After the File: Stories, Prototypes and Futures of Digital Architectural Heritage
Technical building services digital model of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, 2017. The digital model uncovers the complex, three-dimensional building management systems operating behind the visible space. While data systems are integral to architecture, enhancing planning for air circulation, acoustics, and fire safety, for example, they also increase technological dependency. Within the dense building services model, the concert hall itself appears like an empty void.
Architekturanalyse / Architectural analysis (AR30190)
Architectural culture is increasingly born digital. From BIM libraries to scripts and AI-assisted design systems, contemporary architecture is produced through complex digital infrastructures. Yet the software, file formats, and platforms underpinning this production have made recent architectural heritage surprisingly fragile and often inaccessible to architects, archivists, and historians alike.
How can we write architectural histories from metadata, source files or AI prompts? How can we study technological and cultural change when the systems behind the tools we use are opaque, illegible or inaccessible?
Drawing on theories of archives, digital preservation, media archaeology and architectural history, students will explore the challenges and opportunities of preserving digital architectural heritage. Working between archival research and creative practice, students will develop responses to the question: What happens after the file?
Outcomes may take the form of critical essays, speculative stories, exhibition concepts and archival prototypes. The seminar aims to explore new ways of making born-digital architectural records visible, accessible and meaningful for future scholars and wider audiences.
Course: Seminar
Lecturer: Dr. sc. ETH Damjan Kokalevski
Study level: Master
Participants: maximum 20
Kick-off: 15. Oktober 2026
Meetings: Thursdays, 09:45–13:00, Seminar Room 0340B
Exam: 15.2.2027, Submission of Essays
Credits: 6 ECTS
Cost of Excursion: Walking excursions in Munich, no costs
Language: English primary, German