MSc2 Global Housing Design Studio

This design studio challenges students to find appropriate methods for the analysis and design in cultural contexts that are not their own. Participants in the studio develop housing proposals that advance new possibilities to negotiate local cultures and techniques on the one hand, and global developments on the other. Against this cross-cultural background, students are invited to develop their own position and to find design strategies that take as key premise the development of adequate housing for regions undergoing a process of rapid urbanization and/or facing the challenges of climate change.

To support the development of the project, participants in this course develop social-spatial analysis in the project's location. Using a combination of different research methods, from design analysis to architectural ethnography, students investigate local patterns of inhabitation, urban and building morphologies and typologies, interdependence between dwelling characteristics and lifestyles, and negotiations between individual aspirations, collective welfare, and environmental protection.