After The Campus — Verticalizing Basel
The studio investigates the transformation and urban integration of three major campuses in Basel, Switzerland: the Vitra Campus, the Novartis Campus, and the Rosenthal Campus. Initially designed as places of manufacturing and production, these campuses served for a long time as platforms for innovation and quality, featuring attractive work environments and many buildings by prominent architects. The studio will treat these campuses as nascent neighborhoods, developing strategies for their diversification, densification and eventually integration into the urban fabric. For the city of Basel, Switzerland, the issue of land and its usage is particularly pressing. Basel, the smallest Swiss canton with an area of just 37 km² and the highest population density, sees land as a precious and limited resource. Currently, the city is undergoing significant transformations. Major players like pharmaceutical companies and ports are expanding their territories, while older, sometimes inner-city industrial areas are being converted into residential and commercial zones. The state faces the dual pressure of accommodating international corporations and managing its own significant landholdings.
The concept of the campus embodies an inherent ambiguity. Campuses can be part of the city yet remain separated, located as greenfield developments outside urban areas, or exist as gated enclaves within cities. By working on (or comparing?) three different typologies — from a greenfield site to a gated urban campus –we aim to explore how these campuses might evolve, potentially becoming more integrated into the urban fabric, provoking a discussion on the possible blending or coexistence between the campus and its surrounding environment.
Students will be asked to design a high-rise building on one of the three sites: the Vitra Campus, the Novartis Campus or the Rosenthal Campus. The projects should explore the potential of flexible, cross-functional vertical urban catalysts, with a significant emphasis on housing. All projects should be able to confront the uncertain future of these campuses while exploring new trajectories for their transformation and integration with the surrounding urban fabric.
Deviating from the conventional understanding of high-rises as abstract extrusions of identical floors with minimal footprints and maximal vertical occupation, the studio will explore the notion of high-rises as eclectic and diverse infrastructures. These structures should feature generous, adaptable spaces open to use and appropriation, reflecting material, social, economic, and sustainable strategies along their entire height. The goal is to develop verticalized and porous experiences that can seamlessly blend with the urban context.
The studio will be led by Simon Frommenwiler, Simon Hartmann, and Tilo Herlach, with weekly contact hours. In addition, there will be workshops with a structural engineer, the city architect, and decision makers of all three Campuses. A tentatively planned study trip to Basel, Switzerland, including several workshops will allow the studio to get acquainted and discuss historical and recent Swiss architecture and put students in exchange with protagonists of contemporary architectural production.