Drawing and Visual Languages
The focus of our core courses in the Bachelor of Architecture programme is on the targeted perception, comprehension and analysis of forms, structures and proportions by means of precise observation and appropriate graphic representation. Our aim from the outset is to open up means of visual expression to our students that enable them to produce individual and imaginative freehand depictions. In this context the drawing and the sketch serve as an immediate and direct means of communication.
In the Master of Architecture programme, research-guided teaching provides the basis for scrutinizing and enriching traditional approaches to the architectural design process. Our courses test out new models of participation, organization and information flow that can be derived from contemporary artistic processes. Within the framework of artistic projects and two specific modules (Integral Communication Design and Art Transfer) we generate aspect changes and steer the gaze towards current problems, which in many cases are still hidden. Realizing projects in situ and intervening in concrete situations help to hone ideas in relation to reality. In the process, due to limited resources, alternative action models and strategies often emerge.
Art and Public Space – an interface between art and urbanism, explores the question of what function art can have in the context of urban development. An essential element of this research project is the website urban-matters.org, which collects and analyzes international context-specific projects.
Communication Design – Work in this research field investigates the media dimensions of public space. It generates comprehensive analyses of the semiotic structure of urban living environments (www.werbefrei.org) with the aim of elaborating alternative communication models and exploring potentials for inscribing subjects into the sphere of urban communication.
Art, Architecture and Education – “Workspace Education” is an interdisciplinary platform that works on the establishment of innovative approaches in teaching and research. Current teaching and research projects are “Displaced”, “Place of Importance” and “Education Landscapes in Motion”, in which model education-based integration spaces, socio-spatial urban networks and spaces for new teaching and learning forms are being developed in real-life projects and cooperative processes. futurelab.tuwien.ac.at/bildungslandschaften-in-bewegung
Constructive Spatial Sketching – Practically oriented constructive methods of the freehand drawing of presented spaces are developed and optimized within a teaching framework.
The Culture of Memory– The focus of research and teaching is on aesthetic, material, architectural and special aspects of collective places of memory in their interplay with commemorative-policy questions around participation in the city and society.
