Exploring Home

An Online Excursion by the Institute of Construction and Design Principles

The Institute of Construction and Design Principles (KOEN) responded to current COVID-19 travel restrictions by creating a “Journey through the Everyday” together with nine colleagues and 128 students at the institute. An excursion within students’ own four walls was organized by Ena Kukić and Armin Stocker as an alternative to the original destination of Copenhagen. This unusual course took place during the planned excursion week of 11th to 15th May 2020 and gave the students the task of undertaking a spatial investigation of their private surroundings in the form of sketches, notes, and photographs. The focus lay on their own living space and daily routines, taking into account architectonic, urban, and landscape aspects while also considering the current pandemic. One part of the intense excursion program was, for example, the task “Room with a View”, where students sketched from their window to document various views.

Following the theme “Same, but different” – a weekly task inspired by Paul Auster’s script for the film classic Smoke – students investigated the role that can be played by the built environment in the narration of daily life as well as how interdependent built and social space can emerge.