This article is about ‘Home Grown: Housing Alliances on the Rise’, the introductory studio for the 2015 batch’s first year students of the Master Program in Urban Design. While the article profiles some of the more inspiring results of the studio, it also critically reflects on the factors limiting teaching the discipline of Urban Design, the discipline itself and the relevance of the graphic material produced. In other words, the article also reasons the wider structural relations that the authors perceive as dominant in shaping both the profession and preparative teaching. This is the second edition of the studio: The first one last fall also reflected on an area in Berlin. Both studios have been double chaired by the Chair for Urban Design and Urbanization (CUD) and the Habitat Unit from the Institute of Architecture at Technical University Berlin and students are therefore condemned - participation is mandatory - to the task of pleasing both Greeks and Romans. Both chairs are roughly the same from certain perspectives (just as you may find columns in front of both classical culture’s temples) but quite different upon closer look - and if you try to speak with the members of one culture using the language of the other you will likely encounter communication difficulties.
The site of the studio ‘Home Grown: Housing Alliances on the Rise’, a former railway area in Pankow, Berlin. Image credit: Jam Session, WS 2015/16
June 2016 | CITY OBSERVER135