Design IAT (Master)

Instructors:
Lukas Imhof
Patrick Pazdzior

The Depot
Things, People and Vehicles

On a site where a mix of residential, commercial and parkland developments is set to emerge in the coming years, the design of a lending depot marks the start of the site’s development. Complementing the planned uses, the project served as a ‘building for things and the people who use them’. The concepts developed provided space for possessions and activities that often find no place in highly densified living spaces. The aim was to reduce CO2-intensive basement spaces and instead create flexible storage areas as well as a system for the lending of shared objects and vehicles.

The central theme was the connection between expression and construction, the design process did not proceed linearly from urban planning to detail. Instead, images served as a recursive design and construction tool. Renderings, AI-generated and hand-drawn images were juxtaposed with their architectural counterparts in the detailed planning. Through a constant interplay between different scales, digital and analogue tools, and references from architectural history, the desired atmosphere was gradually translated into constructible architecture. As part of this ‘school of seeing’ the participants explored constructive design as a dynamic exchange between different media and scales.