Space and location are constantly recreating themselves, overcoming what has challenged and caused their existence in the first place. And in the spontaneous access to outside elements, just as well as the ¿obviousness¿ of expression.
The aim of the course is to study architecture and landscape in detail, to get to know places and in confrontation with other cultures design projects that are combined with on-site workshops, cooperation with other universities, getting to know regions.
Vorarlberg
Françoise-Hélène Jourda lists Vorarlberg as one of the 101 entries in her book ¿Les 101 MOTS du DEVELOPMENT DURABLE¿:
Since 1990 the small Austrian mountain region between Switzerland and Germany has produced an architecture which deals with all aspects of sustainability.
Beyond the example of an individual building, these hundreds of projects respond to the economic and ecological conditions of the region and are thus deeply anchored in a unique culture and society.
The simplicity of the architecture is obvious from the highest-quality details, in the construction and in the material used, for the most part wood, the local resource on which a large part of the population also lives.
Whether it concerns schools or social housing, one-family dwellings, trade or industrial buildings ¿ from the perspective of the architectural language all belong to one school of thought, which is fixedly inscribed in a region with an economic, social, ecological and culture-specific character.
Apart from being worthy of imitation, the exemplary projects prove that it is possible in Europe today to build with minimal access to resources and with respect for the social structure and local culture.
It is a contemporary architecture, in this truly vernacular, which should not be imitated since it is suited to the unique place that has given rise to it. It could not exist without the close cooperation between architects, carpenters, joiners, sawyers and foresters. It is a model not in its aesthetics, but in its way of thinking and its production process. The majority of the architects of this school (that of the building artists) do not build outside of the region, and only a few architects from elsewhere have built in Vorarlberg.