AIMS OF THE COURSE

This International course provides opportunities for students to be immersed in international settings through collaborative projects, site visits, and study tours. The aim is to provide students with the opportunity to experience other cultural and educational settings in order to develop their own understanding of the global educational and professional context.

This course will provide students with relevant frameworks for investigating familiar typologies within a non-familiar cultural and social context. Student will engage with other professional settings and gain insights into international design, construction and planning practice.

This course, as an masters design studio, aims at a creative synthesis of knowledge from an interdisciplinary base; engages with complex issues of the built environment in an international setting; involves the interaction with students, academic staff and invited guests from another culture; and requires advanced study on an individual and group basis. This course provides the opportunity to develop these attributes, and meet the obligations of a TU Wien-educated member of the global community.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Work in teams and engage in the study of urban issues that concern multiple disciplines and work creatively within and across disciplines, with each student learning from the insights of other students.
• Apply cross-disciplinary studies and cross-cultural studies to their understanding of built fabric and design
• Utilize research and an analysis of diverse sources in an ‘imaginative’, ‘creative’ and ‘operative’ manner, interpreting these through two and three dimensional graphic representation
• Operate and relate to international and global professional agendas
• Clearly articulate and clearly define a strategic and rigorous design position from its conceptual stage to a developed design proposal based on an in-depth appreciation of design principles of the selected typology

In their final submission students will consider diverse aspects of Vienna’s public housing programs

that include:

• Design: Social and affordable housing in Vienna has a long tradition of high quality design and innovation. The city of Vienna has permanent renewal programs that include design ‘infills’, upgrade of existing and historic housing stock, and new developments. 
• Social justice: The majority of the Viennese population lives in municipal or subsidized housing, resulting in a diversity of inhabitants and the reduction of social stigma attached to public housing.
• Construction became a collective endeavour, leading to innovative and highly cost-efficient design solutions involving mechanisation of the building process, pre-fabrication, and substitution of traditional building materials.
• Contract administration: The City of Vienna organizes special "developers' contests" to improve planning and ecological qualities, and provides individual allowances to low-income households.
• Economy of social housing that negotiates private and public aspects of housing market. Vienna’s housing stock is city-owned or subsidized, and private landlords compete with social housing for the same tenants and are for that reason reluctant to inflate rents.

TEACHING STRATEGIES AND RATIONALE

The course comprises a series of weekly seminars, visits of key housing projects in Vienna; and intensive collaborative efforts with the SDF and city of Seoul. Daily activities in Vienna include: site visits to key housing projects, lectures from TU Wien and invited guests, weekly meetings with staff, and feedback on progress. The students will participate in a two-day intensive workshop with TU Wien students and staff.

Students will engage in research of housing of Vienna through a textual analysis of recommended texts. The site visits will help students negotiate different modes of representation and relate historic context to contemporary urban conditions of Vienna. The visual diaries will include diagrams and drawings of selected projects that, in turn, will be interpreted on site in Seoul.

While on sites in Vienna the students are expected to strictly adhere to travel agenda and conduct themselves in the most professional and ethical manner. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon the completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Analyse the historical, cultural and social phenomena that influence the design of housing projects
2. Describe the importance of diverse social and political contexts to the design agenda and city planning
3. Analyse the relationships between social, economic, construction, and design agendas with an international context 
4. Demonstrate analytical skills to interpret complex urban context and the importance of the specific typology [housing] to the broader urban context 
5. Apply advanced skills in methods of visualisation, representation and specialisation of research findings.

ASSESSMENT

All learning outcomes must be achieved to obtain a pass in this course.

Key assessment criteria relate to students ability to:

1. Interpret complex urban networks
2. Relate the diverse social and political contexts to the design agenda and city planning
3. Demonstrate analytical skills in interpreting complex urban context and the importance of the specific typology [housing] to the broader urban context 
4. Relate historic information to contemporary condition (visual and contextual)
5. Record, analyse and synthesis the relationships between urban typologies and city fabric (social and physical)
6. Present research data and analysis; and
7. Demonstrate skills and knowledge in visualisation, representation and spatialisation of research findings.

ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT

• Byonghun Lee, YEAA Forum, Vienna

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

NOTE the weekly schedule will be announced before the start of summer semester in October3 2017.

COURSE OUTLINE

The LANDSCRIPTS OF VIENNA AND SEOUL course is offered to a maximum number of 30 students currently enrolled in Master of Architecture and Planning. An intensive study of the urban typology of housing will be undertaken at the Technical University of Vienna between March and August 2016.

During this period, SDF and TU students will collaborate with Guest Professor Seung H-Sang (SDF), Mladen Jadric (TU) and various experts and practitioners. Results of the course should be presented in Seoul like Korean-Austrian contribution to the BIENALLE SEOUL 2017 (September-November 2017).

SUMMARY OF PROPOSAL

Affordable housing is a basic requirement and an essential ingredient of a just, inclusive and sustainable city. With the low housing affordability in Seoul it is of paramount importance that the students of architecture, interior architecture, construction, planning and landscape architecture are introduced to models of affordable housing that are accessible to the majority of the city’s population. The

course takes the students to the city of Vienna where more than 60% of the city’s population lives in some form of subsidized apartments. The Viennese model of affordable housing is built on a diverse definition of social and affordable housing that includes city-owned flats and limited profit housing co-operatives. The City of Vienna organizes special "developers' contests" that promote a developer – architect alliance and encourage innovative engagements between construction, design, and planning professions.

Today, the City Department for Housing and Urban Renewal of Vienna is responsible for the subsidisation of several thousand new apartments each year; administration of more than 220,000 city-owned flats (Wiener Wohnen) and Europe's largest housing renewal program (wohnfonds_wien - Fund for Housing Construction and Urban Renewal). Vienna’s housing model represents a successful integration of design, ecology, economy and social sustainability.  Major architects, past and present, have been involved in the design of this social housing built to encourage interaction among social classes, and promote innovation and high-quality design.

The studio is based on three steps:

• introduction of the principles of social housing - the tradition that in the city of Vienna has been considered a public task of major social importance.
• introduction of common situation in Seoul: the growing privatization of residential buildings, the increasing consolidation of South Korean cities, and problems arising from the war-induced migrations of displaced persons and migrant residents, are just some developmental parallels between the European and Korean cities. The new generation of urban residents apparently wants the two cities to live differently, forcing architects, city planners and city administrations to deal with alternative models of housing and urban life in a political and creative way.
• In this course, we want to find, explore and implement new ideas and models for the city of Seoul who should be innovative, interesting and acceptable like alternative model for the current situation. 

JUSTIFICATION FOR PROPOSAL

This course provides an opportunity for students to explore this urban typology within the international contexts of Vienna and Seoul.  The course supports multidisciplinary learning practice across postgraduate and undergraduate levels. The course offers to further develop and extend the core courses for the Master of Architecture specialisations of housing and social agency. 

JUSTIFICATION FOR PROGRAM

The theme of the programs addresses significant aspects and contributions in the following ways:

• Establishes connections between SDF and experts of the city of Seoul and TU Wien.
• Promotes interdisciplinary learning and multidisciplinary approach to study and practice abroad.
• Provides opportunities for a significant collaboration between Seoul and Vienna.