Utopia: Forms of Community

We need new forms of housing for a more sustainable and more just way of life.

Architecture is a language of form. Only by radically reconsidering architectural form can we find new forms of living and new forms of community.

In our studio Forms of Community will look beyond function and typology to find a new sensibility for a new way of life.

We will study the examples of leading protagonists in art and architecture such as Lina Bo Bardi, Louise Bourgeois, Denise Scott Brown, Agnes Martin and Richard Artschwager.

Five prototypical modern housing plans will provide the physical base, the foundations for the projects in the studio. We will design projects that rise from the morphological structure of these utopian visions, albeit on sites with new programmes and confronting present and future needs.
In the studio, the students will design a cooperative apartment building in Boston.

The studio’s methodology will include drawings, physical models, photography, lectures as well as discussions with practitioners, building cooperatives and developers from Switzerland and the United States.

The studio trip will lead us to utopian sites in the South West including Marfa, Taliesen West, Arcosanti and the Double Negative.

This course will meet weekly on Thursdays and Fridays.
Oliver Lütjens will be in residence on the following days: January 27, 28; February 3, 4; March 10, 11, 31; April 1 and for final reviews.
Thomas Padmanabhan will be in residence on the following days: January 27, 28; February 17, 18; March 31; April 1, 14, 15 and for final reviews.
Class will be held via Zoom on all other Thursdays and Fridays.