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updated October 04, 2008

teaching

The presented courses have taken place in a number of contexts and collaborations. They all deal with new potentials of architecture in different ways and on different levels.

Venues include:
the School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm (KTH)

the School of Architecture, ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland

Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia

www.arch.kth.se
www.arch.ethz.ch/lynn
www.sial.rmit.edu.au

parametric design

Informed Modularity

The Informed Modularity 4th year track 5 aimed to reconsider the history of the component or module in post- war 20th century architecture and to further re-examine the implications of a componential approach in contemporary architectural design practice. This includes the modularisation of skill and expertise, industrial production and construction systems as well as business models in post-war architecture. Central for Post-war architecture were processes of modularisation that resulted in programmatic and material organisations of mass-production and standardisation. Today there is a renewed interest in the component as an architectural approach. Standardisation is today replaced by an interest in mass customization and in the possibility for components to be systematically or parametrically differentiated or modulated in order to generate spatial, programmatic, infrastructural and material configurations that respond to local conditions and desires.

part 1 was the Crash Course called The construction of Swedish identity: rethinking the Kurbits and the filling of surface. The work focused on the construction of identity/identities and its relationships to the ornamental and the decorative through a small urban program. Further the work concentrated on an architectural cellular strategy with a rigor in structural, programmatic and material applications. The crash course was run by Ulrika Karlsson.

part 2 was an architecture studio in the second trimester of the year where the students was looking at identity/identities in relation to living and housing of the future. Looking back at experiments of the last century; including the work of Jean Prouvé, the Californian Case Study Houses program from 1945-1962, Archigram and the Metabolists of the 1960s, a wide range of projects addressing technology and its social and cultural ramifications can be identified. With contemporary issues of industrialization such as Lean Production and mass customization as a departure point, the studio projected ideas further, using advances in technology and new modes of living to explore future issues of housing development. The studio was run by Jonas Runberger and Pablo Miranda.

Samples of student work here: www.arch.kth.se/informedmodularity.

KTH, Stockholm 2005-2006

www.arch.kth.se/informedmodularity

collaborative environments

Info_liations / ex_foliations

The ubiquity of electronically-conditioned cultures within the context of contemporary social transactions invigorates a dialogue between states of materiality and states of immateriality. This one-week workshop explicitly examined the transduction of informed states between a series of material and immaterial sites causing a reconsideration of these categories. These informed states were specific to the media in which they originate and was be defined by each team at the start of the workshop.

The workshop was part of INTIMATE DISTANCE: Liveness and Affect, a Visiting Fellows Program part of the SIAL Graduate Certificate Program. It was performed as an inserted catalyst in the mid of a seven week design course directed towards the design of an exhibition space. Student teams had prepared outlines that could be transformed and enriched during the workshop.

Info_liations / ex_foliations brief suggested a networked feedback environment that would emerge as a number of nested environments or nodes that maintained a micro scale of physical - digital connected spaces, affecting each other through more or less perceivable principles. A number of these nodes, comprised of a digital setting and a physical interface, would be connected and send and receive information trough transactions. These points of contact were established early on in the workshop and the different teams operated simultaneously in the various media continually activating these contact points throughout the duration of the workshop. Protocols for this exchange were established, using the Urbantoys v.2 as a reference, and the Virtools software package as a main platform.

Through this set-up, the student teams provided flexible designs in which behaviours or scripts could be exchanged during the development, and outside guests could manipul,ate the conditions of the design, thereby entering an open-ended dialogue on design qualities.

SIAL, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia August 2003

www.sial.rmit.edu.au
Krets, through: Marcelyn Gow, Daniel Norell and Jonas Runberger

mediated environments

Communicative Spaces 3

The third of a series of courses for the Media Technology department at the KTH, with the objective of merging technological skill and new approiaches to design. Bringing in architectural aspects also fused spatial qualities with mediated environments.

One of the main concerns of the whole course has been to sketch possible ways of dealing with a general situation ever present in design: the lack or even irrelevance of a specic problem to solve, and the biggerimportance of dening something that we could describe more appropriately as a context, approach or medium, in which the work can thrive and nurture.

The students were separated in 3 different tracks under the themes Concept, Laboratory and Intermedia, each with their individual agenda, concerns and intentions. The tracks later merged and design teams were formed, with the task of creating a number of Portals; access points to a set of cencepts derived from a given start kit. Each group was also allocated a zone in the studio space in which to manifest the design.

The final event resulted in 25 pavilions cramped into the space, and the review was turned into an event as invited guests vistited the different projects hosted by the students.

Examinator: Peter Ullstad

media technology, KTH, fall 2002

www.arch.kth.se/arkkom
Pablo Miranda, Annika Nyström, Jonas Runberger, Maria Sigeman and Adam Somlai-Fischer

conceptual frameworks

Communicative Spaces 2

The second of a series of courses for the Media Technology department at the KTH, with the objective of merging technological skill and new approiaches to design. Bringing in architectural aspects also fused spatial qualities with mediated environments.

Jonas Runberger and Daniel Norell were responsible for the Concept track, an initial input to the course introducing an architectural conceptual framework.

Examinator: Peter Ullstad

media technology, KTH spring 2002

Pablo Miranda, Daniel Norell Jonas Runberger and Adam Somlai-Fischer

urban design /
collaborative systems

Urban Curating / Hyperstructures

Urban curating was a studio at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. It was concerned with exploring collective facilities, in organisational (urban) and spatial (architectural) terms. Its aim was to provide a collaborative platform whereby information, research and findings are shared among its members. The applied method was curatorial, meaning the architect operates as mediator between actors, forces, processes and narratives. Currently, the studio is working on the site of Värtahamnen in Stockholm.

Jonas Runberger and Fabian Lindén introduced the notion of Hyperstructures, means to establish a collective base between student projects. This system was further refined during the length of the course, and was finalized as the sourse website.

responsible teacher: Meike Schalk

KTH 2001 - 2002

www.arch.kth.se/urbancurating
Meike Schalk, Markus Aerni, Jonas Runberger, Ulrika Wachtmeister and Fabian Lindén

architectural prototypes

Machinic Processes in Architectural Design

An electable course under the guidance of Professor Greg Lynn, investigating the aesthetic, technical and tectonic potential of topology based surface modeling combined with robotic manufacture.

The approach to design was to define the maximum and minimum limitations of a typical cnc (computer numerically controlled) machine and then exploit the formal permutations made possible within these limits. Advanced animation software was used for form generation and analysis.

More info and student projects available at:
www.arch.ethz.ch/lynn

ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland
spring 2001

www.arch.ethz.ch/lynn
Greg Lynn, Marcelyn Gow and Jonas Runberger

parametric design

Architecture InFormation / Articulations

The AIF Articulations studio focuses on the design, modulation and construction of new modes of transparencies and visibilities and their affects (with plural emphasis). What are transparency, visibility and semi-visibility today? What are their gradients? How do they grow and adapt to site and program and what aesthetic strategies do they produce? As a case for this endeavour the studio deals with the design of a series of independent media production buildings, where an interesting reciprocal relationship between technology and the material is active. This is paralleled by a rigorous investment and research into digital design, digital fabrication and industrialized production.

The Architecture InFormation studio has a continuous research agenda that re-considers the history of systems and components in post- war 20th century architecture and further re-examines the implications of a cellular or componental approach in contemporary architectural design practice and aesthetic discourse. The studio is run by Ulrika Karlsson and Jonas Runberger.

KTH, Stockholm
2007-2008

www.arch.kth.se/aif

parametric design

Architecture InFormation / Device InFormation

The Device InFormation studio operates at the scale of the interior and the membrane of a building, looking for proposals that brings about very specific effects, while a being applicable to different environments. The proposals should in this way be considered design systems, addressing issues of design, production and performance. These design systems should make use of parametric principles on different levels, primarily considering the effect of spatial conditions, while implicating structural, organizational and production aspects. The formal effects should suggest functions and programs rather than be defined of them.

The AIF Device InFormation studio was the first semester of three in the AIF studio 2006-2007, run by Jonas Runberger assisted by Thomas Wingate. It was followed by the AIF Cell Tales and the AIF Architecture and Mass Media studios, run by Ulrika Karlsson assisted by Erik Hökby.

The Architecture InFormation studio has a continuous research agenda that re-considers the history of systems and components in post- war 20th century architecture and further re-examines the implications of a cellular or componental approach in contemporary architectural design practice and aesthetic discourse.

Samples of student work here: www.krets.org/aif1.php.

KTH, Stockholm
2006-2007

www.arch.kth.se/aif

urban planning

STHLMrandzon

A one year track in the 3rd year curriculum, with a focus on urban planning. Set up in three stages. During the first phase the students will develop planning documents for selected areas of Stockholm, based on initial analysis.

The second phase will initiate an experimental session, with investigations into organisational and constructive structures.

The third phase is based on the forthcoming curriculum with a Bsc thesis in third year, and will involve the design of a complex building.

responsible teacher: Maria Larsson

KTH, Stockholm
2003-2004

Maria Larsson, Anders Johansson, Mårten Leringe, Johan paju, Jonas Runberger and Anna Webjörn

structure & organisation

1st year teaching team

One semester of the 1st year curriculum.

Participation included tutorials and the Operative Representation lecture, as well as an introduction of 3d modelling software as a tool for diagrammatic studies.

KTH, Stockholm spring 2003

Lova Lagerkrantz, Susanne ramel, Jonas Runberger and Karin Stenqvist

performative proposals

Project or Proposal

The PoP course critically explored a number of related issues concerning the areas between concept and technology, model and representation and process and proposal. The course reevaluated the components of the architectural project through the use and abuse of digital tools and the development of instrumental models.

The course was founded in the interest of the academic architectural project and its context, and the use of its potential. This five week course was set up to explore different themes and design environments, in order to find different potentials. Three different tracks were defined by references, in theory, literature and existing projects. Although dependent on texts to set up environments for discussion, the students were asked to do complete design projects, and stress issues as far as possible in five summer weeks. Projects range for explorations of attitude in a design-process, to actual suggestions for different "real" interventions, always with a mode of speculation.

Examinator: Peter Ullstad

KTH, Stockholm summer 2002

Pablo Miranda, Daniel Norell, Jonas Runberger, Adam Somlai-Fischer

Navigation Organisation Narative

project by Matilda Eriksson, Milo Lavén and Hjalmar Mann

The six-week course acted on the friction between concepts and technology, and was looking for new ways to develop ideas, new worlds to explore and new problems to solve. Through the three linked concepts of Navigation, Organization and the Narrative, the course looked at ideas in related disciplines, the use and abuse of software and the development of new tools that address the architectural process.

KTH crashcourse, Stockholm
fall 2001

www.hypersketch.com/non
Minna Henttu, Pablo Miranda, Shaun Murry, Daniel Norell, Jonas Runberger and Malin Zimm

mediated enviroments

Hypersketch 3: communicative spaces

Hyper:Sketch was an architectural research platform, looking into the potential spaces between physical built, and virtually mediated environments.

Hypersketch 3 was first of a series of courses for the Media Technology department at the KTH, with the objective of merging technological skill and new approaches to design. Bringing in architectural aspects also fused spatial qualities with mediated environments.

The students were asked to conduct research into the fields where media and architecture meet. The practical task was to create media 'environments' for remote and local exchange, combining experience of interactive media with the presence of physical spaces. The result was a presentation of the working environment in principle, where each group demonstrated the technology, the ideas and speculated on the effects the installation might have on the interaction between people.

KTH spring 2001

www.hypersketch.com
Tobi Schneidler and Jonas Runberger

hypertextual environments

Hypersketch 2

Hyper:Sketch was an architectural research platform, looking into the potential spaces between physical built, and virtually mediated environments.

The second Hyper:sketch project was set as a 6 week summer course and discussed a new notion of neighbourhood:
Physical as well as digital proximity. Contextual thinking is extremely important for any design task, it becomes evermore important when there is more than one reality influencing the project development.

1:Site exploration
Teams formed different cells to work on 16 sites in the urban area of Stockholm.
The first task was to analyse the site, and to produce digital documentation that communicated the character, infrastructure or atmosphere of the site. One local spot in each area became the site for the design intervention.

2:Neighbourhood negotiation
The next task was to recognise the cell position in the information chain.
-Each cell received information from the previous cell
-Each cell produced inormation about their site
-Each cell passed this information on to the next cell
The linked cell where not given adjecent areas, as seen on the map.


3:Functional analysis
The challenge was to construct a local pavillion, a vessel of contextual information. The physical scale should be that of a pavillion or urban furniture.
Certain issues were emphasised:
-What kind of information do you receive.
-How does it affect your site, Do you project it, create a sound environment or create a haptic interface?
-How does the pavillion interact with the local physical context.
Does it activly aquire contextual information. Does it surpress information?
-How does it forward information?
The pavillion could fulfill various function: It could be a remote communication tool, interresting for touristic applications, business meetings, cultural exchange or contemplation.

summer 2000

www.hypersketch.com
Tobi Schneidler and Jonas Runberger

spatial sketchbook

Hypersketch 1: Hypersketchbox

Hyper:Sketch was an architectural research platform, looking into the potential spaces between physical built, and virtually mediated environments.

The designer today is increasingly asked to provide integrated solutions to a design task, spanning architectural, media and network design problems. The Experience Bandwidth offered by an architectural design will not be confined to its local organisation. The building will reach through the use of technology into networked spaces, enabled for example by tele presence and ambient media.

KTH spring 2000

www.hypersketch.com
Tobi Schneidler, Jonas Runberger and Malin Zimm