All Articles

• • 
  • 

  SFB 1265 Re-Figuration of Spaces, Phase 3

  B03 Multiple Encapsulations

  Research

  Gated Communities, Artistic Enclaves and Child-free Spaces

  In the first funding phase of the CRC 1265, subproject B03 investigated the refiguration of spaces using the Korean smart city Songdo as a case study. It became evident that refiguration there results in homo-geneous settlement forms and a digitalization concept geared towards the interests of the middle class. In the second funding phase, it was possible to show how the implementation of this urban apartment housing policy as a spatial form of refiguration also gives rise to protest movements and alternative, queer ways of living. In both funding phases, we observed strategies of encapsulation of the groups un-der study within digitally controlled special spaces, staged through thresholds. These encapsulations os-tensibly aim to increase security and reduce complexity. In the third funding phase, we pursue the goal of synthesizing and generalizing our findings. We ask how built-spatial and social structures of encapsulation contribute both to processing refiguration and to driving it further in the form of social polarization. This also raises the question of the porosity of these capsules, first through digital networking and, second, through services. In addition to secondary analyses of existing data and cross-sectional analyses across various subprojects within the CRC, in-depth studies will be conducted in South Korea on two phenomena: the establishment of child-free public spaces in Korean cities, and the promotion of artist settlements in peripheral villages. The project’s long-term study of the development of gated communities in South Ko-rea will also be continued during the third phase. By examining different as well as similar forms of en-capsulation, we expect to gain insights into their conditions of emergence, the nature of their material-digital thresholds, and their relevance. Furthermore, relational studies are planned in Brazil and Switzer-land. The subproject combines urban design and sociological methods, employing participant observati-on, hybrid mapping, and semi-structured interviews.

  DFG Fund, 2026-2029

  PI

  Prof. Jörg Stollmann, Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Architektur / Prof. Dr. Martina Löw, Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Soziologie

  Project Staff

  Jae-Young Fröhlich-Lee
  Sangwon Chae

  Student Staff

  Ara Song

  Former Project Staff

  Dr. Sung Un Gang
  Dr. Timothy Pape
  Dr. Dominik Bartmanski
  Seonju Kim
  Kayoon Kim
  Adi Cohen
  Yong-Ha Kim

  Photo Credits:
  Luxury gated residency in a rural area in South Korea, © Jae-Young Lee-Frölich
  “YesNo Kidzone Map”, public Google map made by an anonymous user (Screenshot)
• • 

  SFB 1265 Re-Figuration of Spaces, Phase 3

  A07 Space of Nature

  Research

  Conflicts over Botanical Knowledge in the Case of (Trans)Atlantic Rainforests (Brazil and Great Britain)

  Subproject A07 investigates conflicts surrounding knowledge about biodiversity conservation against the backdrop of the dramatic increase in the extinction of non-human life on Earth. As a paradigmatic modernist regime that has historically determined the spatial organization of humans and non-human entities, conservation has been massively destabilized since the 1960s by contemporary forces, changing climatic conditions, efforts to decolonize (knowledge) and developments in digitalized biotechnology.

  The subproject adopts a spatial perspective on this existential planetary problem, examining the refiguration of spaces in relation to the fragmented transatlantic forests stretching along the Atlantic Ocean coastline, which has been shaped by imperialism and colonial expansion, and examines the refiguration of spaces in this context. Using an interdisciplinary design research approach that bridges sociology and architecture and combines multi-sited ethnography with expert interviews and hybrid mapping, the subproject explores how transatlantic forests and the subjectivities of nature custodians (including park rangers, Indigenous Guaraní leaders, and IUCN staff) are co-constituted within spatial conflicts over conservation knowledge. Taking Brazil and the United Kingdom as case studies, this research project asks: Which knowledge conflicts challenge the stability of the modern conservation regime, and what effect do these conflicts have on the ongoing co-constitution of spaces of nature and the subjectivities of nature custodians in transatlantic forests?

  The problem of biodiversity loss not only raises the question of the significance of biological knowledge for conservation but also highlights a socio-political and spatial issue – namely, the struggle over who determines how human and non-human life on the planet is spatially ordered and reorganized. By investigating the spatialization of conflicts within conservation regimes, the subproject aims to reveal how botanical knowledge is materialized and reproduced within spaces of nature. Overall, the project intends to capture processes of spatial refiguration in which hegemonic epistemologies of the Global North are being challenged by more diverse forms of knowledge (e.g. local, traditional, subaltern, and artisanal forms).

  PI
  Dr. Jamie-Scott Baxter
  Dr. Séverine Marguin, Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Soziologie

  DFG Fund, 2026-2029

  Student Staff
  Maria Leticia Bordignon Fogaca
• • 

  DAAD/CAPES – PROBRAL Phase 2

  Planetability

  Research

  Integrating Planetary Health and Multispecies Cohabitation in Urban Design and Research
  Building on the foundations laid in phase 1, the follow-up project “Planetability: Integrating Planetary Health and Multispecies Cohabitation in Urban Design and Research (Phase 2)” continues to develop a robust interdisciplinary network of junior and senior scientists from Brazil and Germany cutting across the life, engineering, social, and spatial sciences. Collectively, our aim is to advance and promote a new research and action field that we call “planetability”. This combines three overlapping and interlinked dimensions: planetary health, planetary thinking, and planetary transformations, where each dimension fills a gap and enriches the others. For example, the emerging field of planetary health, which is well-represented in contemporary Brazilian debates and emphasises the interconnection of human and environmental health under climate change, is complemented by advanced critical theoretical work on multispecies cohabitation and contemporary urban and spatial theory currently being developed in Berlin – we refer to this as planetary thinking. The uniqueness of our approach empirically considers the social and spatial transformation of fragmented urban natures through the theoretical and methodological lens of human and nonhuman health relations. In global health research, the category of “environment” is all too often reduced to a determinant of human health. In our framework, the environment is opened up to reveal the multiple species and their health relations, eff ects, and outcomes that constitute it; in this way, we place human and nonhuman health on equal footing in the constitution of urban nature space. Our approach can be thought of as trans-scalar, which means we aim to examine how the planetary is inscribed into specific urban sites and therefore, how urban places, subjects, and communities, understood from the perspective of their multispecies urban health relations, are interlinked across the planet. In this way, our research is comparative, in that it seeks out the diff erences, connectivities, and shared histories between unevenly urbanised transatlantic spaces in Germany, São Paulo, and Porto Alegre. Our primary goal in phase two is to advance this mission by consolidating binational relations, supporting junior scientists develop research findings, and submitting a high-value international research proposal.

  PI
  Prof. Jörg Stollmann
  Prof. Dr. Jamie Scott Baxter

  DAAD/CAPES Fund 2026-2027
• • 

  Beyond Modernism - Vernacular Use(s) of Hansaviertel

  MA Design Studio

  Teaching

  We will deepen our understanding of the so-called “existing” – a fertile ground for every project. Alongside historical research, planning, and market analysis to grasp the context, we will conduct intensive fieldwork in order to: 1) understand the site in its materiality, immaterial dimensions, and ontology, and 2) make conscious and well argued decisions regarding how the design project engages with the existing. This reflexion will be supported by readings on philosophy of the vernacular, new materialism and critical heritage.
  Hansaviertel and its surroundings (IBA 57, the northern historic quarter, and northwest of Tiergarten) will serve as our field of inquiry. This heritage site is, in many respects, a true palimpsest. Successively a hunting reserve, a mundane fragment of the city, a field of ruins, and later the site of an international architectural exhibition, it has not undergone major physical transformation for nearly seventy years. Life has settled between memory, modernist heritage, and everydayness. People inhabit and continue to transform the place through the sedimentation of traces of their uses – in both material and immaterial forms.
  Within this context, we will ask: what should be preserved, transformed, or erased to make space for the vernacular practice within a site strongly marked by institutional transformation and market forces? To address this question, we will rely on the tensions between three positions toward history: monumental, antiquarian and critical.

  PiV offered by Fachgebiet Bildende Kunst:
  In connection with the studio Beyond Modernism – Vernacular use(s) in Hansaviertel, an artistic research project using the medium of film will be conducted.
  Intertwining archival images with footage captured on site during fieldwork, this research will constitute a pivotal moment within the studio, during which design project ideas will be developed between analysis and speculation through narratives that engage with the materiality of the site and the everyday practices of its inhabitants.

  Team: Prof. Jörg Stollmann / WiMi Jeanne Lacour

  (fig: Photos: Bürgerverein Hansaviertel e.V. (background) / CUD Team (foreground))

• • 

  IfA EXPO 2026

  Seminar SS26

  Teaching

  This year, the IfA Expo returns as the annual exhibition of student work, bringing together all departments of the institute. Through the exhibition, we aim to create a platform where students present their projects and gain insight into the diverse work developed across our institute. The exhibition opens a shared space to explore design, research, and experimentation, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the many fields that shape architecture at the IfA. The exhibition weekend concludes with a summer gathering that brings together students, teachers, and guests to reflect on and celebrate the semester.

  Team: IfA Kollektiv & Prof. Jörg Stollman
• • 

  Is Typology a Scam?

  Seminar SS26

  Teaching

  This semester, the seminar wants to reflect not only on types and their appropriation and transformation, but on typology as such and the way typolegical thinking is taught, theorized, and developed in the Master Architecture Typology program and beyond. We will ask: “If and how typological thinking as it is taught in the M-Arch-T affeets our thinking about architecture and our future potential practice.”

  Team: Prof. Jörg Stollmann, Beyza Uysal, Tomás Martínez
• • 

  Mapping Through the Looking Glass

  Seminar SS26

  Teaching

  Berlin is widely regarded as one of the queer capitals of the world. Maps produced by the City of Berlin or by Siegessäule reinforce this claim through the marking of the city’s milestones. These spatial representations of queerness are largely oriented toward the tourism industry and function as a form of urban branding that caters to market demands. As such, they often carry ambiguous political meanings for queerness, serving neoliberal regimes of spatial production while reinforcing forms of homonormativity. Queerness today can be understood through tensions between the “neoliberal queers” of the present and the radical queer movements of the past. These positions frequently exist in conflict and contradiction rather than within a single coherent queer space. Such fractures can already be observed in Berlin itself: in the existence of two pride parades, in the contrasts between lesbian and gay housing projects, and in the spatial tensions between queer centers and anti-queer peripheries.
  This seminar aims to address the complexities of queer representation in a more conflictual yet intersectional manner. Its objective is to investigate how urban domains such as housing, leisure, labor, public space, nature, culture, and infrastructures of care might be presented as queer counterparts to normative spatial orders, and to examine the spatial and systemic forces that enable or constrain these processes. In this sense, the seminar employs research methods and various forms of mapping in order to produce a publication that questions the dominant narratives often reproduced by existing “queer maps” of Berlin and instead asks a broader question: Is Berlin a queer city?

  Team: Prof. Jörg Stollmann, Veljko Marković

  (fig: Collage: Moschinos ‚Baustellen-chic‘ in Berlin-Steglitz)

• • 

  Colloquia & Office Hours

  SS 26

  Teaching

  OFFICE HOURS
  1_Fr 24.04. – 9.30-11.30 presence/hybrid
  2_Fr 22.05. – 9.30-11.30 online
  3_Fr 19.06. – 9.30-11.30 presence/hybrid
  4_Fr 10.07. – 9.30-11.30 presence/hybrid

  MASTER COLLOQUIUM
  1_Thur 16.04. – 16.00-18.00 presence/hybrid
  2_Thur 07.05. – 14.00-16.00 presence/hybrid
  3_Wed 03.06. – 14.00-16.00 presence/hybrid
  4_Thur 18.06. – 15.00-17.00 presence/hybrid
  5_Thur 09.07. – 16.00-18.00 presence/hybrid

  PHD COLLOQUIUM
  1_Tue 12.05. 9.30-11.30 online
  2_Tue 09.06. 9.30-11.30 online
  3_Tue 30.06. 9.30-11.30 online
  4_Tue 04.08. 9.30-11.30 online

  To attend the office hours, please book your individual appointment via DFN Terminplaner.

  For „(online)“, please use Zoom link.

  (fig: Büro, Thomas Demand, 1995)