DIRT
SoSe 2024 Bachelor project SoSe 2024, 9 ECTS

Mop the floor, seal that crack on the wall, burn the weed that’s growing in the corner, close the window the wood will get wet, cover up the graffiti, don’t let the dog in.

Sanitation as an excuse for exclusion
Cities developed against nature: dry the marshland, lay down asphalt, put the sick and the dead away, build a wall the foreigners might be dangerous. 
Sure – density comes with illness and pollution; hygiene is to some extent a need, yet it also excels at pushing the other aside – the unwanted or unvalued 
Mankind and its urge name things, classify them
Its longing to dissociate itself from the animal
Culture versus nature, work versus labour
A way of asserting its dominance or a desperate attempt to escape its condition.

Our century might be defined by our cleaning frenzy.
Every client will ask at some point “yes but, is it easy to clean?”
Isn’t the easiest building to clean the one that doesn’t need to be?
Do you vacuum a meadow?

We’ve spent centuries cleaning and organising our environment. Now the streets are either flooded or too hot, scientists develop artificial alternatives to the dying bees, birds make their nests in the crumbly Styrofoam, ventilation units are installed and window handles removed, desynchronised sensors close the shutters when I want to look at the sunset.

This semester, we will play with dirt.

PHASE ONE Dirty studies – Through the study of reference works and readings, each group will develop a 1.1 experiment on dirt. In the public space, at school or in your home, you will be taking care of it throughout the semester, observing its evolution, dealing with its consequences. The development of the intervention will help define and sharpen your understanding and position on dirt. Help a weed become a tree, let a puddle become a pond, bring a goat to the stock market.

PHASE TWO Make it dirty – Alongside your growing intervention, each group will be allocated an existing building and its direct surroundings. Bank, city hall, renowned hotel, brand new housing estate: in a reversal of values, it might not be the wasteland that has to be worked on - it already performs its environmental role - it might be the too-perfectly-planned and sparkling parts of Munich that deserve to be questioned. Through precise architectural interventions, each group will challenge the conventional understanding of comfort, trigger architecture to become a tool of inclusion, find productive ways to let the environment enter the building.

Dirt - an excuse to explore an architecture that welcomes its environment rather than seeks to be secluded from it. Unseal the floor, let the outside in, exhibit the water running through the house instead of hiding it in pipes, value the waste on site instead of shipping it out of sight, let the dog (and its friends) back in, they can jump on the couch no one will die from it.

Dates:
Kick-off Meeting: Wednesday 17.04.2024
Meetings: Wednesdays, Room TBC
Intermediate reviews: 08.05.24 / 12.06.2024
Final presentation: 17.07.2024

Language:
english