Education
MSc - Hybrid Building
Hybrid Buildings are increasingly in the focus of contemporary architectural debates and practices. Most interesting works published by architectural reviews all around the world show the attempt to escape the traditional but arid binomial form-function and address buildings with multiple performances. They combine different programs into a ‘hybrid’ whole and show new ways of organizing buildings. By offering up to date answers to our way of living, working and entertaining, they contribute to our actual Zeitgeist rather than looking for mere programmatic accommodations. Current issues like intensification / optimization of land uses (building vs. nature), densification of programs as a new catalyst in city centres (liveability vs. urbanity), economic feasibility of urban plans (profit vs. speculation), are the most recurring urban conditions that hybrid buildings have to tackle with.
In this framework the MSc program Hybrid Buildings focuses on the design project as key to anticipate future transformations of the city. The scope of the program is to work on complex combinations of types of space, different functions and constructive systems in order to create opportunities for alternative social as well as urban dynamics. Nowadays there is a great need of identifying the available design tools in order to plan future interventions in our cities. Particularly in the case of existing urban environments, design approaches require a conscious understanding of urban morphology transformation processes as well as an adequate knowledge of changes in building typologies. The ‘Fuck Context’ approach denies the long-lasting urban development and jeopardizes the representation of the continuity of civic values. We believe that the design of new Hybrid typologies should reflect on their urban significance and on the position they take in the historical development of the place. Architectural interventions aiming to be ‘urban’ cannot be defined outside the context of the city and its history. Consequently, research on cities and their history (also from the technical viewpoint) must be considered as an important component of the MSc program.
How will new architectural typologies and new architectural languages be able to envision the transformations of urban areas? How can these areas be transmuted into the representative urban environments of the 21st century? And how can designers develop these themes in an urban-sound, nature-sound and society-sound manner? These are the core issues that the Master specialization Hybrid Buildings wants to address.
