‘Cinema is a verb’ is a master’s studio observing the meeting between a mode of construction (the temporary) and a very specific program (the movie theater). The cinema department of HEAD – Genève finds itself in dire need of a space for pedagogical and event-related movie projections, and we will conceive proposals that bring together the very down-to-earth necessities of the program and the various imaginaries that it carries. We will challenge what a cinema can be, what a temporary construction is expected to feel and sound like, what it means (both for interior architecture and cinema) to emit an image.

The design will be carried out in three phases: a) by approaching the program and its potentials via a collection of shared references; b) by making concrete proposals both individually and in small groups; c) by working as a large team in order to cover all the complexities of a 1:1 construction. At the end of the semester, the collective project will reach a level of resolution allowing it to be carried towards realization in 2024.

The intention of our studio is to provide students with both the theoretical and practical means to respond to the transformations of climates resulting from global warming in terms of habitability, while striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit ongoing global warming. We will study and apply practical architectural solutions to survive in increasingly hot temperatures, while implementing low-carbon strategies to reduce the energy consumed in building operation and through the type of materials and construction to limit CO2 emissions. This initial climatic approach to architecture will be combined with an ecological approach through an understanding of the physiology of living beings and plants, in terms of the chemical, physical, and biological exchanges, light, humidity, temperature, and nutrition required for survival.

The semester will be organized around a balance between research and design, enabling architectural solutions to be based on a solid understanding of the climatic, chemical, physical, and biological phenomena involved. The subject of study will be the construction of a greenhouse in Geneva, but maybe not the warm greenhouse as in the 19th century, in the manner of the Palm House where the societies of the cold West sought to reproduce the warmth of milder climates thanks to fossil fuels, but one that is climatically inverted, but a cold greenhouse, proper to the 21st century, where the societies of a West that has become too hot seek to reproduce the coldness of milder climates (perhaps that of yesteryear) thanks to renewable energies. To the “Palm House” of the 19th century, we propose to design an “Edelweiss House” too, as the construction of a cold microclimate in the now scorching macro-climate of the West.

UFOs (unidentified floating objects) investigate the inhabited waters of Lake Léman, and the role played by humans in the mid-water ecosystem. The lake and the Rhône River host various types of floating structures, each with specific programmatic objectives. Filtering water to purify it, diving into water to measure it, lying on top of water to live on it, embedding into water to move through it, and traveling in between waters to interact with it — these are just a few activities performed through specific architectural devices that offer insight into the contemporary relationship between water resources and the everyday life of Geneva.

During a five-day workshop, groups of students will be tasked with imagining a floating device with a specific programmatic purpose. On the final day, all participants will navigate down the Rhône together within their constructed architectures. Using only reused materials for their construction, all the architectures will be dismantled and stored for future reuse.

Workshop tutors:
HEAD – Genève : Leonid Slonimskiy, Paule Perron
Camondo : Valentin Dubois, Artus Monat

Interior Ecologies considers the ways in which the ecological turn in art, activism and theory is impacting, influencing and reshaping priorities and methodologies in architecture, design and art. Guest speakers from diverse disciplines will present their practices and how it connects to worldmaking, more-than-human perspectives and environmental breakdown, while discussions and workshops with students will bring these subjects to bear on their individual interests and practices.

Through this course, students will also be supported in the development of their thesis projects, which this year divides into two complementary formats: one academic, research paper; as well as a project that takes experimental, narrative, curatorial or image-based forms.

The construction sector is one of the most polluting in the world. What was seen as a source of value a few centuries ago has become a source of waste. We are facing an over-consumption of materials, equipment and lighting, to the detriment of the environment and the well-being of the users.
This course aims to develop skills related to a circular approach of interior architecture by making students aware of the alternatives and different actors linked to the reuse of materials and eco-conception.

The course takes place during 3 weeks, working on a specific site to re-discover and valorize its ressources. Different actions will be explored: Identify the value of materials, test the possibilities of dismantling, contribute to the reuse network’s extention, design from available ressources. The collective and participative actions will be completed by a series of lectures.

“The Interiors of Humanitarian Design” investigates the utilization of emerging technologies, design processes, and knowledge from political science to address humanitarian crises, with a particular emphasis on interior spaces. This interdisciplinary course aims to discover innovative solutions and enhance the living conditions of individuals affected by humanitarian emergencies. Contemporary conflicts are occurring more frequently and enduring longer, refugee flows are rapidly destabilizing geopolitical structures, and humanitarian actors are facing increasing threats. Given these challenges, the course is organized around experimental action research, in which international-relations scholars will collaborate with architects, designers, and engineers to enhance humanitarian practices and conditions.

The goals of the course are: 1) to explore how we can better integrate ‘high theoretical’ and ‘critical’ social scientific concepts and theories into the realm of practice, including humanitarian work, 2) to examine the potential for closer collaboration between social sciences and engineering, architecture, and design practices and knowledge, and 3) to address the urgent task, particularly in light of recent geopolitical events, of working collaboratively across disciplines to improve the conditions of the world’s most vulnerable populations. This course is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Geneva Graduate Institute, the University of Copenhagen, the Department of Interior Architecture at HEAD – Genève, and the EssentialTechLab at EPFL Lausanne. It includes contributions from partners such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Terre des Hommes, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as partnerships with research institutions in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Rather than situating interior architecture as an all-encompassing field designing the domestic cohabitation of animals and humans, this workshop will resort to this discipline to critically revise the validity of this historical phenomenon from a material and spatial perspective. Away from the notion of “pet” ––questioned by new theoretical approaches to the relationship between humans and non-humans–– this workshop aims to identify the role that interior design has traditionally played in animal domestication in home interiors. The final ambition of the workshop is to prefigure non-hierarchical relations diverging from the imposition of human matter and spatial domestic standards to other species.

Students will collectively work as a research unit on a publication, to be presented at the end of the workshop. After reading together a few key texts from fields such as history of science, biology and philosophy, they will be asked to map out current discussions regarding the presence of animals in domestic spaces through clipping from general printed and online media written in the languages each of the students speak. This includes new legal frameworks, political polemics, the transformation of the home, the design of new architectural artifacts, etc. As a way to make the workshop’s discussions public, students’ ongoing research will be presented through HEAD MAIA’s online platforms.

The second edition of the Interior Ecologies conference, organized by MAIA, Master of Arts in Interior Architecture at HEAD – Geneva, and the Institute for Postnatural Studies, will delve into the intersection between the built environment and new emerging ecologies, exploring the impact of digitalization on interior architecture and its relationship to computational ecologies, social media, non-human relations, postnatural territories, videogames, and artificial intelligence. The conference will be fully online, with free registration and open access, and will integrate innovative formats of broadcast, fostering interaction between speakers, audience, and AI-generated content. The event will feature a series of lectures, round tables, and experimental workshops, showcasing the latest research and design approaches in interior architecture.

What is the material agency of contemporary digital ecologies? This course will focus on widening the scope of what implies to celebrate and coordinate a digital symposium. From experimenting with the format to the design and production of the communication material, the final outcome will be a full-scale commission of a virtual event, including the virtual platform, the communication strategy, and the panel organization. From the explicit geological implications of the production and functioning of our digital technologies to the generation of new diffuse materialities through virtual tools, the slidings between materiality and virtuality open a new paradigm of understanding the construction of nature.

The Joint Master of Architecture (JMA) was created in 2005 and is a Master’s degree programme in architecture organised jointly by the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO). A recognised stakeholder in higher education in architecture in Switzerland, JMA cultivates close links with national and international academic circles, applied research and the world of professional practice.

Taking place in several cities all over Europe, students will be able to chose between a range of one-week seminar addressing contemporary issues such as discovering re-use architectural methods, studying and discussing the notion of the urban ecosystem, where humans and other living beings cohabit, the analysis of the very specific urban fabric of Venice, or understanding the main characteristics of bio-based fiber materials.

The Joint Master of Architecture (JMA) was created in 2005 and is a Master’s degree programme in architecture organised jointly by the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO). A recognised stakeholder in higher education in architecture in Switzerland, JMA cultivates close links with national and international academic circles, applied research and the world of professional practice.

As part of its optional courses, the Joint Master of Architecture offers a wide range of courses led by international guests. These modules include courses like “Image and Architecture”, “An environmental approach to urban, landscape, and architecture design history”, “La grande ville : poison et remède”. The exhaustive list of the modules can be find on the JMA Website.

With the metaverse quickly approaching us, we are currently attending to the creation of the blueprints that will become the foundation of a new mixed reality where digital and physical will intertwine. It is extremely interesting how architects, developers, philosophers, sociologists, thinkers and every other discipline are joining forces with digital artists to design what will become our new world: a reality where digital will be integrated within our own senses. In this context, as designers we must learn a new visual language, that one of the digital world. Our reality is changing so fast that the only option is to design for the future.

In this course we will learn to conceptualize, design and develop our own metaverse using VR and AR software. To do so, we will learn the basics in virtual and augmented reality design, from a short historic review of game-changing case studies by net artists and designers to the irruption of hypermedia information structures. We will learn how to navigate in 3D environments, to design virtual interactive spaces open to a public audience, and to expand our metaverse into the real world using augmented reality filters.

This class will aim to define Public interiors and spaces by translating what can be seen by each student into specific images. Students will then intervene on these images to unlock the potentials of the given space.

The purpose of this class is to see and analyze spaces by visiting and documenting through photographs. We will work together to find the best possible ways in which these images can be presented and the ways in which they can be used by the (student) author to state a position. Finally, we will intervene in the images, or in the way in which these images are presented and organized to show the chosen spaces anew.

Following the coming together of immersive (mixed reality) and Web3 technologies (opened by the Ethereum blockchain in 2015), the line between physical and virtual worlds has never been so thin. The link between these two sectors has major implications for interior architecture, which has become an expanded field ranging from video games to “impossible” spaces (4D, non-Euclidean perspective, etc.). This course studies the future of architectural practices. Which new business models and value chains have been opened by these technologies? What might be considered “authentic” digital architecture? What are the consequences in terms of creation?

The main objective of the module is to demystify blockchain and mixed reality technologies. The topics covered range from cypherpunk ideologies to the financial crisis issue, the technical functioning of blockchain technologies, the societal challenges of web3, and the applications of tokenomics, NFTs and decentralised governance to architecture. The course offers a simple understanding of these issues through a series of lectures followed by short practical workshops. Students will be able to anticipate major changes in interior design related to digital technologies. The course is based on new business models, through a prospective and professionalising perspective.

The built environment is a major contributor to greenhouse gases: 40% of CO2 emissions are attributed to it. Half of this impact is linked to construction materials. In Switzerland, two thirds of waste come from construction sites. Faced with the climate emergency, reducing the CO2 impact of the construction industry is becoming a major challenge. The reuse of materials is an effective way to reduce waste and the CO2 impact of construction. The objective of the course is to learn about the process of reuse and the issues and constraints related to it. The fact that building materials are not chosen solely according to the architectural will of the designer, but rather according to the temporary and random availability of buildings being demolished, profoundly changes the project process. New knowledge and new constraints must be taken into account for the design of a structure.

The course wants to provide a holistic view of the practice so that students will be able to navigate when they wish to apply reuse. The following topics will be covered:
– Locating and identifying buildings for demolition.
– Analyzing a building for deconstruction and assessing the quality of building components.
– Dismantling, transporting, storing and reconditioning building elements.
– Know the different actors of reuse.
– Design from reused elements and manage the unknown and the unexpected in a project process.
– Design in anticipation of dismantling.
– Manage the quality of reused materials and guarantee their conformity to standards.
– Build with reused elements.

Public space is an omnipresent subject of debate. Whether it is a question of its design, its transformation, its requalification, its appropriation or simply its definition, it is an unavoidable criterion for evaluating the quality of a place, a neighborhood or an urban project, and it also carries political, social and environmental implications. Although consubstantial with the idea of the city as air and water are with life, the very notion of public space remains rather abstract and difficult to grasp, the only consensus emerging today on its subject being that of its importance.
Indeed, the rapid growth of the city over the last seventy years and its expansion over the entire territory have completely changed our relationship to urban public space, making it often illegible, dimensionless and multiple in its nature, uses and assignments, erasing the landmarks on which our urban culture has been built over the centuries.

The objective of this seminar is to approach this topic by admitting as a working hypothesis that despite all the flaws that we find in it, the contemporary city can only be observed as the embodiment of contemporary values, as a more or less coordinated or controlled response to the needs of our society as they have been expressed during the last decades. This objective is based on the conviction that a critical but attentive observation remains the only way to understand a little better the space of our cities, its functionality, its values and its uses and to take an active and useful role in the project on the city.

In the EVE 2023 module, we will look at the relationship between architecture and music and translate it into the construction of an outdoor stage for the Theater Orchestra Biel Solothurn at the Lake of Biel.

The topic will be presented to students in the form of lectures. We will analyze the specific requirements that buildings such as concert halls and outdoor stages must meet and explain interesting analogies between architectural and musical composition and aesthetics. Evening film screenings and musical performances will illustrate these relationships with concrete examples. As a practical exercise, we will build the Resonance Pavilion – an outdoor stage for the Theater Orchestra Biel Solothurn (TOBS). As part of an option course during spring semester, students design a modular system. As part of EVE, the students use this system to design a pavilion that responds to the specific location and acoustic requirements of the users.

The best solution will be selected through an internal competition. The students will then manufacture the modules from recycled material and assemble them. The final day will be devoted to musical performances and a party.
The objective of this seminar is for students to get a better understanding of the various relationships and potential synergies between the two disciplines of architecture and music. Students will learn how the physical properties of material and construction techniques can contribute to the creation of specific atmospheres in built structures and influence the human experience. In addition, they will learn about different methods of working with wood and reused materials. In interdisciplinary teams, they will respond to complex logistical, construction and planning constraints.

The city of Geneva is characterized by a high commercial building vacancy rate, covering commercial arcades, production workshops as well as office spaces. This vacancy is as much due to the obsolescence of the built spaces as to the relocation of polluting activities from the secondary sector towards peripheral or even international territories. This space vacancy is placed in parallel with local needs of temporary housing, more particularly in this case; student housing.

If for the last twenty years demolishing to rebuild more densely has been the doctrine of the renewal of the city; energy crisis, ressource shortages as well as rising awareness of ordinary heritage erasure invite us to think and act differently. Here, it will be a matter of conserving rather than destroying, of reusing rather than consuming. We will work in collaboration with the Cigue (acronym of Coopérative immobilière genevoise universitaire et estudiantine, a housing cooperative for people in learning) who’s wish is to develop a student housing program in vacant office buildings.

The singularity of this studio will be to occupy the building of the rue des Maraîchers 5 throughout the semester. Thus the space will initially be appropriated to work, produce and live. Occupying the space will allow us to conduct in depth observations and to take all of its inhabitancy dimensions into account. If Maraîchers 5 is to become a place to live and work, it will also be a place to host and exchange with speakers invited to feed our reflection with their experiences. Finally, the Maraîchers 5 will become the place where the proposals will be displayed and prefigured at the end of the semester.

The abundance of energy provided by coal and oil for more than a century has gradually made us lose the understanding of the natural dependence of human products, of the aesthetics and design, on material, non-human conditions, which actually participate as much in the success of artistic creation as the human genius. What would be the aesthetics of the 1960s without oil, which allows plastic and all those molded forms typical of the sixties aesthetics. What would be the aesthetics of the 2000s without 3D software? What would be the modern aesthetic without coal that allows central heating and air conditioning? What would have been the Roman architecture if Vitruvius worked with autocad? What shape would Le Corbusier’s buildings have taken if he had worked in 3D on Rhino? How would have been the gothic cathedrals if the universal gravity did not exist? What would the Swiss chalet have looked like if there was no snow?

Our interior design project workshop will question the dependence of design on non-human material conditions of representation, construction, conditions, by accepting that the pencil, the eraser, the ink, the 2D software, the 3D software, but also the wood, the earth, the stone, but also the rain, the wind, the gravity, each one can be co-author of the project with the human.

Postnatural Studies is presented as a conceptual frame of thinking by means of which to generate a critical practice toward new contemporary interiors. The object of the course would delve into putting into crisis the shared and shaped imaginary and concept of “what is natural”, applying new perspectives on Botanics and coexistence, thus guiding both the theoretical and material outcomes of this course.

By looking at crucial aspects of our recent history through the lens of contemporary artistic production, this course will aim toward the proposition of new spaces for coexistence, materially and conceptually, not only with other species but also with other entities such as research institutions, technology, and domestic and professional interiors.

The course aims to develop a set of conceptual and practical tools for designers to adapt to a multi-perspectival, multispecies sense of the planetary. 

In the first sessions, we will share and investigate examples from art, architecture and design, from Superflux’s Refuge for Resurgence and Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte and Lina Lapelyte’s Sun & Sea, through to the practices of Formafantasma and Pierre Huyghe – as well as research from critical anthropology, animal and plant studies. 

This will facilitate the development of a cosmology of ‘the external’ (feral proliferations, externalities, messy entanglements). Collectively, we will then seek strategies, both conceptual and practical, to bring those into view.

Students will be encouraged to develop a project (which can be developed as a tangible installation or a speculative fabulation) that responds to specific questions prompted by reflections on more-than-human umwelts, translatability, interior/exterior spaces, and other subjects.

The last book written about the history of architecture was strongly influenced by postmodern theories, at a time when political, social, economic, and cultural reasons were predominantly used to explain the causes and consequences of the emergence of a particular form or style. Induced by the massive and easy access to energy and by the progress of medicine, this cultural history largely ignored the physical, geographical, climatic, or bacteriological reasons that actually helped shape, in a decisive way and over centuries, the architectural form, i.e., that of buildings, from cities to interior decoration.

Our Environmental and Ecological History of Architecture courses will highlight the natural, physical, biological, and climatic causes that have influenced the development of architectural history and its figures, from prehistory until today, in order to understand how to face the major environmental challenges of our century and to design a better response to climate emergency.

The course will address the influence of digital culture and digital media, covering such areas as virtual reality and LIDAR technology on architectural heritage and the built environment. It will combine disciplinary and historical analysis with experimental technological research.

The programme takes the form of theory classes combined with practical workshops. The classes will be animated by group discussions and supported by technical, prototype-oriented workshops in which students will learn to demonstrate their ideas and arguments through their own projects.

Students are expected to question the literature and known works in the field, explore new speculative spaces, and provide documentation for their work.

The fight against global warming has now become a global priority that is legislated by international conferences and regulated in the architectural field in multiple countries around the world, from Passivhaus in Germany, Minergie in Switzerland, LEED in the USA, RT2012 and RE2020 in France, QSAS in Qatar, the various Green Building Assessments in Hong Kong or Taiwan. The field of architecture and building construction lies at the forefront of this battle.

The challenge today is to reduce the energy consumed by the building, usually by better managing the building’s thermal insulation and air renewal. We also have to work on the grey energy of construction, the carbon footprint of materials and recycling, often related to the heat requested for fabricating the material.

The studio explores different spatial design strategies to update the art of interior architecture in response to the above-mentioned challenges of our time. Each student is invited to re-imagine their childhood house or any interior of a building made before 1970 and transform it into a zero-emission project. The process unfolds in two phases, research and design. First, students investigate the site and its location, its challenges and opportunities, including but not limited to the local climate, cultural- historical-social-context, materials and architectural typologies. Students analyze the building from the point of view of its thermal performance and map its current weaknesses and problems in order to correct them with imagination. Secondly, students adapt their findings to invent both programs and architectural expressions.

The “Practical Master Thesis” module aims to demonstrate the conceptual and creative capacities acquired through the realization of an interior architecture or complete space design project. Such a project can be freely developed by the student or can be carried out for a representative. 

The student must demonstrate their abilities to understand and use the space and the context of the construction, to determine and develop a creative concept, to choose adequate techniques, to master the professional tools of representation, to consider the costs and specific constraints of the project, as well as its communication skills in the presentation and defense of its realization.

Throughout the history of architecture and interior space design, images have been an integral part of designed spaces, embedded either in walls or ceilings, not only in private villas to show wealth and opulence, but consistently in public spaces, to guide and inform, celebrate achievements or commemorate events. This was done through various techniques and materials, often by well-known artists and architects. In this course we will review existing examples in public spaces and will offer a contemporary version of embedded images in our contemporary public spaces making use of current technologies and techniques.

Starting by observing a series of historic examples of images that are embedded in public architecture, we will redraw them using a specific perspective (either drawing or a collage). After that we will choose an unbuilt contemporary public space, in which we will offer a contemporary ‘image’ embedded in architecture using a 1:10 scale model, in which students can place their projects.

The history of architecture written these last decades was strongly influenced by critical thinking and postmodern theories of the second half of the 20th century when political, social, economic, and cultural reasons dominated the system of explaining the causes and consequences of the emergence of a form, a style, or a language.

Induced by a context of massive and easy access to energy and by the progress of medicine, this history that precedes us, that can be described as cultural, has largely ignored the physical, geographical, climatic, or bacteriological reasons that have, in reality, shaped, in a decisive way, over centuries, the architectural form, that of buildings, from cities to interior decoration. Our objective or realistic history of architecture courses will highlight the natural, physical, biological, and climatic causes that have influenced the development of architectural history and its figures, from prehistory until today, in order to understand how to face the major environmental challenges of our century and build in a better way in response to climate urgency.

The construction sector is one of the most polluting in the world. What was seen as a source of value a few centuries ago has become a source of waste. We are facing an over-consumption of materials, equipment and lighting, to the detriment of the environment and the well-being of the users.

This course aims to develop skills related to a circular approach of interior architecture by making students aware of the alternatives and different actors linked to the reuse of materials and eco-conception. The course is divided in 7 sessions, each organised around a sub-theme related to circularity. Theoretical contents will be proposed in the form of lectures, while keeping participative moments and exchanges with the students. Part of the sessions will be directly linked to an exploration in the field to discover and put into practice the tools acquired. The research, contents and results of each session will be presented through a final exhibition.

This course combines theory and practice related to the design and manufacture of objects (furniture, accessory, or lighting solution for interior spaces). It consists of four parts.

The first part reflects on the purpose of physical furniture within a VR-designed space by analyzing an existing case study. The second part focuses on the sensory level of these cases using hand sketches and collage. The third part is dedicated to furniture manufacturing processes, studying different types of structures, carpentry techniques, materials, and finishes. The final part challenges students to propose a new reinterpretation within the subject of Physicality vs. VR Spaces. Students will technically develop an object, research the materials and manufacturing methods to build the object on a 1: 1 scale (sampling parts or full objects to be defined during the course).

This applied theory course involves lectures and discourse as primers for technical, prototype-oriented research. Students will be familiarized with emerging technologies such as 3d-scanning, AR/VR and 3d-printing as well as current research on the impact of these technologies on the built environment. They will then apply their new knowledge and skills to seek new forms of ‘virtual preservation’ of architectural heritage.

The outcome of the course is multifold. Students are expected to gain a general understanding of architectural heritage and the ability to perform case study work on individual building or site of historical significance. They will also be able to deploy a range of arguments and interpretations of heritage strategies upon such building or site. Additionally, through hands-on work, students will develop competence in conducting experimental prototype work as a rigorous research method. The final delivery is a virtual preservation prototype in AR/VR.

This semester is a continuation of our ongoing interest in uncelebrated buildings in new territories, reflecting on their potentials and ‘publicness’, their interiors and the possible influences of such spaces on the surrounding landscapes. While contemporary domestic architecture is characterized by a supremely dry and neutral palette of interiors, and public buildings are bunker-like objects turning their back on the public realm, this studio challenges these modest strategies by exploring and reinventing new typologies that could blur the boundaries between the public and domestic, the interior and exterior, the old and new.

First, we will do field works on selected high points within the valley of the Rhone which are not only markers within the landscape but also built heritage with listed structures. Then, we will investigate the settlements down the river, identifying buildings and spaces of comparatively unknown heritage. These findings are envisioned as ‘active heritage’ where we will conceive architectural projects which allow for the coexistence of the above-mentioned binary categories. We will define spatial strategies and constructive details that not only carry such coexistence but also put unknown heritage under the spotlight.

Students will get to collaborate with various brands and designers including but not limited to Kai Reaver (VR / 3D Scan), Andrea Caruso Dalmas (Object / Retail), Lilet Breddels & Arjen Oosterman (Print / Content), Mitch Paone & Xavier Erni (Typography / Graphic  Design, to be confirmed), and Press partners.

Cruising Pavilion is a course dedicated to the history of different LGBTQI+ sexual encounter areas, following the eponymous exhibition project presented in Venice, New York and Stockholm. Whether they are appropriate (parks, toilets, car parks, etc.) or dedicated (sex clubs, saunas, chat rooms, dating applications, etc.), the evolution of these places traces the history of dissident sexualities from their clandestinity to their emancipation. The aim is to analyze their spatial constructions and their influence on the history of forms from the 20th century to the present day. This course will present architectural case studies and artistic projects related to this counterculture. Cruising will be presented as an act of politicization of the city, a site of invention and sexual affirmation and a laboratory for the avant-garde.

The aim of this course is to lay the foundations for a book on the architecture of cruising entitled Cruising Pavilion, an Architectural Reader. From a typology of appropriate and dedicated meeting places, we will identify the main spatial installations invented by these sexual countercultures. Architectural plans, accounts, ephemera, design prototypes and urban interventions will be part of the materials used to trace the history of this practice. Alongside this, the course will trace the influence of cruising in art, film and literature. Some of the contributions produced as a result of the course will be included in the publication project planned for 2022

Facing a constantly transforming world, especially within the hallmark of our modern life – work and the workplace, this studio seeks to re-imagine the oftentimes sad and even depressive spaces associated to the ubiquitous condition of work loss: unemployment centers and vacation homes for the unemployed. Centered around the idea of rebirth, the studio challenges students to draw from existing resources (abandoned buildings, unused materials) to renew work (unemployment center in combination with diagnostics center, job fair, co-working, startup incubator, learning center, makers space) and life (temporary living structures in remote areas for people to recharge while looking for new jobs).

The studio combines design with research where students will investigate the future of work and smart reuse of materials to derive appropriate programs and design strategies. Students will work both collectively (unemployment center) and individually (vacation house). Site visits, lectures series, and guest juries with experts in the field of future scenario research, architectural renovation and material recycling will accompany students through this discovery journey.

The class “Socio-Political practices in architecture” introduces students to key spatial concepts that offer points of entry into contemporary transformations of space and spatial practices across multiple scales – from the planetary to the intimate – and into their social, political or ideological dimensions. The course is structured as an exploration of spatial ontologies – the different spatial categories and objects that make up our world – and their interrelations. This will lead us from concepts of space, place, and territories to those of the body and affect, but also networks and infrastructures, objects and matter.

Students will be introduced to symmetrical ontological approaches according to which humans and non-humans exist on a continuum, enter complex assemblages and all possess a capacity to change the world. At the same time, we will analyse the way these spatial categories are shaped by multiple lines of conflict, including between capital and labour, migration and borders, race and gender relations.

This course stems from a romantic idea of the city where there exist unoccupied spaces that could be one’s haven. It seeks to analyze such hidden and oftentimes unlit spaces and represent them in radical ways through a wide range of mediums. The process of architectural design starts with the act of seeing and observing whose end result does not stop with the built structure. Each architectural project comes to life the second time through documentation and visualization. In this studio, we treat architectural documentation as a design project in and of itself by going through a rigorous process.

First, students are asked to identify “unlit” spaces in the city, investigating why and how they are hidden from view. Second, they would develop a strategy to “capture” these spaces, whether with long exposure photography, film, or 3D scan. Finally, they would reproduce these “captured images” on a new medium, to transform what has been observed and documented into a new “image or object”, either a photographic print in a certain size or installation or even a scaled down 3D printed copy.

An ecological, objective, materialist, environmental, and realist approach to urban, architecture and interior design history

The course is an ex cathedra course presenting the history of architecture, interior decoration, and urban planning, followed by conversations on the contemporary consequences of the topics covered in the lectures, which will also be based on the design projects elaborated by the students. The History of Architecture written these last decades was dominated by critical thinking and post-modern theories of the second half of the 20th century. The causes and consequences of the emergence of a form, a style, or a language were attributed to political, social, economic, and cultural reasons.

Induced by a context of massive and easy access to energy as well as the progress of medicine, this History that precedes us can be described as cultural. It has, in fact, largely ignored the physical, geographical, climatic, or bacteriological reasons that have shaped the architectural form of buildings, in a decisive way, over centuries, from cities to interior decoration. Our objective or realistic History of Architecture course will highlight the natural, physical, biological, and climatic causes that have influenced the development of architectural history and its figures, from prehistory until today, in order to understand how to face the major environmental challenges of our century and build in a better way in response to climate urgency.

*This course is offered Fall Semester, 2020

The MA Thesis: Perspectives on Heritage course offers a parallel track. On the one hand, it opens up perspectives on the students’ thesis topics via the voices of several guest lecturers, who throughout the semester bring in varied perspectives around the themes of media and heritage.

On the other hand, it follows and supports students during the making of their masters’ thesis, offering clear guidelines and objectives as they develop the theoretical milestone of their diploma.

The course centers around the idea of legacy in the world of architecture and design. On the one hand, the creative production process is fed by the historical experience of the profession (accumulated/incremental expertise) and the inspiration from the work of predecessors: designs and built projects. On the other hand, a current day practitioner must consider what his/her design will contribute to the world.

No matter how commercial one’s future practice will be, this is a reality check that has become inescapable. Thus, “The legacy” challenges students to reflect on their own critical position towards their future practice as well as exploring what legacy means to practitioners who focus on heritage. With a teaching format that combines theoretical classes and writing exercises, students will acquire skills in research, writing, positioning, and interviewing.

This course accompanies the design studio program. Through a combination of lectures, readings, discussions, and hands-on exercises, it provides students with an understanding of the different means to disseminate architecture as well as the necessary skills to represent their own or others’ works or ideas. First, students study a wide range of formats – exhibitions, biennials, design weeks, festivals, debates, (online) magazines, books – as containers for thoughts.

Then, they will practice interviewing, writing and editing texts for blogposts and press releases, making info graphics, and creating a portfolio. By the end of the course, students will have adopted skills in communication, transcription, and mastered in choices of dissemination formats.

While contemporary domestic architecture is characterized by a supremely dry and neutral palette of interiors, and public buildings are bunker-like objects turning their back on the public realm, this studio challenges these modest strategies by exploring and reinventing new typologies that could blur the boundaries between the public and domestic, the interior and exterior, the old and new.

Inspired by the limited mobility of our time, the studio offers a return to the region’s mythical lakeshore to rediscover its hidden treasures and unknown architectural heritage that could give rise to new public programs. This process consists of two phases. First, by using photography and comprehensive drawings, we will survey the shoreline together with its various existing architectural conditions and their qualities. Then, we will define spatial strategies and constructive details to conceive buildings that could enable the coexistence of seemingly opposite categories as mentioned above.

MAIA’s first semester studio is a unique collaboration between India Mahdavi and HEAD-Genève. Reflecting on the concept of « herbarium » as understood within interior architecture – spaces whose image oscillates between content and representation, we propose to revisit a diverse collection of timeless interior spaces and typologies that marked their time but now remain only through photography, from Le Palace club, the Playboy apartment, to XX bank. Updated as a magnificent Herbarium of Interiors in Milan, these spaces replicate not their original images but their mythologies, experiences, and associated cultures.

Few formats define more accurately the relationship between presence and obliteration than the herbarium. Deprived of life, herbarium specimens acquire a new condition in their timelessness: they exist only in the space of representation, simultaneously as the content and result of depiction.

These objects become their own image. Along the same line, India Mahdavi’s 2014 temporary restaurant, The Gallery at Sketch in London, has become the most circulated and shared space in the history of images.

This is the hypothesis that defines us today: to rewrite the history of interior architecture through interior architecture; to understand that certain mythical scenes have not only been witnesses of an era but also become the preachers of future times — mythical places of cultural productions or social incubators which are capable of drawing and redrawing the frame of time.

This applied theory course involves in-class lectures and discussions as well as technical, prototype-oriented workshops, where students get to explore unknown and speculative areas within the field of architectural heritage in relation to contemporary digital media. The course seeks to familiarize students with both disciplines through important literature and individual heritage conservation cases that have shaped the former, and emerging trends within the later as well as their impact on the built environment.

The outcome of the course is multifold. On the one hand, students will obtain a general understanding of architectural heritage and be able to perform case study work on individual building or site of historical significance to deploy a range of arguments and interpretations of heritage strategies upon such building or site. On the other hand, through hands-on experimental technical prototype construction and documentation exercises, they will develop competence in conducting experimental prototype work as a rigorous research method.