After successful completion of the course, students are able to understand the concept of scientific work. They will be able to write an independent seminar paper on a defined topic according to scientific criteria. This includes the critical examination of planning and building culture in housing and the importance of social innovation. Students are able to grasp a topic, research and conduct interviews as well as structure and evaluate material. They are able to structure a seminar paper, to articulate themselves scientifically, to reference sources scientifically and to communicate results textually / visually.
The elective seminar on housing offers an intensive scientific examination of social innovations in housing. In the context of social, ecological, economic and technological change, social innovations also determine whether the sustainability transformation also increases participation opportunities and quality of life for broad groups of the population.
The Vienna International Building Exhibition IBA_Vienna 2022 New Social Housing had the mission to promote social innovation and sustainable transformation, focusing on three formulated guiding themes: New Social Neighborhoods, New Social Responsibility, and New Social Qualities. For seven years, IBA_Vienna developed approaches to the challenges and proposed solutions and supported innovative housing projects. Building exhibitions set high standards for future projects and provide impetus for urban and regional development.
The Innovation Workshop - a research infrastructure of the future.lab of the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning - promotes learning processes on social innovations such as those of the IBA_Vienna 2022 and their networking in Austria's urban development. Social innovations are new forms of organization, products, processes and practices. These deal with housing, mobility, energy, green, food, education and take place in the Grätzl, in cities and regions. They are considered improvements and change an area of society with sustainable impact. Examples are new settlement processes, communal living together, shared use of areas, spaces and things, new energy supply and sustainable living and economy, new forms of financing, projects against the hegemonic social model of individualization, nuclear family and consumer society.
The aim of this seminar is to identify social innovative housing projects in the Austrian provinces. After the introductory examination of qualities of IBA_Vienna housing projects, similarly social innovative housing projects on the neighborhood level, in new and existing buildings outside Vienna will be found. These projects will be examined with regard to their framework conditions, processes of conception, planning and realization in terms of social innovations. In the course of systematic research, the methods of design, the cooperation and organization of actors and the structural framework conditions will be investigated. Gender-sensitive and diversity-appropriate planning structures and user participation play a central role. The development processes and realizations should therefore always be viewed from a gender-diversity perspective. The examination includes analysis, documentation and reflection.
In the group sessions, the context of the work topic will be developed. The seminar leader provides impulse lectures and reading texts. Students acquire knowledge and discuss and reflect on it in the group. This is followed by short presentations on found housing projects with invited guests. Further instruction on the scientific writing of the papers includes content scaffolding, writing in chapters, correct citation, layouting, and the creation of bibliographies and lists of figures. Finally, there will be a presentation and discussion of the seminar papers.
Results of the research are documented in a written, scientific seminar paper in individual work, comprising at least 30,000 characters as well as illustrations. In addition, posters of the project analyses are created. Language: German
