EM1 Master Design Course

Cities in particular are already feeling the dramatic consequences of climate change. Vienna in particular will become a hot spot within Europe by 2050. The Urban Heat Islands strategy of the City of Vienna aims to reduce the urban heat island effects through planning and architectural measures, such as green infrastructures, green facades and green roofs or the dismantling of sealed areas. Urban planning is increasingly based on data sets: 3D scans provide high-resolution models, measurements of drones equipped with thermal imagers or simulations allow conclusions to be drawn about local and global climatic effects. The design will deal with the topic on several levels, on the one hand we will develop concrete buildings that can counteract the overheating of the city. On the other hand, we will devote ourselves to the visualization of climatically relevant data. The aim is to create an augmented city model in which the microclimatic characteristics of a place can be experienced just as much as the architectural ones. The exchange of a building with its surroundings – on a small scale as well as urban space – becomes the starting point of the design. Students put an individual focus, for example on material systems and their aesthetic and performative potential (such as binding pollutants), green infrastructure and symbiotic structures from nature and architecture or adaptive buildings and their simulation.