Hubert Klumpner: Catalogue data in Spring Semester 2020

Name Prof. Hubert Klumpner
FieldArchitecture and Urban Design
Address
Professur Architekt. u. Städtebau
ETH Zürich, ONA J 14
Neunbrunnenstr. 50
8093 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Telephone+41 44 633 90 78
Fax+41 44 633 11 83
E-mailklumpner@arch.ethz.ch
DepartmentArchitecture
RelationshipFull Professor

NumberTitleECTSHoursLecturers
052-0708-00LUrban Design IV Information 2 credits2VH. Klumpner, S. V. Baur
AbstractThe ‘Urban Stories’ lecture series introduces a city during each lecture. The city’s urban development is described through contemporary phenomena and is critically presented as strategies and tactics. The urban phenomenon we explore in this course show urban conditions, models and operational modes.
ObjectiveHow can we read cities and recognize current trends and urban phenomena? The lectures series will produce a catalogue of operational urban tools as a series of critical case studies, and as basis for future practice. Urban Stories introduces a repertoire of urban design instruments to the students.
This will empower them to read cities and apply these tools in the urban environment. The course will approach the topic employing analytical cases on different scales, geographies, in diverse socio-political, ecological and economical environments. With our collection of tools compiled in a 'toolbox' in the logic of an evolving archive, we aim to tell the fundamental story of contemporary urban development. This specific analysis offers insight and knowledge that helps students to make informed design decisions. The tools are grouped in thematic clusters, compared, interpreted and via interviews annotated by local experts. This approach sensibilities the students to understand how to operate in different local but also international contexts.
ContentUrban form cannot be reduced to the physical space. Cities are the result of social construction, under the influence of technologies, ecology, culture, the impact of experts and accidents. Urban un-concluded processes respond to political interests, economic pressure, cultural inclinations, along with the imagination of architects and urbanists and the informal powers at work in complex adaptive systems. Current urban phenomena are the result of an urban evolution. The facts stored in urban environments include contributions from its entire lifecycle. That is true for the physical environment, but also for non-physical aspects, the imaginary city that exists along with its potentials and problems and with the conflicts that have evolved over time. Knowledge and understanding along with a critical observation of the actions and policies are necessary to understand the diversity and instability present in the contemporary city and to understand how urban form evolved to its current state.

How did cities develop into the cities we live in now? Which urban plans, instruments, visions, political decisions, economic reasonings, cultural inputs and social organisation have been used to operate in urban settlements in specific moments of change? We have chosen cities that are exemplary in illustrating how these instruments have been implemented and how they have shaped urban environments. We transcribe these instruments into urban operational tools that we have recognized and collected within existing tested cases in contemporary cities across the globe.

This lecture series will introduce urban knowledge and the way it has introduced urban models and operational modes within different concrete realities, therefore shaping cities. Urban knowledge will be translated into operational tools, extracted from cities where they have been tested and become exemplary samples, most relevant for providing a deeper insight of how urban landscape has taken shape. The tools are assembled in thematic clusters and scales for support comparability and cross-reflection.

Tool case studies are compiled into a toolbox, which we use as templates to read the city and to critically reflect upon it. Furthermore, in order to better understand the co-production of urban space and the interdependence of influencing factors, we have developed a frame of reference in the form of the triad PEOPLE (individual and collective stakeholders, lived and percieved space), PROGRAM (simple and complex instructions, representations and concepts of space use) and ENVIRONMENT (eco-geological, built and constructed space). This matrix is then applied to the various case studies and its tools in favor to arrive at a trans-disciplinary and multi-perspective approach that enables socially, ecologically and economically sustainable urban design.The presented contents are meant to serve as inspiration for positioning in future professional life as well as to provide instruments for future design decisions.

The lecture series is as well a preparation for design studio work and can be deepened and applied in the other teaching and research projects of the chair.

For further information: https://klumpner.arch.ethz.ch/
Lecture notesThe learning material, available via https://moodle-app2.let.ethz.ch/ is comprised of:
- Toolbox 'Reader' with introduction to the lecture course and tool summaries
- Weekly exercise tasks
- Infographics with basic information of each city
- Quiz question for each tool
- Additional reading material
- Series of interviews with local experts of the different cities

The compiled learning material can be downloaded from the student-server.
LiteraturePlease see 'Skript'.
Prerequisites / Notice"Semesterkurs" (semester course) students from other departments or students taking this lecture as GESS / Studium Generale course as well as exchange students must submit a research paper, which will be subject to the performance assessment: "Bestanden" (pass) or "Nicht bestanden" (failed) as the performance assessment type, for "Urban Design I: Urban Stories" taken as a semester course, is categorized as "unbenotete Semesterleistung" (ungraded semester performance).
052-0726-20LACTION! On the Real City: Filming the (un)Real City Information Restricted registration - show details 2 credits2UH. Klumpner, C. E. Papanicolaou
Abstract'If photography is truth, cinema is truth 24 frames per second', the words of Jean-Luc Godard guide us we disentangle the complex urban landscape through image and sound.

This course develops new forms of urban literacy by combining ethnographic social research methods with filmmaking (using smartphones and Adobe Premiere Pro) and 3D modelling (using the Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D).
ObjectiveThrough a combination of practical exercises in video and audio techniques in parallel with the study of seminal observation-driven texts like, this course aims to equip students with the basic tools and core principles to create short but complex portraits of urban space.

This approach will be applied to the study of 'urban flux' - non-stop transformation of our environments, understood through everyday practices. Students will be invited to take a deep, 'thick' look at a neighbourhood of their choice, telling the story of its transformation through time and space, in the creation of a collective 'everyday' mosaic of urban spaces.

Using widely available recording tools and editing software, students will turn their fieldwork into short video or audio works of about 3-5 minutes.
ContentThe course will compose of lectures, practical crash courses in media use and 3D modelling, and fieldwork sessions. The course will be a laboratory in the creation of short media works that aim to inform the architectural design process, working between the city and the studio in ONA. Students will be expected to complete all required work within the hours that the elective meets, with few requirements outside of the class hours.
LiteratureSeminal texts include:

- ‘Cross-Cultural Filmmaking’ (Barbash, Castaing-Taylor)
- ‘Acoustic Territories’ (LaBelle)
- 'Ethnography: Principles in Practice' (Hammersley, Atkinson)
- 'Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture (Geertz)
Prerequisites / NoticeFor students from all disciplines.

Software required:

Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects
Cinema 4D (Free, available online)


We aim to cap the course at 20 students, giving priority to students who also sign up to the Klumpner Chair Architectural Design Studio: Barranquilla. It is strongly recommended to take both courses in parallel.

Lecturers/contacts: Prof. Klumpner, Klearjos Papanicolaou and Michael Walczak.
052-1140-20LArchitectural Design V-IX: Urban Prototype. Re-Activating Rijeka, Croatia Restricted registration - show details
Please register (Link) only after the internal enrolment for the design classes (see Link).

Project grading at semester end is based on the list of enrolments on 3.4.20, 24:00 h (valuation date) only.
Ultimate deadline to unsubscribe or enroll for the studio is 3.4.20, 24:00 h.
14 credits16UH. Klumpner
AbstractLIQUID CITY | Designing Land- and Water-Borne Urbanization Processes

Rijeka is not a city with a harbor but a harbor with a city.
What do the dynamic situation of global investments, geopolitical conditions, and the climate crisis in the 21st century mean for Rijeka, located on the border between east and west, water and land?
ObjectiveWe teach students the chairs "method-design." Students analyze, map, develop the program, and translate their ideas into conceptual designs. A concrete prototype is created and tested on different scales, combining public space, infrastructure, and architecture into one urban design project. The goal is to make urban interventions and architectural projects which incorporate diverse stakeholder perspectives. Participants will develop their individual projects, advance skills of visualization, and communicate their work in analog (drawings and models) and digital tools (projection, digital fabrication, films, 3D-modeling, and scripting). The transferability of every prototype is closing the design cycle.
ContentThe studio will re-design, re-program, and re-invent an innovation zone for the re-establishment of a new model for a harbor city, designing beyond the land and the water.

Rijeka, as the center of shipbuilding in the Adriatic Sea, is known to be a harbor with a city. This studio is proposing the design of a coastal paradigm for the Mediterranean and generating an alternative city development model for Rijeka, the European Capital of Culture 2020. Rijeka is a city on the border between Italian and Slavic spheres of influence. This valley was, over centuries, the natural division between languages, nations, and political systems. Setting borders and shifting borders will be a design strategy for the studio, proposing a Special Cultural Zone bridging both sides of the river in Školjić. The zone was the source of energy, drinking water, and work, intensively used by industry. Today the area is very close to the city center, providing a unique opportunity for developing Rijeka's urban qualities. Students will design solutions by prototyping the process for a new urban paradigm in the context of environmental, social, and governance issues. We provide the base for each student to develop her/his multi-disciplinary approach that builds urban design projects upon common ground. Students will be encouraged to interpret the United Nations (Sustainable Development Goals) SDG's, articulating an individual and critical position on the potential role of the architect to guide a design process within broader social, political, and economic systems.

Informed by the chairs ongoing research in the Balkan region, starting in Athens, Sarajevo, this semester, engages in Rijeka, Croatia, with teaching, making, and researching the city.
Lecture notesStudents will research by studying existing international test cases, formulating their design hypothesis, planning urban scenarios, modeling their designs through various formats, and communicating their intentions in a series of critiques and reviews.

A series of lectures, screenings, readings, and discussions will accompany the design program. Selected experts will give these from the fields of architecture, urbanism, landscape, building technologies, and associated disciplines, as well as experts from the Chair. Workshops and in-studio tutorials will be provided to train students in effective methods of representing complex ideas through visual media.
LiteratureReading material will be provided throughout the semester, as well as references to case studies.

The class material can be downloaded from the student-server.
Prerequisites / NoticeIntegrated Discipline: Planning
Language: English and German
Work: Groups (max. 2) / Individual
Location: ONA, E25
No extra costs.

Team: Prof. Hubert Klumpner; Arch. Dipl. Ing. M.Arch (Cooper Union) Melanie Fessel; M.Arch (Mendrisio) Diogo Rabaca Figueiredo.

Seminar Week: Trieste, ITA, Rijeka, HRV, Ljubljana, SVN
Travel Dates: 14.-20. March 2020
The seminar week is not obligatory but highly recommended.

Integrated Workshops: Drawing & Representation Skills | Introduction to Graphic Tools: Rhinoceros 3D, V-Ray, Grasshopper, Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. No special software skills required.

Elective Course: 'ACTION! On the Real City' is offered as an extension to the studio, teaching skills in 3D modeling, filmmaking, and animating.

All inquiries can be directed to Melanie Fessel - fessel@arch.ethz.ch
063-0816-20LACTION! On the Real City (Thesis Elective) Information Restricted registration - show details 6 credits13AH. Klumpner
AbstractIn relation to the elective course "ACTION!" students will have the possibility to extend their research into the behaviours and components that make up the urban realm. A special focus on the processes and mechanisms of (in)formal urban forms and systems will characterise the research. Specific research goals tailored to individual interests will be discussed before proceeding.
ObjectiveThe course will help frame an understanding of the forces shaping (in)formal settlements and the critical behaviours, requirements and practices of its inhabitants. It will also encourage the development of an analytical and critical position on the potential role of the architect to mediate a design process within broader socio-economic, political and ecologic systems.
064-0018-20LResearch Methods in Landscape and Civic Design Information Restricted registration - show details 3 credits2KG. Vogt, C. Girot, H. Klumpner, F. Persyn, C. Schmid, M. Topalovic
AbstractAs part of the ‘Doctoral Program in Landscape and Urban Studies’, the ‘Research Methods in Landscape and Civic Design' seminar offers PhD students at the D-Arch an application-oriented introduction into the variety of methodologies and tools available to conduct research on the (built) environment at the urban and territorial scale.
ObjectiveThe seminar's objective is to introduce PhD students to the multitude of research methodologies, tools and techniques within the fields of urban studies, urban design, territorial planning and landscape architecture. Based on the conveyed knowledge, the seminar ultimately aims at enabling PhD candidates to critically assess existing methods and tools, and to refine and develop an academically sound research framework for their own studies.
ContentThe seminar is organized along three modules that are arranged according to the PhD classes' particular needs:

A: Methodology Module >>> Introduction of a research methodology by an expert / short contributions by PhD students + exercise and discussion / moderated by doctoral program coordinator (Lecturer/Dozent). This will include quantitative and qualitative methods such as ethnographic research, case study research, grounded theory, survey design, mapping, methods in statistical and data analysis, etc. (3-4 per semester)

B: Literature Module >>> Reading sessions organized and conducted by doctoral program coordinator (Lecturer/Dozent) / invited experts from the Department. These sessions will support the methodology modules with theoretical and historical texts with a specifically tailored reading syllabus. (4-5 per semester).

C: Techniques Module >>> Introduction into research techniques and tools / organized by doctoral program coordinator (Lecturer/Dozent) / conducted by respective experts. These modules will make students familiar with technical aspects such as academic writing, or the the use of GIS software, the ETH library or the gta archive, etc.(2-3 per semester)
Prerequisites / NoticeThe seminar is jointly organized by the coordinator of the Doctoral Program in Landscape and Urban Studies, and the I-LUS faculty. Although located at the D-Arch, the seminar is open to all doctoral students at ETH who are involved or interested in research at the urban and territorial scale.