Studio 'High-Rise Culture'

The Studio High-Rise Culture - offered by the section Public Building and Housing Design - seeks to address the ongoing urban densification by developing new typologies that will inject our cities with vibrant urban spaces, open and accessible, diverse and future-proof.

Due to issues of sustainability, the current housing crisis and changing lifestyles, there is an urgency to further densify our cities. A new wave of high-rises is being constructed, not only in the high-speed urbanizing economies of Asia and Africa, but also in the ageing cities on the European Continent.

How can, in high-rise developments, different housing typologies be combined with collective and public programs in order to have lively streets as well as the possibility to create vertical neighborhoods? What sort of city can we create with new vertical open forms, in which collective spaces that invite chance encounter, as well as generous and protective interiors of your private apartment, are combined?

The Studio High-Rise Culture will attempts to address those questions by setting up a collaboration between the Groups of Public Building and Architecture en Dwelling. Therefore tutoring sessions will be performed by members of both groups. Regular Studio sessions will be integrated by the contribution of external guests and lecturers.

The Studio High-Rise Culture is curiosity-driven and combines speculative architectural design with experiments in urban living. Students will develop design strategies according to an interdisciplinary perspective, which blends different tools physical and digital modeling, advanced architectural representation, conventional drawings.

Assessment of the student's work will be based on the following:

• Oral presentation;

• Design output: drawings and images, compiled in presentation posters, physical model(s), material samples, etc.;

• Writing assignments and analyses.

Assessment will focus on the research and design work undertaken by the individual student within the set theme; the specific research questions raised within; the specific design study that responds to those questions; the representation of that study in a physical presentation made by the student.

The final grade reflects:

• the position that is formulated with regard to the brief and its context;

• the appropriateness of the intervention with respect to the assignment; the feasibility and translatability of the idea into a physical manifestation;

• aesthetic and technical/functional qualities; the elaboration throughout the respective scales;

• the quality of the presentation, the products and the argument;

• the consistency, coherence and development of the student’s work during his/her process.

Products: will be described in the syllabus which will be published at the beginning of the course.

Repair regulations

The design project is awarded a grade that is a whole or half number between 1.0 and 10.0. Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a grade below 6.0: students who presented assessable work during the course are allowed to do a repair to change the grade into a ‘pass’. The repair is unsupervised and needs to be completed within 2 weeks after the end of the course. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again.

The maximum marking period is 10 working days.