Design Gastprofessur (Master)

Instructor:
Solveig Furu Almo

Museum of the Ordinary
Was war, was ist und der präzise Eingriff

This studio focuses on the phases of the built structure: constant transitions that revealed how architecture lives, transforms and evolves. The interplay of two materials, the rhythm of light and shadow, the fracture of a surface. Every detail revealed the qualities of what already existed. We asked ourselves: How do we manage our built environment? What phases shape it? How can architects observe, record, identify, restore, renovate, refurbish and learn from it?

Before anything new was invented, there was observation. We sensed different atmospheres, analysed materiality and tracked light and sound. We learnt to read our built environment. From this grew a ‘toolkit’ that we could apply to the design.

In the final project “Museum of the Ordinary”, each student developed a museum from the existing structure of a former brewery in Gries, Graz. The result was a place where the everyday was transformed into something extraordinary through precise arrangement and conscious composition.

The designs view architecture as the interpretation of meanings and the precise placement of interventions to enable transformations that preserve our environment whilst simultaneously renewing it.