© Zhou Tinghan | Rijeka 3

This is a nontraditional design studio that deals with the realistic project - Rijeka Open City for the European Capital of Culture 2020. It is the 4th in a group of design studios and the continuation of the previous three. Design and research conducted in previous studious are the foundation for this semester’s preliminary design.

Rijeka is historically, economically and culturallyan extremely interesting town in Croatia that is, according to locals, a town in stagnation with emigration as a necessity. However, if quality and dynamic of life can be improved, this trend can not only be stopped but even reversed.In WS17, students did developed projects up to the stage of predesign. Although most design studios do not go beyond predesign stage, this semester, as our project demands, we must go one step further. Students will mostly work on preliminary design of previously defined projects. According to projects’ progress, we will organize a mock process of approvals for the necessary project documentation. Furthermore, in this studio, students will have the opportunity to present their projects to local authorities through multiple excursions and eventually argue if, when and how these projects could be realized.

Locals believe that newcomers should not only visit this town, but also find their home here. Rijeka needs different people with different cultures and that is why our team has designed a common project to gather various players together in the simple desire to invent the future of this great town rather than wait for it.

Open City Rijeka is a concept that has emerged as a solution through the various barriers that our team has encountered in previous studios. Those barriers are largely to blame for the low exterior quality of town center. We want to prove that the process of opening the town as a concept proposed by our team is the right solution for Rijeka as a town, not only in 2020 but after 2020 as well.

In this studio, the students will have a chance to better understand the complete architectural design process, starting from:

1. research,
2. predesign,
3. preliminary design,
4. process of approvals and
5. execution design.

The goal is to plan a realistic urban project, ready to be realized, strictly based on the concepts of previous Rijeka studios.To get the necessary support in the realization of projects, students will have the opportunity to visit leading architectural offices in Vienna and Rijeka and talk with experts in the field in the form of a one-day seminar. Additionally, there will be two excursions organized to Rijeka, one right before the beginning of the course (23-28.3.2018) and the other as the final workshop in cooperation with the Universities of Zagreb, Rijeka, Ljubljana and Belgrade (6-13.7.2018). We are at the moment attempting to secure funding to finance these two excursions.

The final submission of this studio consists of full project documentation (such as technical drawings, visualizations, technical descriptions of the project), as well as basic budget calculations for the project execution.

For the purposes of grading this studio, several aspects of students’ performance will be evaluated – not only the final submission, but also cooperation, punctuality and participation in activities related to this course. This design studio model will focuses on the method learning by doing. This means that learning will be achieved through dynamic and interactive solving approaches to problem-based projects throughout the duration of the course, rather than mere collection and understanding of knowledge from literature.

The work will be performed by groups of 2-3 persons for master students and max 2 persons for bachelor students. It is to be developed in the form of analogue models:

1. documentation of research (finalized material will be provided)
2. development of the scenario and the processes (finalized material will be provided)
3. Figure-ground diagram M 1:5000 (Figure-ground diagram of Rijeka will be provided; students are expected to add their own projects to the masterplan)
4. representation of the project 3 x A0 (sections M1:100, 2D views M1:100, 3D views; 3D model of Rijeka will be provided; A0 layout will be provided)
5. detail representations at M.1:50 if necessary for certain projects
6. physical model of the project (scale to be determined)
7. description charts of projects
8. A3 logbook with all process materials (layout will be provided)
9. PowerPoint presentation of projects
10. Projects archived in a structured manner in a designated Dropbox folder

Every student should cover their own expenses for printing posters, building models, printing booklets, etc.

The skills students can expect to develop: invention, preliminary design, general idea about execution design, problem solving, oral presentation, and online portfolio presentation.

Registration via mail with portfolio at robert.tomic@tuwien.ac.at