Sommer semester 2018

Module: Spatial Planning (2 SWS/ 3 CP)
Prof. Max Welch Guerra, Dott. Mag. Piero Sassi
L Bauhaus 100. - One century after – a consideration from the spatial planning

Content
2019 is an important year in our university. There are the 100 years Bauhaus.  
Bauhaus was known for its architecture, art, technic, it was a contribution on spatial planning too.  
In the history of Bauhaus, we should find these traces.  

Also the role of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar as an education space for urban planner and a research center for European urban studies is part of the present.   
That´s why we would like to integrate your work to our lectures´ circle.

With thematic presentations, case studies, presentation of specific spatial project, we would like to show contributions of an international history of planning from the 20. century and discuss it with our own (german) perspective and planning culture.

Module: Spatial Planning (2 SWS/ 3 CP)
Karl Eckert, M.Sc.
S Spatial Impacts of the EU

Content
The European Union is heavily investing in the renovation of its urban environment in a manner mirrored on no other continent (yet). This is in recognition of the importance cities hold to realize broad political goals such as the Europe 2020 Strategy of "smart, sustainable and inclusive" growth for the Union. Critical views and opposing opinions become marginalized as broad EU policies become mainstreamed and certain historical, cultural, socio-economic, environmental aspects (among others) are left out if not intentionally ignored. This makes EU funds and their use an important subject to debate, especially in sight of the current programming period, which, at least on the surface, represents a new holistic and sustainable approach. But is this really the case.

The seminar will begin with the presentation of research results and experience, including theoretical foundation for the interpretation of said programming and analytical methods. Topics such as "territorial cohesion" and the urban dimension of EU eastern expansion will be presented and help explain the impact of Cohesion Policy on the city and state level. Students will then undertake their own research on a topic of personal interest related to the priorities and goals of the EU. At the end of the seminar students shall be able to navigate through EU policy and positively interpret its effects on cities and be empowered to propose new and creative designs for its future use.

Module: Spatial Planning (2 SWS/ 3 CP)
Dipl.-Geogr. Britta Trostorff, Federico Camerin, Agnès Dudych, Noel Manzano, Andreea Blaga.
S Aspects of the History of European Urbanism in the 20th Century

Content

Urbanism has shaped cities and their societies during the 20th century in completely different ways in different parts of Europe. The seminar will look on four thematic fields and the role urbanism was playing in this context. The seminar is instructed by four researchers currently conducting their research in the European Joint Doctorate urbanHIST funded by the European Union.

Module: Transfer of Methods and Expertise (2 SWS/ 3 CP)Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Frank EckardtS Master Thesis writing

Content
This seminar allows students to get an insight into recent research on urban subjects from a variety of disciplines and professional backgrounds. Students can present their work their own work (PhD or master thesis) and will be offered a forum for discussion for different topics relevant in urban research. 

Module: Study Project (16 SWS/ 21 CP)
Vert-Prof. Dr-Ing. Sven Schneider, Dipl.-Ing. M.Sc. Philippe Schmidt, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernd Nentwig, Dipl.-Ing. Antonia Herten, M. Arch. Abdulmalik Abdulmawla, Dipl.-Ing. Ekaterina Fuchkina
P Metabolism-based Planning Strategies for Rural-Urban Transformation in Ethiopia.

Content
The transformation from a mainly agricultural society to industrialisation that is faced these days in Ethiopia is linked to substantial changes of the country’s rural and urban areas. With these shifts, the processes of urbanisation and expectations towards modernisation is seen as a chance to create new and adaptive urban planning proposals that meet specific needs and conditions of the Ethiopian development context in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the World Bank is promoting rapid economic growth for Ethiopia, the country is still one of the poorest countries in the world, and the question arises in how far urban design and planning can create concepts and flexible urban models that are reactive enough to stimulate different scenarios responding for  balanced development.

One of the main frameworks to create such balance for emerging cities are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Different key factors like food security, energy, water and sanitation are linked to resource questions of material and land and how those can be influential on the development of prospective cities. Thus, for the development of new towns in rapidly urbanizing regions the understanding of material flows and circulation within the urban system is crucial when it comes about any building activity that determines the urban form and what we finally experience as urban, including open and public space and healthy living conditions.

To better understand how such flows of material resources and energy are linked to building activities in rural  urbanisation processes and their impact on the existing environment, in our study project, we are referring to urban metabolism as a framework for urban design and planning of small cities.

Participants will be analysing urban patterns and flows of small cities, learn about the context between urban metabolism and its spatial implications and apply tools and methods for a spatial analysis and finally implement that knowledge in spatial models and concepts to simulate possible development scenarios. The findings should also make visible the opportunities and limitations of such concepts for disciplines concerned with urban development, taking into account environmental, social and economic factors.

(Please note: The following seminars are compolsury for the Project Module:
“Computational Analysis” - Ekaterina Fuchkina as well as “Parametric Urban Design” mit Abdulmalik Abdulmawla.

Module: Study Project 
Dipl.-Ing. Ekaterina Fuchkina
S Computational Urban Analysis

Content
Locating and dimensioning spatial objects and with it the creation of spaces is at the heart of architectural and urban design. Thereby it is necessary to precast the effects that design decisions have on the behaviour of the future users as well as to estimate the sustainability and resilience of the designed object (such as a city or a building). Computational analysis methods can help to support this process due to the fact that they can reveal properties that are hardly recognizable at first intuitive sight.

In the seminar you will learn methods for the quantitative analysis of urban space (such as density, accessibility, visibility) and examine in how far these quantities relate to real life phenomena such as the distribution of  functions in a city or the movement patterns of urban users. Finally we will apply the methods in small cities in Thuringia as well as in Ethiopia and reveal differences and similarities.

Module: Study Project 
M.Arch. Abdulmalik Abdulmawla
S Parametric Urban Design

Content 
The potential of parametric design lies not only in facilitating the creation of complex geometries but rather in generating and validating a large number of variations of a certain design concept. Thus, it supports an essential part in the planning process: the exploration of possibilities. In order to gain most benefits of this potential, it is necessary to understand how to design parametrized shapes using simple and abstract rules, and how to stage
a design idea into a logical sequence of steps (Algorithm), as well as, how to explore the possible solutions out of the designed algorithm.   

In this course you will learn these skills in different practical exercises. These exercises are based on the idea of parametrizing the urban design process, which can be described as the algorithmic sequence for planning a city (e.g. building a street network that adapts to terrain, then dividing the available building blocks to fulfill specific typologies).

The course will only support the participants of the study project of European Urbanism and Advanced Urbanism and does not require any previous knowledge of scripting or programming. In this seminar students will first gain knowledge about general parametric modelling techniques using Grasshopper and Rhino3D.
Then, they will apply the knowledge gained by generating and optimizing the design of their cities in the study project. All students will participate in a series of lectures, online tutorials, in-class sessions, as well as present and animate their design tasks during our weekly consultations.

Module: Urban Sociology (2 SWS/3 CP)
Franziska Werner, M.A.
S Public Space and the City

Content 
“Public space is partly what makes cities, and as such it has been at the core of urban studies and many disciplines […].” (Bodnar 2015). Depending on the disciplinary perspective (e.g. sociology, geography, political science, anthropology, planning or architecture) the definition of public spaces varies, but most common is the understanding “that public space includes all areas that are open and accessible to all members of the public in a society, in principle though not necessarily in practice.” (Neal 2010). From this initial point the class will provide insights in the social production and construction of public spaces. Exploring areas like democracy, privatization, security, digitalization as well as exclusionary and gender aspects we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of everyday practices in public spaces. In addition, we look at the meanings, usages and appropriations of public spaces in different contexts. Guiding questions will be: What is public space? Public space – for whom (and whom not)? Is the public space dead or still alive but renewed in a different form?

Module: Urban Planning/Urban Design (2 SWS/3 CP)
Dipl.-Ing. Srdjan Mandic, Aryn Wallace
S Rethinking calssics Analyse, understand and improve the big ideas of urban design

Content  
On the paper it all seemed perfect – new, creative ideas that were promising a better living conditions accessible to the many living in a city. But relatively quickly upon the construction, most of them didn’t completely fulfil the promise. Some of them even were a total disaster. Where and why did it all go wrong? In this seminar, we will look at the now classic urban design projects around the world in order to understand and outline their trajectories from a brilliant idea to a not-so-successful housing projects. This will help us to understand the basic principles of these projects and implement them in the context of contemporary urban setting.

The first part of the seminar focuses on the urban design projects from the past (a theoretical and analytical part), and the second part will explore the possible future of these built projects (a creative part).

After the completion of the course, you will learn how to work analytically with references and how to implement the basic principles in to your own work. Or to paraphrase the words of Isaac Newton: if you want to see the future you need to climb on the shoulders of Giants.

Module: Theory of Architecture (2 SWS/3 CP)
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ines Weizman
S Escape into Modernism. Architects in Exile

Content   
As new archives, databases and digital research platforms are becoming available historians and theorists of architecture must face the challenge of tracing the trajectories of objects and ideas in motion. In this seminar we will address the threads and traces of modernisms in movement and aim to capture some of the complex experience of modernity through exile. Our research will explore buildings as documentary resources, and acknowledges the entanglement of the architectural object with a complex geo-political and cultural history.
Through a series of “object-biographies” of buildings by émigré architects who were forced to leave Europe during the national socialist regime before World War Two, we aim to explore and reconnect the loose threats of a history that had crushed so many.

These object-biographies – each reflecting on the materialities of the building, its architect, its original commissioners and its former and current inhabitants – describe a world in which all its constitutive parts are in movement and flux. Building upon and extending the extensive archive of the architect and historian Myra Warhaftig (1930-2008) we will collectively engage with a dispersed archive made of documents, drawings, photographs, writings and artefacts.

Module: Theory of Architecture (2 SWS/3 CP)
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ines Weizman
S Infrastructures of modernism. Perceptions of time and space in the 21st century.

Content    
The cities of Berlin and Wroclaw were closely linked culturally and economically until the end of World War II. Both cities were bustling centres of modernity. In Wroclaw, the Royal Academy of Arts and Crafts, headed by Hans Pölzig, was considered one of the most progressive schools, attracting architects and artists in its spirit of departure and modernity. The artistic workshops introduced under his leadership can be described as forerunners of the Bauhaus and the architecture schools of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Both in Wroclaw and Berlin, the architecture of modernity was to meet the new metropolitan demands. Architects such as Hans Pölzig, Max Berg, Arthur Korn, August Endell, Theodor Effenberger, Erich Mendelsohn, Heinrich Lauterbach, Ludwig Moshammer, Helmut Hofmann, Georg Muche, Moritz Hadda and Hans Scharoun worked both in Wroclaw and in Berlin.

The idea behind this seminar is to examine the travel connections between Berlin and Wroclaw. Particularly, we will examine the history of the railway journey and the new perception of space and time at the dawn of modernity. The aim is to investigate and document the transformations of towns along the route between Berlin and Wroclaw to this day, as well as the different political and cultural circumstances of the postwar period. In archival research, interviews and site inspections, we will explore the architectural traces and documents of this still hidden history. Photographically, cinematically and through new digital construction techniques we will explore places and buildings with the idea to present them in an Exhibition.

Module: Theory of Architecture (2 SWS/3 CP)
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ines Weizman
S Bauhaus Walks

Content    
The Bauhaus walks are tours offered by students for visitors and guests of the university who are interested in the history of the Bauhaus in Weimar and would like to visit places of the university's architectural and artistic heritage. This seminar conveys key concepts for the idea and development of the Bauhaus and its protagonists and deals intensively with places in Weimar that can document traces of this history. It is designed to give students the ability to lead a Bauhaus walk. It includes face-to-face events in the form of compact seminars and visits to museums in Weimar. We will deal with the history of the historic Bauhaus, with the migration paths of its personalities, but also with the ways of its objects and the difficulty capturing its almost 100-year history.

The seminar can be attended by students of all faculties of the Bauhaus University Weimar. For museum visits in Weimar, about 12 Euros have to be planned.

Please register directly at the chair Junionprofessur Theory of Archicture, Office of the Secretary Ms Palitzsch. 

Module: Master´s Thesis (2 SWS/ 3 CP)
Lisa Vollmer, M.A. / Prof. IfEU
Master Colloquium EU / AdUrb

Content
The course is the platform for presentation and discussion of the Masters theses. The candidates will present the intermediate results of their work on their individual topics. Suggestions for further action will be made by fellow students and academics attending the colloquium. Admission for the Master examination is required for participation. Performance record (attestation) will be achieved by giving an oral presentation.

Please note: Registration for the Colloquium is not necessary. All students accepted for the Master examination have to participate.