FS18

WINDOW BEHAVIOROLOGY IN SWITZERLAND

A window an the architectural element behaving between/with human and nature, and it can be regarded as a culture of building typology. This year, we particularly focus on designing windows, learning and finding their meanings in terms of Architectural Behaviorology. After the last semester with the focus on Machiya (Town House) typology in Kanazawa, our study field in this spring semester is in several Swiss cities with the focus on ‘live-work’ building types such as Bürgerhäuser. These various Swiss cities have kept a live-work built environment or architectural types, which have been gradually transformed and customized with special manners, incorporating local people’s needs/desires in each period. In this design studio, the students explore and visualize the actor network as a map of window and live-work buildings with an ethnographical approach, which leads them to re-design the relationship between buildings and society. Then, by drawings and models, the students propose an updated live-work architecture with reimagined windows, for a better future of these Swiss cities.