INTRODUCTORY DESIGN 3 + 4

From Imagined Structures to Urban Climate Spaces

The design studio “From Imagined Structures to Urban Climate Spaces” is conceived as a two-part process that translates an experimental method into a concrete, site-specific project. Its central premise is that spatial quality, atmosphere, and architectural expression should not be applied as an additional layer, but can emerge from a clear structural logic. The studio therefore links analog material studies, model-based testing, and digital translation into one continuous workflow—from part to whole, from rule to spatial reality.

In the first part, students sharpen fundamental design skills. Work begins with a simple base element defined by specific material (coffee sticks) and geometric properties. Through repetition, joining, and variation, this element grows into spatial aggregations. Aggregation is treated as an elementary design method: a constructive principle capable of producing density, porosity, stability, light modulation, and spatial differentiation and characters . The aim is to move beyond intuition by identifying and naming emerging qualities precisely, and by formulating them as an explicit rule set. Sketches, diagrams,3d modelling, drawings, and physical models are used to make these logics visible and communicable; digital tools support variant testing and the refinement of ideas. AI tools are employed for rapid visual exploration and as a basis for critical analysis—images are discussion material, not the outcome.

In the second part, the developed rules are applied to a real site: the forecourt of the Faculty of Architecture at TU Campus Innsbruck, particularly the area around the sculptures by Josef Lackner. This space becomes a test field for installative, spatially effective interventions—sculptural structures, shading devices, canopies, filters (sound,light,pollution, nutritions…), seating and stay zones, and other place-improving elements responding to urban overheating. The goal is to re-qualify an outdoor space that loses usability during hot periods, not only by “adding shade,” but by creating differentiated conditions for staying, clear transitions, microclimatic zones, and a legible spatial order.

At the core of the second part (major part) lies the translation from analog to digital. The rule set is developed into an operative system and refined in relation to scale, context, and use. Projects are conceived as prototypes and elaborated through architectural standards of precision: plans and sections, a consistent 3D model, and physical models at meaningful scales. The alternation between digital precision and analog verification remains essential to test and demonstrate light/shadow, porosity/density, stability, and spatial impact.

The studio is closely connected to the institute’s overarching theme “Character from Structure.” Character is understood as the “temperament” of a structure: a perceptual effect emerging from joining strategies, densification and opening, transitions, and spatial organization. The studio seeks designs whose expression derives from the structure itself—clearly argued, carefully represented, and effective as a real improvement of a specific place.