Hubert Klumpner: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2024 |
| Name | Prof. Hubert Klumpner |
| Field | Architecture and Urban Design |
| Address | Professur Architekt. u. Städtebau ETH Zürich, ONA J 14 Neunbrunnenstr. 50 8093 Zürich SWITZERLAND |
| Telephone | +41 44 633 90 78 |
| Fax | +41 44 633 11 83 |
| klumpner@arch.ethz.ch | |
| Department | Architecture |
| Relationship | Full Professor |
| Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 052-0707-00L | Urban Design III  | 2 credits | 2V | H. Klumpner, F. T. Salva Rocha Franco | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Students are introduced to a narrative of 'Urban Stories' through a series of three tools driven by social, governance, and environmental transformations in today's urbanization processes. Each lecture explores one city's spatial and organizational ingenuity born out of a particular place's realities, allowing students to transfer these inventions into a catalog of conceptual tools. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | How can students of architecture become active agents of change? What does it take to go beyond a building's scale, making design-relevant decisions to the city rather than a single client? How can we design in cities with a lack of land, tax base, risk, and resilience, understanding that Zurich is the exception and these other cities are the rule? How can we discover, set rather than follow trends and understand existing urban phenomena activating them in a design process? The lecture series produces a growing catalog of operational urban tools across the globe, considering Governance, Social, and Environmental realities. Instead of limited binary comparing of cities, we are building a catalog of change, analyzing what design solutions cities have been developing informally incrementally over time, why, and how. We look at the people, institutions, culture behind the design and make concepts behind these tools visible. Students get first-hand information from cities where the chair as a Team has researched, worked, or constructed projects over the last year, allowing competent, practical insight about the people and topics that make these places unique. Students will be able to use and expand an alternative repertoire of experiences and evidence-based design tools, go to the conceptual core of them, and understand how and to what extent they can be relevant in other places. Urban Stories is the basic practice of architecture and urban design. It introduces a repertoire of urban design instruments to the students to use, test, and start their designs. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Urban form cannot be reduced to physical space. Cities result from social construction, under the influence of technologies, ecology, culture, the impact of experts, and accidents. Urban un-concluded processes respond to political interests, economic pressure, cultural inclinations, along with the imagination of architects and urbanists and the informal powers at work in complex adaptive systems. Current urban phenomena are the result of urban evolution. The facts stored in urban environments include contributions from its entire lifecycle, visible in the physical environment, and non-physical aspects. This imaginary city exists along with its potentials and problems and with the conflicts that have evolved. Knowledge and understanding, along with a critical observation of the actions and policies, are necessary to understand the diversity and instability present in the contemporary city and understand how urban form evolved to its current state. How did cities develop into the cities we live in now? Urban plans, instruments, visions, political decisions, economic reasonings, cultural inputs, and social organization have been used to operate in urban settlements in specific moments of change. We have chosen cities that exemplify how these instruments have been implemented and how they have shaped urban environments. We transcribe these instruments into urban operational tools that we have recognized and collected within existing tested cases in contemporary cities across the globe. This lecture series will introduce urban knowledge and the way it has introduced urban models and operational modes within different concrete realities, therefore shaping cities. The lecture series translates urban knowledge into operational tools, extracted from cities where they have been tested and become exemplary samples, most relevant for understanding how the urban landscape has taken shape. The tools are clustered in twelve thematic clusters and three tool scales for better comparability and cross-reflection. The Tool case studies are compiled into a global urbanization toolbox, which we use as typological models to read the city and critically reflect upon it. The presented contents are meant to serve as inspiration for positioning in future professional life and provide instruments for future design decisions. In an interview with a local designer, we measure our insights against the most pressing design topics in cities today, including inclusion, affordable housing, provision of public spaces, and infrastructure for all. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | The learning material, available via https://moodle-app2.let.ethz.ch/ is comprised of the following: - Toolbox 'Reader' with an introduction to the lecture course and tool summaries - Weekly exercise tasks - Infographics with basic information about each city - Quiz question for each tool - Additional reading material - Interviews with experts - Archive of lecture recordings Structure and Grading: - 70% Exam - 20% Exercise (one group workshop per semester) - 10% Participation (drawing exercises) For one-semester students, only a Research will be required. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | - Reading material will be provided throughout the semester. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 052-0725-24L | ACTION! On the Filmed City: Video Games | 2 credits | 2U | H. Klumpner, C. E. Papanicolaou | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | In the 1970s and 80s, rudimentary video games emerged as entertainment for the middle classes. 40 years later and more ubiquitous than ever before, they are now more than that: an alternative mode of experiencing reality. We will explore various experiments between video gaming, architecture, and audiovisual storytelling to understand how virtual 'gaming' can articulate reality in novel ways. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Through a combination of practical exercises in video and audio techniques in parallel with the study of seminal observation-driven texts, this course aims to equip students with the basic tools and core principles to create short but complex experiments reflecting on urban space. This semester, the focus falls on the topic of video games, asking students to think about how filmmaking and digital animation skills may be used to tap into the multi-faceted possibilities presented by contemporary video gaming. Using widely available recording tools and editing software, students will turn their fieldwork into short video or audio works of about 3-5 minutes. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Through lectures, practical crash courses in media use and storytelling, and fieldwork sessions, we will conduct experiments in new forms of 'video gaming'. The course will be a laboratory in the creation of short media works that aim to inform the architectural design process, working between the city and the studio in ONA. Students will be expected to complete all required work within the hours that the elective meets, with few requirements outside of the class hours. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | Seminal texts include: - ‘Mirror Images: Cinematic and Sensory Ethnography for Landscape and Urban Studies (Papanicolaou) - ‘Cross-Cultural Filmmaking’ (Barbash, Castaing-Taylor) - ‘Acoustic Territories’ (LaBelle) - ‘Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level’ (Davidson) - ‘The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games’ (Aroni) - ‘Documentary's Expanded Fields: New Media and the Twenty-first-century Documentary’ (Kim) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 052-1139-24L | MediTirana, Designing Circular Markets  Please register (www.mystudies.ethz.ch) only after the internal enrolment for the design classes (see http://www.einschreibung.arch.ethz.ch/design.php). Project grading at semester end is based on the list of enrolments on 30.10.2024 (valuation date) only. This is the ultimate deadline to unsubscribe or enroll for the studio. | 14 credits | 16U | H. Klumpner | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | What is the image of one of Europe’s fastest growing cities? How can we design for the benefit of the local population? Where can we build public space and program for inclusion? Students will design urban scenarios, developing them into architectural prototypes of a public market while promoting equality, improving infrastructure access and alternative opportunities for locals and migrants. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | While cities contribute to the highest CO2 footprints, they also hold the potential to most effectively bend the carbon curve and take Climate Action in achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Moving towards decarbonized ways of living and `Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe and resilient (SDG 11) will require behavioral and systems change in all sectors of life. Access to quality education (SDG 4), co-creating evolving frameworks for life-long learning, building capacity for transformative processes, strengthening and building new circular economies, making use of digital and analog tools, as well as how easy it is to access services in the city, are the foundation to design and maintain sustainable urban futures. In alignment with these principles, the central thesis of this Design Studio focuses on the conceptualization and design of innovative architectural and urban prototypes, precisely market spaces. These designs aim to address and respond to the complex challenges posed by migration, tourism, urban densification, the circular economy, social sustainability, and the re-naturalization of urban landscapes. Through this approach, the Design Studio seeks to create solutions that meet immediate needs while contributing to the long-term resilience and vitality of urban environments. Students are introduced to tools and immersed in our Chair’s “method-design” to develop their prototypical design projects by: 1.) Base-Line: We design in a continuum of architectural, urban, and planning scales to collaboratively develop a basis for how the city is now. 2.) Mapping: By identifying existing and future challenges and opportunities, we take the role of stakeholders and visualize our demands and resources into three different scenarios. 3.) Concept Design: We develop an urbanistic synthesis and translate a concept into an evidence-based prototypical architectural project- intervention. 4.) Prototype Design: We present the synthesis of our process in time and space on different scales. We frame the design projects as a narrative, consequentially developed and communicated in analog and digital graphic representations. 5.) Upscaling: We test our project concepts and upscale prototypes through design-policy recommendations to make them transferable in Tirana and other cities. The design studio focuses on the transformative redevelopment of the city on three scales: A_ General Urban Plan (GUP) Scale: 1:10.000 / Tirana as a whole territory Mobility systems, energy, urban expansion, water protection, geothermic, ecology B_Regulatory Plan (RP) Scale: 1:1000 C_Architectural Prototype (AP) Scale: 1:500, 1:200 / Project site | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | In 2025, Tirana, Albania, is selected as the Capital City of the Mediterranean. What sets Tirana apart from cities like Athens, Barcelona, Casablanca, Istanbul, or Tel Aviv? Tirana is undergoing a radical transformation, emerging as one of the top three fastest-growing European cities, driven in part by a controversial agreement to accommodate up to 100,000 migrants for asylum processing. Today, Tirana is a dynamic urbanization laboratory, experiencing developer-driven growth in the center and a surge in unplanned settlements on the periphery. As an integral component, students will develop projects exploring how public market architecture and circular urban design qualities can stop the drift, leading to greater equality and infrastructure access. As Tirana experiences significant growth and transformation, the maintenance of its natural resources—such as soil, water, and air—becomes increasingly crucial. Abundance does not equate to unlimited use; over-exploitation of these resources could undermine the city's long-term resilience and prosperity. Therefore, sustainable management practices must be prioritized to ensure these resources continue to support both current and future generations. With this in mind, students will develop a prototype project to capture the universal experience and atmosphere of a public market and common spaces with open transaction programs that reconnect the city with the waterfront. This project seeks to reflect the Southern lifestyle, overcome the communist heritage, and capitalize on opportunities. Developing these markets leverages undeveloped coastlines and water edges, pristine bio-agricultural soils, natural unobstructed river flows, and a blend of natural and artificial lakes and even retention basins. Tirana stands as an unprecedented resource and a laboratory for site-specific architecture and circular urban models. The city offers an unparalleled testing ground for developing sub-centers and market areas, interconnected by infrastructure, to provide structure and perspective to urban development. This initiative, marking a significant departure from the city's communist past, is closely linked to the waterfront of Tirana's sea, rivers, and lakes, offering a solid image and program for the future. We have identified the design and construction of sub-centers, both through new developments and the enhancement of existing areas, as a strategic program to offer integrated spaces that combine markets and public services. These sub-centers, interconnected by comprehensive infrastructure—including transportation, digital networks, and access to essential services such as education and healthcare—are envisioned to provide a new organizational structure and perspective for the people of Tirana. This approach not only aims to foster a renewed sense of identity and community but also prepares the city to accommodate future migrants and tourists by creating common spaces that enhance the city’s sustainable circular development. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | The driver for change in the Western Balkans is architecture. We see this happening in cities like Tirana, Priština, Sarajevo and Belgrade. Architecture is at the forefront of making transformations visible in preparation for EU membership. The next generation of designers is providing places of development, safety, and quality of life, which are essential for city governments. Architecture and Urban Design are translating these opportunities, entrepreneurship, and technologies into these cities. Changing the landscape and regenerating open neighborhoods is full of opportunities, architectural and natural beauty. Tirana is a place of architecture, resistance, social engagement, innovation, inclusive cultural and religious diversity, and being an urban laboratory. Education is the foundation for creating sustainable development models, like the emerging Market as a cultural medium, which are the Studio’s grounds for imagining new relationships between the undeveloped waterfronts and unspoiled bio-agricultural soils with rich natural river flows. From our Urban Stories lecture series, we have developed an urban toolbox that translates urban knowledge of internationally recognized development examples into strategic tools. We reference permanent and temporary strategies such as the destruction and re-construction of Berlin, Informal settlement upgrading in Capetown, Chengyecheon River Park, Seoul, Isarpark, Schlachthof / Munich, Corredores Verdes / Medellin or Cali, communal target-plan Zurich, closed highways in Sao Paulo or Bogota, etc. These spatial processes follow a widely known practice of consolidating a sequence of transformations and short-term strategies for long-term value production. Urban- and Landscape Design can create a measurable impact in cities by increasing social justice, health, and well-being. The development of robust frameworks adaptable to change enables processes for regeneration with long-term operational, environmental, and social benefits in response to global, local, and site-specific challenges. The role of architects is to imagine and model sustainable urban scenarios, recognizing new possibilities, and to create multidimensional transformative design strategies with long-term benefits for people and cities. Method-design We systematically engage students in the semester research topic, to unlock their potential and skills towards developing prototypical design resolution on an urban and architectural scale. Identifying, understanding and developing local stakeholder networks, so as to translate challenges into opportunities and negotiate diverse interests into strategic ideas for development, geo-references, inter-linked systems, diagrams and maps.We develop design concepts for urban prototypes on different scales, framed by a narrative of a process that is consequentially visualized and communicated in analog as well as digital tools. - Investigative Analysis/ Local Perspective: We register the existing; prioritizing challenges and opportunities through qualitative and quantitative information; mapping on different design scales and periods of time; configuring stakeholder groups; connecting top-down and bottom-up initiatives; idea mapping and concept mapping; designing of citizen scenarios. - Project Design: Synthesizing between different scenarios and the definition of a thesis and program between beneficiaries and stakeholders; we project process presentation as a narrative embedded in multiple steps; describing an urban and architectural typology and prototypes; defining an urban paradigm. - Domain Shift: We shift and translate different domains; testing and evaluating the design in feedback loops; and include projects into the Urban Toolbox. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | Design Studio Reader, includes research material and reading references /case studies is provided. Access to the Chair`s student server will be given upon final registration. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | Team: Prof. Hubert Klumpner Diogo Figueiredo Melika Konjičanin Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero Dr. Michael Walczak In collaboration with: Faculty of Architecture and Design Barleti University,Tirana Assoc. Prof. Dr. Saimir Kristo Assoc. Prof. Dr. Etleva Dobjani Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vera Bushati PhD. Saimir Shtylla PhD. Gerdi Papa Swiss State Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO Bern/Tirana Workshops offered: Introduction to graphic and digital tools: Illustrator: Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero 3D Modelling: Dr. Michael Walzak GIS DATA and Q-GIS: Dr. Marco Pagani Graphic Design | Integral Designers: Ruedi and Vera Baur Recommended Elective Course: ‘ACTION! On the filmed city: Video Games’ is offered to complete the skillset of the studio, teaching in 3D modelling, filmmaking, and animating / Klearjos Papanicolaou and Dr. Michael Walczak Organization: Architectural Design V-IX | ECTS Credits – 14 Integrated Discipline Planning | ECTS Credits – 3 Work: Group work during research / Individual project design Language: German, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Bosnian Location: ONA, E25 Participants: max. 24 students All inquiries can be directed to Diogo Figueiredo: figueiredo@arch.ethz.ch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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