the circumstances of the specific situation.

We have selected four attractive building sites with different characteristics in the city of Zurich. We design new buildings on parcels that are under-used and whose urban conditions are already heavily influenced by the neighboring buildings. The challenge of increased density requires ingenuity and experimentation. With spatially surprising solutions, we want to prove that architectural wealth can make you forget confined spaces. Because compaction through more building mass alone does not make sense. Rather, by densification we mean a larger number of residents and a more diverse range of options on the same area. Only in this way is densification sustainable and contributes to the revitalization of the quarter.

[...] For example, the architect's task is to create a warm, comfortable space. Carpets are warm and cozy. So he decides to spread a carpet on the floor and hang up four to form the four walls. But you can't build a house out of carpets. Both the carpet and the tapestry require a structural framework that keeps them in the right position. Inventing this framework is the architect's second task. [...] writes Adolf Loos in, “The Principle of Clothing”, 1898. In a recently published article, the architecture critic Sabine von Fischer also refers to textiles and demands of the apartment 'The cut of an apartment must fit as well as a dress; cuddly for comfort and with scope for movement ’.
The character and shape of your floor plan lead to the choice of a suitable supporting structure and materials. The inherent conditions of the chosen construction method and the associated material as well as the parameters of the location form the framework for your design of a contemporary urban apartment.
Lecture notesDigital course material is provided by the chair.
LiteratureBook recommendation BUK I - IV: "Construction";
A reference work on contemporary construction
German or English
360 pages, 171 images, 20 color images, texts
ISBN 978-3-0356-2225-6
Online reference source: https://www.hochparterre-buecher.ch/ Konstruktions.html
Prerequisites / NoticeHead: Prof. Annette Spiro
Senior assistant: Florian Schrott
Assistants: Rosário Gonçalves, Nicole Leuthold, Tobia Rapelli, Luis Sarabia

Common welcome to the 2nd annual course: Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021, 10 a.m. on Zoom (Link see Info Office and the chair's website)
Introduction: Tuesday, 02/23/2021, 10.30 a.m. on Zoom, https://ethz.zoom.us/j/93658020622

work in groups
With a few exceptions, the design semester is completed in pairs.

Tool
The hypothetical ‘reconstruction drawing’ and the measurements are just as much design and work equipment as the collage and the furnishing plan. In addition to drawing plans, we mainly work with physical models and photography. In a full-day workshop at the beginning of the semester, a proven model photographer and architect introduces the secrets of model photography. Further topics are structure, construction and material. According to the chosen construction method, you also design a constructive detail.

The semester is accompanied by inputs on the individual tools and on the subject of housing construction. Invited architects complete the program with guest lectures.