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Brief:

This studio combines (1) the pedagogical focus of ARCH 4020 (i.e. an examination of the relationship between architecture and the city), (2) an opportunity to exhibit at the Biennale Architettura 2025: 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, Italy (i.e. the Venice Biennale); and 3) what roles design can play in a world defined by social and environmental crises of increasing severity and frequency.

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The exposition (introduction) of the studio will be a broad and intensive research effort in which we’ll collectively discover, map, index, catalogue, draw, and model various types of provisional assemblages (i.e. temporary and/or transitional material systems) including but not limited to refugee camps, migrant housing, asylum seeker shelters, and other forms of architecture, urbanism, life, and death defined by subaltern displaced conditions. We will consider our work within the theme of the 2025 Biennale, set by curator Carlo Ratti: “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”

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The Rising Action of the studio will consist of a deep analytical case studies of existing or recently demolished / disassembled space of displacement and a corresponding full-scale prefabrication of a provisional assemblage unit (including but not limited to: a tent, a shack, a lean-to, a critical tabernacle, a subaltern bricolage, a material question). Students will be expected to intimately engage with the CoD, CCL / AFS, SICTR, and/or other campus shops as sites of creativity and experimentation during this stage.

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The Climax will be a final review in Ames featuring design research presentations, drawings, visualizations, scale models, and full-scale material system prototypes. Following the final review, students participating in the Venice Biennale will disassemble, pack-up, transport, un-pack, reassemble, install, exhibit, and/or perform all or parts of their project in Venice as part of the Bienalle session. Collectively we will engage Venice through the depolyment of full scale provisional assemblages offering new perspectives on subaltern spaces of displacement and their possible histories, contemporary expressions, and futures.

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The Falling Action of the studio will consist of exploring the diverse and vibrant events of the Biennale (exhibits, lectures, workshops, events) and the city of Venice. We will dine, dance, laugh and reflect together in the halls, alleys, canals, campos, and piazzas, of the city.

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The Resolution (denouement) of the studio may consist of students spending the first part of their summer traveling through Italy or nearby regions: to the north central Europe, to the east the Balkans, to the south southern Italy and Africa, to the west western Europe. Prof. Zuroweste tentatively plans to travel to Albania after the Biennale to visit Fushë Krujë Micropolis, a recently built post-disaster social housing project designed by Zuroweste Architecture in collaboration with Varka Architecture and a collective of Albanian engineers.

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Field Trip:

The field trip to Venice will be ten days towards the end of the semester. Travel dates will be finalized in collaboration with students and in accordance with Department, College, and University policy.

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Parallel Courses:

Alongside, integrated, and in parallel with this studio, Prof. Zuroweste is teaching an ARCH 5980 research seminar “Provisional Assemblages: Matters of Planetary Crisis.” Students in the studio are encouraged (not required) to enroll in this seminar, as it will engage the same topics as the studio with an emphasis postcolonial, subaltern, and critical theory discourses. Furthermore, this studio is being developed in collaboration with Prof. Deborah Hauptmann’s DSNS 5460 studio “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective” and Prof. Vladimir Kulic’s ARCH 5280A elective seminar “Exhibiting Architecture.” Students that enroll in this studio are welcome and encouraged to enroll in Prof. Kulic’s seminar. Hauptmann, Kulic, and Zuroweste’s courses will operate as a trifecta and work together towards final installations and exhibitions in Venice. Students with questions about the consortium of course offerings and their interrelationships are free to email with questions.

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Students:

Colton Foglesong, Confident Fandeh, Daniel Malone, Isaac Mooy, Jacob Sadler, Jacob Vasquez, Jimmy Kirunda, John Crowe, Joshua Newman, Julia Skoczen, Keshav Mehta, Michael Folsom, Orion Osbey, Preston Andersen, Ryan Ruppel

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Course Catalog Description:

An examination of the relationship between architecture and the city. Studio projects stress analysis and interpretation of the diverse forces and conditions that impact and inform architecture in the urban environment. Urban design project. Study abroad option.