Design 1 | Ibelis Suyai Bullentini, Fabienne Limberger, Nicolai Schurr, Anna Tancredi & Jule Lea Wöllhaf | 1st semester | winter semester 2020/21

"Locating space" is the topic of the last cycle of the first semester. Students formulate an idea of space in a real place, this semester within a forest. In doing so, they are challenged to decide on the location, use and spatial idea themselves. They choose a characteristic place in a forest and try to capture the place in all aspects that seem important to them in drawings. Their drawings will be supplemented with a photographic series of the place and they will then decide on a free use such as a studio, lookout tower, forester's lodge, hotel, chapel, Kneipp house, museum, refuge, forest kindergarten, forest tavern....

When formulating the idea for the space, they draw on their design treasure trove from the previous cycles. On the applied themes of space-forming elements and structures, spatial sequences, transitions and thresholds. The students clarify whether and how their design reacts to the context, which insights it allows, which views it captures. A set of plans will be drawn explaining the design and large-scale models that will be photographed on site will be built.

The work was supervised by Prof. Jonathan Scheder and Mona Hoffmann-Schwabe.

BRANCH

A room. A memento, perhaps, of the beauty of this world. Nature. Perhaps of the cruel mankind.

Another room. A view from above that cannot be forgotten.

And in between, the path. Which strains one in the silence.

Ibelis Suyai Bullentini

A place for nothing

In the middle of a hollow, a building is being created that stands out from the ground and rises to a similar height as the surrounding trees. The occupant should be able to forget everyday life here and find more to himself. A place is created where nothing is actually supposed to happen, which is already quite a lot. The architecture, such as a few small windows and the space open to the sky, also emphasises the detachment from the outside world.

Fabienne Limberger

Besenwirtschaft at the Märzenbuckel

The Märzenbuckel.
A generous forest glade with a steep slope, some rock groups pushing out of the ground and a wide view down into the Kocher valley. The rock at the highest point of the glade, at the end of a tongue that moves out of the mountain, serves as a natural viewing platform. Compared to some other places in the forest, however, this remote location means that it is not often among the hiking destinations of surrounding residents. In order to change that, I decided to plan a small Besenwirtschaft at this special place at the request of some acquaintances and friends. In order to not disturb the remote and quiet atmosphere of the glade, the building is located a bit further back at the edge of the forest. It retreats and is not intended to replace the lookout rock, but to enrich it. The view should also be reserved for the place, so the building with its view is oriented on the slope, but rather back into the forest.

Nicolai Schurr

Word Studio

The "Word Studio" offers a writer a temporarily habitable living and working space in a wooded area near the Heslacher waterfalls in the South of Stuttgart. Symmetrically arranged wall brackets hold the studio, which is half buried into the ground. These brackets enclose a concentrated space of just under 65 m2. Descending a steep staircase, the studio is entered behind the edge of the building, the utility rooms are located in the rear and play a subordinate role. The room dividing shelving forms narrow corridors which lead to the sleeping area on the right and the reading room on the left. The stove provides warmth and a feeling of well-being. As soon as the narrow corridor is left, wider, almost floor-to-ceiling windows open up views of the woods and the rise opposite. In the centre of the studio is the study, which encourages concentration due to converging boundary wall panels and creativity due to views of the greenery. Sliding doors to the sleeping and reading areas allow flexible feelings of space during the writing process.

Anna Tancredi

Chapel of the forest

The chapel as a devotional space offers a place to turn inward – to commemorate. It is about consciously entering and feeling the atmosphere. Exactly these aspects were particularly important to me when designing my Chapel of the forest.

Starting with a narrow path that leads a little deeper into the forest. The entrance is between two overlapping wall panels and without the usual door, in order to experience as few distractions as possible.

In addition, the design follows the principle of deliberate ascent via elongated steps, the path to a goal, which in this case is mainly located in the chapel room. Apart from the entrance, this contains the only opening. However, it serves much more to stimulate reflection or to let the emerging play of light have an effect on oneself than to create a view to the outside. Furthermore, when leaving the main room, there is the possibility to stop again and light a candle in the room in front of it before leaving the chapel again. It was also important to me to integrate it into the place defined by the forest.

Jule Lea Wöllhaf