E3 Bachelor Design Studio – THE VOLUMETRIC CONDITION: Althancampus Vienna

Volumetric Design
In this academic year, our focus lies on Volumetric Design—conceived simultaneously as a methodological tool, a design principle, and a conceptual framework. This approach builds upon the notion of the Raumplan: complex, interwoven spaces that can only be organized and understood three-dimensionally.
Volumetric Design operates across the full spectrum of architectural scales: from the urban context to the building, the interior, and down to the material. It generates coherent logics and deliberately articulates transitions between these scales—precise, fluid, or gradual. Our emphasis is on volumetric structures, understood not as purely technical systems but as fundamental design logics. We seek to develop a volumetric tectonic that reorganizes spatial, functional, and aesthetic relationships.
Volumetric Design does not refer to an empty, neutral space but to an informed space—differentiated by program, atmosphere, materiality, microclimate, visual connections, and other architectural dimensions. These aspects can be directly interlinked and negotiated through volumetric methods, resulting in a high degree of integration.

Character from Structure
This year, we are particularly interested in the character of structures. By character, we mean the “temperament” of a structure—its perceptual effect as the outcome of volumetric articulation. Character is not predetermined but emerges through the intensification of differentiated perceptions. Our aim is to derive character from the structure itself and to deploy it strategically, designing buildings that are heterogeneous, expressive, ambiguous, performative, and complex.

Porosity and Climate
A central concept of the studio is porosity. It describes spatial strategies that negotiate transitions—between space and material, interior and exterior, functional layers, private and public realms, or microclimatic zones. This generates transitional spaces, niches, and in-between conditions: specific situations that are neither clearly inside nor outside.
Porous structures regulate temperature and airflow, filter light, produce shade and contrast, and thus generate highly differentiated climatic zones. They allow users—akin to natural landscapes—to select their place of stay according to specific qualities. In the context of ecological transformation, we conceive porous buildings as adaptive and differentiated structures that actively harness environmental factors to intensify spatial diversity and enhance the quality of inhabitation.

Seasonal Plan
Under the notion of the Seasonal Plan, we explore in coupled seminars and design projects how structures can vary their spatial qualities in response to seasonal and diurnal changes. The Seasonal Plan extends beyond ensuring year-round usability of buildings and outdoor spaces: climatic factors such as temperature, solar radiation, and evaporation are not treated as external constraints but as active design parameters. Our ambition is to intensify the interaction between space, climate, and user, deliberately shaping conditions of inhabitation across temporal cycles.
From this emerge transitional zones and flexible typologies: loggias, patios, or terraces that are no longer defined by fixed boundaries but operate through gradients and porosity. Architecture thus becomes a dynamic system—one that does not seal itself off from climate but purposefully integrates it into the design.

Volumetric Typologies: Althancampus Vienna
Building on these principles, we will develop new typologies for the site of the former WU campus in Vienna (Althancampus). The City of Vienna envisions a new educational campus here. The existing 45-year-old megastructure, long criticized as an isolated island due to its elevated platform, nonetheless exerts a strong influence on the district through its monumental presence.
We will explore the spatial and urban potentials of the existing concrete fabric and devise strategies for reuse, adaptation, and transformation. We will experiment with design operations such as subtraction and addition, layering, overwriting, and intersection, synthesizing them within a volumetric perspective. The objective is to generate hybrid and diverse spaces that enable temporal flexibility, public urban life, climatic transitions, and fluid thresholds.