Existenzoptimum — Innsbruck
The project Existenzoptimum is an outcome of our research into architecture and design practices, at the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (opens in a new tab) fellowship programme, that also took a form of a seminar at the Institute of Architectural Theory (opens in a new tab) for students of the Innsbruck Faculty of Architecture.
The project developed into a didactic process and an exchange with the students Audrey Morency, Anouk Muller, Pol Olk and Laura Winterberg. The exchange was initiated through a series of lectures and discussions, which explored the value systems produced and reproduced through material practices such as design, architecture and art. The intention of the seminar was to encourage the students to explore the ways in which these questions find expression in the built environment or, more importantly, to look at alternative ways in which architecture has tried and may try again to address these questions.
The outcome of the seminar simulates a conventional exhibition of architecture, consisting of a 1:1 model of a living unit and a 1:30 model of a modular system implemented at the specific site, that of the Kunstpavillon. In the exhibition space the 1:1 model allows the visitors to relate physically to the space, while the didactic 1:30 model, provided with 10 living units, is a sort of a board game that the visitors can play and experiment with, allowing them to accommodate different possible social and architectural configurations parasitizing on the Kunstpavillon. The players might try to maximize the number of units per sq. meter following the logic of a dormitory, or organize a housing and working collective that can acquire more communal space to use for social or commercial activities.
Details
technical info: university seminar (opens in a new tab), speculative architecture, model, booklet / dimensions: 300x300x250cm (model), 60x40x11cm (small model), A4, 38 pages (booklet)
exhibition views: Störwerte / Nuisance Value (opens in a new tab), Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck, 2016, photo by: WEST. Fotostudio
drawings: Audrey Morency, photos: Daniel Jarosch / Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen
