After successful completion of the course, students are able to...
elaborate their own competition brief including the taks, design and evaluation provcess for a site defined by the city planning department of Vienna
This exercise offers participants with very different backgrounds, skills and professional interests a unique opportunity to formulate a design brief themselves and not just react to the brief formulated by others. They are invited to come together to reflect on the very purpose of an urban project and to formulate their own critical stance on the future of the city.
The Design Summer School 2024 'Competition of Competitions' aims to bring together students and professors from three leading creative academic institutions in Vienna and possibly other Austrian academic institutions for an exchange of ideas and a joint interdisciplinary survey on the main relevant next goals in the field of architecture and design.
In the form of a competition between 6 preferably transdisciplinary participant groups (5 participants / group), each supervised and accompanied by a professor duo from two different institutes and disciplines, a competition brief will be developed.
Each group is invited to create a complete brief for an imaginary international design competition for a specific site in Vienna, selected by the city municipality as problematic and in need of rethinking.
The competition brief/letter should provide a convincing conceptual rationale and programmatic guidelines for the future development of the site (the why? and the what?) while setting out the process and relevant protocols of the competition itself, including the phases, jury and selection criteria.
Registration for this course is not possible via pool registration!
On behalf of the three architecture schools of Vienna - the IKA, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Institute of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, Technical University Vienna, - we are pleased to announce the beginning of a unique inter-institutional initiative titled The Competition of Competitions.
For the first time in history, we are planning a joint experimental September School with an ambition to collectively address a set of burning issues which we believe are relevant for today’s academia as well as for architectural practice and education.
It is scheduled for September 5-8, 2024. Application deadline: 15.07.2024.
Our September School will take the form of a competition between several groups of master’s student participants, each led by a duo of professors/teachers from our institutes. Every group is invited to create a full brief for an imagined international design contest for a specific site in Vienna.
Over the span of four days, architecture master’s students along with the students from the departments of urban and landscape design, urban planning, social design, sociology and political science will be preparing a convincing conceptual rationale and programmatic guidelines for the future development of the chosen site (the why? and the what?), while also specifying the procedure and related protocols of the competition itself, including the phasing, the jury, and the selection criteria.
For this first edition of September School titled The Competition of Competitions we have selected the highly charged site of the former Alte Wirtschaftsuniversität. The complex was built in 1976-1986 (architect Kurt Hlaweniczka) on an artificial platform as a formidable megastructure covering the railroad tracks leading to Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof. The municipality of Vienna has already scheduled it for demolition: a new university campus - the largest in Austria! - is planned instead on the massive site of Alte WU.
Rarely does a site of such complexity and significance in the centre of the city become a subject of dramatic rethinking. Our joint project will give the younger generation of designers and researchers a voice in this critical discussion which was so far led mainly by the city’s authorities and a selected group of experts.
Participants with very different backgrounds, skills, and professional interests will be getting an opportunity to form a design assignment themselves, not just respond to briefs formulated by others. They are invited to collectively think about the very purpose of this urban redevelopment project, articulating their own critical stance towards spaces for future education. In this case, participants are envisaged as proactive ideators with unique expertise rather than students.
Group leads will take the roles of inspirational interlocutors and process moderators, not teachers, creating an inter-generational coalition with participants. The School will also prompt convergence between professional specialisations of three institutions, benefitting from their different educational curricula and teaching approaches.
The international committee of professionals is invited to revise all submitted briefs in the evening of September 8. After a collective discussion the jury will award winning entries, which will be honoured with prizes during the public event on September 9.
The results will be broadly publicised and reflected upon in various social media and the press. Perhaps, some of the ideas developed in the course of this collective project could even inform the brief of the official architectural contest for the future university campus which will be announced by the municipality of Vienna by the end of 2024.
Apply before 15.07.2024!
Send a Letter of motivation (300 words) and Bio (150 words) to arch@akbild.ac.at
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Application
Who can apply? Master’s students in architecture, urban and landscape design, urban planning, social design, political science, sociology
Send a Letter of motivation (300 words) and a Bio (150 words) to arch@akbild.ac.at before 23.00 on 15.07.2024. Please, state your name/surname, current program of studies, name of the institution. Only 30 applicants will be accepted as a result of the selection procedure.