Articles in this Section

• • 

  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. – 16.00-18.00 presence/hybrid
  3_Wed 03.06. – 16.00-18.00 presence/hybrid
  4_Thur 18.06. – 16.00-18.00 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)

• • 
  • 

  Arbeit der Straße – Karl-Marx-Allee

  Design Studio BA

  Teaching

  In diesem Semester untersucht die BA-Studioreihe Straßenarbeiten die vielschichtige Bedeutung der Straße selbst. Wir hinterfragen ihre konventionelle Rolle: als Infrastruktur für den Verkehr, als Nebenprodukt der Stadtplanung und/oder als öffentlicher Raum für physische und soziale Vernetzung. Zusätzlich betrachtet das Studio „Arbeit der Straße“ die Straße als eigenständiges architektonisches Projekt. Was wäre, wenn die Straße selbst die Arbeit leisten würde, den modernen Bürger oder das politische Subjekt zu formen? Was wäre, wenn das Alltagsleben sich als Performance auf einer Bühne entfaltet, deren räumliche Eigenschaften, Programme und umliegende Fassaden nur als eine Architektur der Mise en scène verstaden werden können?

  Nicht jede Straße wird als vollständiges Projekt in ihrer Gesamtheit konzipiert und gedacht. Die Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin ist eines dieser seltenen Beispiele, bei denen sich die Straße als ein Raum zwischen Architektur und Stadt entfaltet, der beide gleichzeitig aushandelt und dabei ihre eigene Prä- senz behauptet. Im Studio werden wir die Straße in Quadranten aufteilen, in denen jede Gruppe kar- tiert, dokumentiert, Erkenntnisse interpretiert und Widersprüche identifiziert, die später ihre Entwurfs- vorschläge beeinflussen werden. Diese Segmentierung macht die fragmentierte Natur der Straße sichtbar – weniger als ideologische Totalität, wie sie ursprünglich gedacht war, sondern mehr als Collage historischer Schichten.

  Team: Prof. Jörg Stollmann / WiMi Veljko Marković / TT Sina Schaper & Franka Matthes

  Wann: Donnerstags und/oder Freitags | 10:30 – 17:00 Uhr

  Wo: A701
• • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 

  Arbeit der Straße – Karl-Marx-Allee

  Student Work KMA01

  Teaching

  KMA01

  Students: Samuel Duran, Malo Willems, Dariia Zhyzhyrun, Kristina Kokuri
• • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 

  Arbeit der Straße – Karl-Marx-Allee

  Student Work KMA04

  Teaching

  KMA04

  Students: Johanna Pfefferle, Lioba Beckers, Lowis Wue Freyenhagen, Lena Bruhier
• • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 

  Arbeit der Straße – Karl-Marx-Allee

  Student Work KMA05

  Teaching

  KMA05

  Students: Zeyna El Mawed, Robert Kurochkin, Alyona Tishkina, Melanie Klintzsch
• • 
  • 
  • 

  Arbeit der Straße – Karl-Marx-Allee

  Student Work KMA07

  Teaching

  KMA07

  Students: Lara Zoe Garbe, Laura Rebholz, Maria Dmitrievna Kolesnikova
• • 
  • 

  Urban Co-Production

  Rathausblock and the Urban Fabric Behind

  Teaching

  The Rathausblock is an urban renewal area in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Emerging from more than a decade of struggle by urban activists, a cooperative model project has developed between the city administration and civil society. The project is currently in its development phase and highlights both the socio-political challenges and potentials of co-production. How can communication succeed between such different actors? How can we overcome diverse organizational and power structures to enable inclusive, balanced, and productive exchange?

  In this three-day workshop, we will explore this case through hands-on exercises and socio-spatial site investigations. We will reflect on how affordable spaces for living and working, as well as social and cultural places, can be created with the common good in mind – while thinking beyond the often resigned approach of “Realpolitik” in urban development. As an introduction to the case study, we will also have online sessions with invited guests, as well as in-person visits to other exemplary projects in the Berlin context. In doing so, we will gain in-depth insights into the current state of urban co-production in a European capital city that is currently engaging with these socio-political questions in particularly intensive ways. In conclusion, students will be required to produce a small documentation that offers both a reflection and a direct contribution to the ongoing development of the Rathausblock.
• • 

  Desirable Hamlets

  TO BE RURBAN OR NOT TO BE

  Teaching

  In this introductory MA Urban Design studio, we will explore the notion of rurbanity and its reality and proximity to our Berlin everyday lives. We will activate your previous knowledge, draw on the plurality of your backgrounds and combine research, fieldwork and discussion. The housing crisis in Europe’s major cities is a reality (Berlin is no exception), as is the vacancy rate in rural areas. However, the controversy created by the comments made by the Germn Federal Minister Klara Geywitz in July 2024 shows just how living outside the big cities is not an obvious solution for many people. The lack of jobs, the age of homes, the lack of public services and amenities, the social isolation, the cost of fuel… are all obstacles that discourage people from moving from the big cities to rural areas. What is the rural reality in Brandenburg? We will be producing portraits in Brandenburg that will combine territorial structures, economic, social and political context, and field exploration with interview. What can we, as urban designers, do to address the challenges of rurality? Nourished by fertile references for imagining a desirable countryside and future, we will delve into specific situations and develop projects at all scale, from the architectural to the territorial.
• • 

  Colloquia & Office Hours

  WS 2025/26

  Teaching

  OFFICE HOURS
  Fr 24.10. – 9.30-11.30 online
  Fr 14.11. – 9.30-11.30 presence/hybrid
  Fr 28.11. – 9.30-11.30 online
  Fr 09.01. – 9.30-11.30 online
  Do 19.02. – 9.30-11.30 online

  MASTER COLLOQUIUM
  Fr 31.10. – 14.00-16.30 presence/hybrid
  Fr 21.11. – 14.00-16.30 presence/hybrid
  Fr 12.12. – 14.00-16.30 online
  Fr 09.01. – 14.00-16.30 online
  Fr 30.01. – 14.00-16.30 presence/hybrid
  Do 19.02. – 14.00-16.30 online

  PHD COLLOQUIUM
  Fr 24.10. – 14.00-16.00 online
  Fr 14.11. – 14.00-16.00 presence/hybrid
  Fr 16.01. – 14.00-16.00 online
  Fr 06.03. – 14.00-16.00 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)

• • 

  Planetary Transects


  Translating Urban Typologies in a Planetary Age

  Teaching

  This seminar has three main aims. Firstly, to translate existing urban spatial typologies with socioecological knowledge. This will be done by advancing and adjusting research methods, specifically the transect. This is the second aim. The third is to make visible the results.

  We will begin the course by reading and discussing texts on a weekly basis. It will allow us to contextualise current debates surrounding the planetary crisis of capital, climate and politics. Together we ask, why is it necessary to redesign existing typologies of urban space, what is this new epoch, and what will a planetary perspective, including that on socioecological health bring to design knowledge. Furthermore, we will read current discussions on methods for research on urban natures and the Anthropocene, such as “queering the transect” (Gandy, 2020), “art of noticing” (Tsing, 2012). In the rest of the semester, in small groups, you will employ these epistemic and methodological reflections in Berlin. Planetary transects cut across typical sites and spaces. They involve mapping, walking and evidencing. They aim to tell new stories or retell histories overwritten. We will use the seminar to dive deeper into urban research, methods and theory using drawing and observation as well as the archive.

  By the end of the course, you will have learnt how to integrate critical theory into your design practice. You will have explored and experimented with critical design research methods. This will have yielded new socioecological spatial types and urban stories for a planetary age. Finally, we will aim to publicise the results.

  Image: Von Humboldt, Alexander. Natural Painting of the Andes. 1793. Geographie der Pflanzen in den Tropen-Ländern. Stadtmuseum Berlin.

  Team: WM Jamie-Scottt Baxter, Prof. Jörg Stollmann
  Where: A701
  When: Tuesday 9:30-13:00 + one day final presentation time TBC 15.04.2025