With its entry "Constructive Futures", which encompasses the two overarching themes of the year "Beyond Concrete" and "Keeping What’s Good", the FHNW Institute of Architecture was able to prevail over the other architecture schools.
The Institute of Architecture’s contribution "Constructive Futures" focuses on the social and architectural transition into what is likely to be a post-fossil era. The effects of climate change are making us as a society aware of the urgency of a comprehensive cultural change. More and more architects, as part of the resource-intensive and high-emission construction industry, are also becoming aware of their responsibility. Numerous construction approaches are now available for more sustainable spatial development. It is the task of contemporary architects to test these boldly and with curiosity, especially in the combination of different concepts. Accordingly, architectural projects should become laboratory situations and fields of experimentation, especially within the protected framework of the degree course.
Threshold projects as contributions to the building culture of a new era
The design projects submitted with the application for the Swiss Arc Award for the two thematic academic years "Beyond Concrete" (21/22) and "Keeping What’s Good" (22/23) have emerged from the joint work of students, assistants and lecturers on new methodological, technical and design issues. They are emblematic of the search by our profession and the teaching that precedes it for new quality categories and an appropriate architectural language for the building culture of a new era. Threshold projects have emerged that reflect the processes of negotiation and research, whose expression oscillates between preserved history and the new life that has arrived.Further information: www.iarch.ch