Panels

The panels deal with questions on specific topics as well as their relevance to education. These topics are roughly related to departmental expertise and scales of architectural teaching. Education as the central cross-sectional subject of the conference is an important focus of all panels.

1. PROGRAMMING

   LESS form, more performance
   Holistic programming of climate responsive architecture

   

   Holistic design and engineering approaches offer the potential to realize strategies aimed at "form follows performance". Such strategies serve to integrate multiple component parameters, especially those oriented on climate responsibility. As a result, the focus widens, from individual requirements of a single building or structure to agglomerations of building structures, influenced by specific local climate and site factors. The basis for such strategies are synergetic programming approaches that encompass the resulting project life cycle in its entirety. The underlying programming "grammar" includes aspects of site, climate, design, construction, execution, operation, maintenance, renovation, reuse and others. We strongly suggest that the balancing of parameters (geography, ecology, technology, volume, energy, envelope, floor plan / section, material and ventilation) must be distinctively programmed, creatively designed, efficiently engineered and generally optimized. This systematically spans the very beginning of a project and the entire planning, building and life cycle process. The holistic aim is to achieve a comprehensively optimized solution that is practical, climate responsive and sustainable.

   Finally, the underlying programming grammar of the project should minimize the amount of disturbances to the existing ecology and the carbon footprint, based on a rigorous, yet responsive checklist.¹

   The call for papers is intended to motivate research in terms of better “balancing” these aspects of a programming grammar in architectural education. This includes, but isn't limited to questions as follows:

   • Are holistic programming approaches already included in international architectural and planning curricula and what related teaching concepts and tools find use?
   • What cognitive skills do students need to demonstrate in order to acquire network skills and teamwork ability?
   • Does the aim of balancing art, beauty, programming and performance lead to confusion or even conflict?
   • Which (digital) tools do students need to propose performance-based design and engineering solutions?
   • Should we develop more „app-type“ teaching methods for an increasingly integrated architectural and engineering education?

2. DESIGN

   

   LESS new, more preservation
   Ideational and typological rethinking of existing buildings

   In the future, the essential and most important part of architectural work will be the preservation/maintenance, the adaptation/reuse and the further development/continued building of existing spaces. Experts largely agree on this. If we intend to reach the climate targets, we ourselves have set, we will only be able to build new spaces to an extremely limited extent. Even a high recycling rate and a radical switch to renewable and circular building materials cannot change this.

   Very few building regulations and standards in European countries thus far adequately reflect the particular and special requirements of this activity. Very few architecture faculties address this essential future architectural design task in their curricula with the necessary intensity and complexity.

   In architecture and especially in architectural teaching, the dialogical examination, alteration or improvement of an existing building require more differentiated analyses and, in some cases, alternative design methods. What is also required is asking a new set of questions.

   Therefore, this EAAE panel will discuss the following key topics and present new methods and examples of best practice:

   • How can design approaches convey the necessary know-how on the different forms of historical and ideational relevance (from banal functional buildings to listed contemporary heritage) and sensitivity for the identity and the specificity of an existing building?
   • How can specific design and technical expertise in dealing with physical assets, especially in terms of preservation, repair and further development, be taught and conveyed in the design process with regard to feasibility?
   • Is there a need for further specialists or specific technical knowledge, knowledge tools or technical methods?
   • Which intelligent and poetic strategies and specific methods can we use in our design approach to existing buildings and how can we, as designers, engage in a form of dialogue with these buildings?

3. STRUCTURE and CONSTRUCTION

   

   LESS in structure
   Efficiencies in construction, technology and economy

   In general, the term “efficiency” describes the relationship between the means used and the results achieved. In structural engineering and construction, efficiency criteria are often used for purposes of optimization, for example, to build at a minimum of financial investment or as quickly as possible.

   Due to the fact that the construction industry causes 40 % of global CO2 emissions, the CO2 efficiency of buildings and especially their structure is of particular importance. Engineering constructions with adequate materials, budgets or space efficiency is not necessarily in line with global CO2 emission targets aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. Thus, efficiency in structural terms requires a new definition in the context of climate change in order to play a central role for holistic approaches to architectural education.

   The category “efficiency” welcomes papers that present new insights and approaches in line with this new concept of CO2 efficiency in planning processes aimed at the optimization of structures and the construction of buildings.

   Related and new approaches could, for example, can address the following questions:

   • How can low-tech materials, related engineering skills and traditional craftsmanship contribute to building with regional materials and construction methods?
   • How can structural capacities and quality requirements be achieved in the reuse of materials and building elements?
   • How can we balance "heavyweight" and "lightweight" structures and, thus, the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid construction types?
   • Which approaches are suitable to compare criteria of "high-tech" and "low-tech" building technologies?
   • Which tools are suitable to compare and optimize the CO2 footprint of buildings, their structures and their material characteristics?
   • Which design criteria related to CO2 (such as kg CO2 e/m2 or EUR/kg CO2 e) are appropriate for new building projects?
   • Is building nothing a better option than building something?

4. RESSOURCES and CIRCULARITY

   

   LESS waste
   Circularity and urban mining

   By consuming enormous amounts of resources, humankind has created a gigantic anthropogenic stockpile of raw materials. Around 15 billion tons of mineral raw materials, metals, wood, plastics and other materials are used in German buildings alone.

   The strategy of urban mining makes use of these materials to continue building with them. However, this can be difficult. Buildings, especially those erected after World War II, weren't planned to become "urban mines". Traditional craftsmanship commonly reused items and, for the most part, natural materials. Since the beginning of industrialization, the building sector has followed the linear system of "take - make - waste". Achieving a circular economy is a key strategy for sustainable development in the Earth's circular system. Circular construction must, therefore, be an integral part of the training of architects. It must also underpin a new basic understanding in every approach to sustainable design and construction.

   For the EAAE conference, we invite contributions and discussions on how circular construction is integrated into teaching at European universities. The focus will be on the following key questions:

   • Is circular construction included in curricula and which concepts are used to teach it?
   • Which new skills do students need to acquire in order to be able to propose circular constructions?
   • Which hurdles complicate planning with pre-used components or secondary raw materials?
   • Which solutions to challenges of reuse in architecture can we communicate to prospective architects during their training?

   Possible further topics include:

   • Which legal aspects need to be taught in construction management education?
   • Which tools do prospective architects need to be familiar with in order to be able to assess the impact of their work on climate and resource protection?
   • What contribution can AI and digitalization make to promoting urban mining and the circular economy in the construction industry?
   • How do topics of urban mining and the circular economy affect teaching?

5. URBAN DESIGN

   

   LESS is happiness
   Sufficiency and good life in urban design

   Thus far, the strategies of efficiency and consistency alone were hardly capable of reducing the consumption of resources in the overall ecological balance of the construction industry. Thus, sufficiency – a rather undervalued sustainability pathway – comes into play, especially in the wider field of urban design and under consideration of societal aspects. However, in the urban design education, the concept of sufficiency has only received fleeting recognition and application. This panel invites contributions on teaching formats that deal with notions of "lifestyles of restraint" or more comprehensive approaches of transforming urban environments in relation to sufficiency. This leads to our focal question and subsequent topics to be explored:

   How can sufficiency play a role in the teaching of urban design as a parameter conditioning both the production of space and the integration of people?

   • How can education incorporate strategies for incentivizing certain behaviours oriented on sufficiency in urban design?
   • How can sufficiency be conceived as a benefit, instead of a sacrifice?
   • To which degree can user-based urban design or the inclusion of DIY-methods become vectors for sufficiency?
   • How can we define design criteria for “sufficiency”, “happiness” and “good life” in urban design?
   • How can the design of scenarios communicate appealing "lifestyles of restraint" for users of architecture?
   • Which methods of utopian prototyping are capable of envisioning lifestyles of sufficiency and happiness attractive to future users?
   • To what extent can architectural education be charged with futures literacy?

6. EDUCATION CONCEPTS

   

   LESS routine, breaking new ground
   New concepts in architectural education

   Architectural teaching is as much about the content that we teach as it is about the tasks and questions that students work on. Against the background of current challenges, it becomes clear that studying architecture should be less about the fulfilment of duties or the achievement of best possible grades. Instead, students are increasingly required to demonstrate a heightened awareness of social responsibility and problem-solving skills. How can lecturers and professors organize curricula so that students are encouraged to take individual responsibility to greater degrees? Which skills are needed to meet the state-of-the-art and future requirements of architectural practice?

   By its focus on pedagogical concepts, this panel reinforces the cross-sectional character of education for all topical fields in teaching architecture. In the context of the EAAE Congress, we invite contributions on new and unfamiliar pathways and concepts in architectural teaching according to the following topics:

   • Me or us: How do we prepare students for the new challenges they will have to master as future architects?
   • Co-operations: Can pressing issues be solved by a single actor? How important is teamwork and how can it be strengthened?
   • What are the assessment criteria we use to award grades? Is individual grading appropriate and does it motivate students? How can learning be fun?
   • Which project partners do we involve in teaching?
   • Regulations: How do we escape the mania of standardization and guidelines?

7. VISIONS

   

   LESS utopia
   Architectural visions and future demands (student workshop)

   Imagine there´s no heaven
   It´s easy if you try
   No hell below us
   above us, only sky
   […]
   Imagine all the people
   Living life in peace …

   John Lennon’s song “Imagine”, arguably one of the best pop songs of all times² , is essentially an enumeration of absences. These absences, however, suggest new possibilities, alternative societies and systems: New Utopias.

   UTOPIA, the OU-TOPOS, this “place that cannot be”³ is liberated from probabilities and reasonabilities – it is a place of ideas and ideals.

   In times of crises UTOPIAS boom, as they provide a dialectic service of comfort and empowerment: We escape reality by imagining alternative worlds and orders – this gives us comfort. At the same time, through this escape, we gain trust and confidence in the idea that a better reality is possible. This notion provides us with guidance and power for change.

   If LESS IS MUST – Which Utopias slumber in LESS? In John Lennon’s song, the paradigm of less goes beyond renunciation and deficiency. It elevates and liberates – it creates an abundance of possibilities.

   In the framework of the 2024 EAAE conference in Münster, we invite you to discuss how utopias or scenarios of less can contribute to our common effort to overcome the multiple crises we are facing.

Further information about the submission of papers are here.