Bauhaus-Universität Weimar: Bauhaus.Journal online

What motivated you to take on deputy leadership in the Professorship of Architectural Space and Design at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar?

The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar is a world-renowned university for architecture and home to outstanding individuals. We are honoured to take on this position in the Professorship of Architectural Space and Design. It is a privilege for us to work with our university colleagues and students, and to contribute to discussions on various contemporary architectural topics.

What projects are you currently working on with your architectural firm and how would you characterise these projects?

We are currently working on two large housing developments in Basel. The projects constructively address issues of recirculation, reuse, and disassembly design, meaning we are designing buildings that can be easily dismantled, rebuilt, or recycled at the end of their usable lifespan. We are also working on additional smaller residential projects in Barcelona and Mallorca. These projects attempt to place the aforementioned themes into a less conventional context. We are also heavily involved in competitions, both in Europe and abroad.

What are the topics and methods you will be focussing on in your courses?

Just like in our professional practice, we are interested in exploring the concepts of reusing, repurposing, and recycling. These processes allow us to utilise waste, challenge established production processes, and counteract obsolescence by giving materials a second life. They also serve to reframe the environment in which we live. Generally speaking, we understand the circular economy as a pragmatic decision and an integral part of sustainable cultural practice.

The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar is known for its interdisciplinary approaches. How important is an exchange with other disciplines to you, and what opportunities do you see in this for your work in Weimar?

Interdisciplinarity is essential to our understanding of architecture and collaboration is a key element in our professional practice. We surround ourselves with civil engineers, artists, and sociologists every time we start our design process. We want to carry this over to our work this semester, and we will be inviting a diverse group of architects, engineers, artists, curators, designers, and activists to give lectures and talks to elaborate on our ideas about recirculation, construction, and design.

What design and spatial organisation ideas do you want your students to take away with them? Is there a central idea or attitude that you hope to convey?

By seeking alternative perspectives together on reuse, we want to bring our building and consumption habits into question. We are aware that buildings are material testimonies of a social and economic past and cannot be understood as independent forms. We believe in a form of architecture that leaves formalism and conventions behind; architecture that emerges from a deep understanding of the act of building and understands this as a technical, cultural, and political act rather than purely a design task.

The questions were asked by Gabriela Oroz.

PARABASE Profile
Architects Carla Ferrando Costansa and Pablo Garrido Arnaiz founded Parabase in 2021, after having previously worked in renowned firms such as Herzog & de Meuron, Foster & Partners, Diener & Diener, and Miller & Maranta. The office combines developing and implementing architectural projects with research and teaching. Their work has been won numerous international awards and has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Lisbon Architecture Triennale. PARABASE is currently working on several projects in Spain, Mexico, and Switzerland.

More information on PARABASE can be found at: http://www.parabase.eu
https://www.instagram.com/parabase.eu

Further information on the Professorship of Architectural Space and Design can be found here: https://www.uni-weimar.de/en/architecture-and-urbanism/chairs/chair-of-architectural-space-and-design/