The Chair of Design and Housing at Bauhaus-University Weimar addresses the issue of what kind of spaces we want to live in against the backdrop of substantial social and environmental transformation. It is seen as a collective teaching and learning workshop that is committed to various formats, activities and biographies within and outside the university, while being in a continuing process of development. The Chair’s teaching and research concept is based on the assumption that architecture represents a cultural practice that is immediately linked to the negotiation between public and private spaces.
Professor
Verena von Beckerath is an architect, co-founder of the architectural firm Heide & von Beckerath in Berlin and Professor of Housing Design at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She studied sociology, art history and psychology in Paris and Hamburg and Architektur (Architecture) at the Technical University of Berlin. She worked as a research assistant at the Berlin University of the Arts and was a visiting professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig and at Cornell University. Verena von Beckerath was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude and Rome Prize winner of the German Academy of Rome Villa Massimo. Her work on the Architektur (Architecture) of housing and forms of community encompasses speculative, disciplinary, historical, economic and ecological approaches in equal measure.
Teaching and research associates
Avital Sarah Greenshpon studied Architektur (Architecture) at the Münster School of Architecture and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. In 2021, she was responsible for the mediation work of the German Pavilion at the 17th Architecture Biennale in Venice. After completing her studies, she worked for the Berlin office of Bruno Fioretti Marquez as competition manager. She is a freelance architect and co-founder of the 31636 office in Berlin. From 2020 to 2025 she was Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Design at the Münster School of Architecture and since 2024 she has been a research assistant at the Professorship of Housing Design at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
Till Hoffmann is an architect and trained carpenter. He studied Architektur (Architecture) at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and at the Washington Alexandria Architecture Centre at Virginia Tech. During and after his studies, he worked at Heide & von Beckerath in Berlin and then at coido architects in Hamburg. He is a freelance architect and co-founder of Studio Dörner Hoffmann in Weimar. Till Hoffmann was a Visiting Critic at Cornell University and has been a teaching / research associate at the professorship for Housing Design at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar since 2017. He is involved in the Haus Bräutigam model project in Schwarzburg.
Felix Iburg studied Architektur (Architecture) at the Technical University of Braunschweig and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. After completing his bachelor's degree, he completed internships in Hamburg and Zurich. As part of his Master's thesis, he dealt in depth with the topic of cooperative housing construction. The submitted work was awarded a prize in a Germany-wide competition. Since 2025, he has been a teaching / research associate at the professorship for Housing Design at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
Hanna Maria Schlösser studied architecture at ETH Zurich, during which time she was co-editor of the student publication trans magazin at the Department of Architecture. After completing her studies, she worked for Staufer Hasler Architekten in Frauenfeld and Schmid Schärer Architekten in Zurich. She is a freelance architect and co-founder of Oficina in Berlin. Since 2019, she has been a research assistant at the professorship for Housing Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar. She was a Member of the interdisciplinary research workshop Crisis and Transformation of the Home (11/2022-02/2024). In the winter semester 2024/25, she will hold the Wüstenrot guest professorship at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
Student assistants
Annahelen Mende
Former teaching and research associates
Jessica Christoph
Niklas Fanelsa
Beverly Engelbrecht
Henning Michelsen
Former student assistants
Simon Bohnet
Annika Knapp
Paul Knopf
Anastasia Mirkina
Vincent Mank
Mona Rahal
Zeno Schnelle
Moritz Schnettler
Ernst Schubert
Momoko Yasaka
Maximilian von Zepelin