„Die Eigenen Vier Wände. Schöner Wohnen im Wirtschaftswunder (1960-1974)"

Jan Engelke, seit 2019

Jan Engelkes Dissertationsprojekt „Die Eigenen Vier Wände – Schöner Wohnen im Wirtschaftswunder 1960-‘74" untersucht die Architekturgeschichte des Eigenheims im gesellschaftlichen und politischen Kontext der Nachkriegszeit und geht so seiner ungebrochenen Beliebtheit bei weitgehendem Bedeutungsverlust für die architektonische Praxis auf den Grund. Die Zeitschrift „Schöner Wohnen" spiegelt populäre Architekturdiskurse und den alltäglichen Kontext der architektonischen Produktion dieser Zeit – eine Perspektive, anhand derer Jan das Gewöhnliche in den Mittelpunkt seiner Forschung stellt.

Jan Engelke studierte von 2010 bis 2017 an der ETH Zürich und von 2012 bis 2013 an der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar Architektur. In seiner mehrfach ausgezeichneten freien Diplomarbeit „Die Schönheit des Katasterplans" verschob er 2017 gemeinsam mit Lukas Fink den Katasterplan der Stadt Zürich. Daraufhin arbeitete er in Berlin an Publikationen sowie Architektur- und Ausstellungsprojekten. Seit 2019 promoviert er an der TUM bei Prof. Benedikt Boucsein zum Eigenheim in der westdeutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte.

Jan Engelke ist Stipendiat der Gerda Henkel Stiftung.

Reframing Mobility – Transition Design for the new everyday 

Marco Kellhammer, since 2020

The transition towards sustainable mobility represents a major challenge for urban design and is currently fueled by the digital transformation. The accessibility of a variety of mobility modalities increased within the last decade for citizens in the industrialized world. Yet, until today the technologically driven development has not led to new sustainable mobility cultures and our streets are still dominated by individual motorized mobility. This thesis investigates the impact of the transition design approach in creating system innovations for shifting towards sustainable urban mobility futures. Focusing on the interactions between humans, objects, services and urban design will provide a multi-level perspective on potential mobility futures. 

For the case of Munich, various stakeholders are invited to position in diverse mobility cultures to see what could be possible beyond the status quo and reframe the task of design as system transformation, rather than the creation of mobility solutions. The main objectives is to investigate the role of design knowledge for system innovations as well as to contribute to future design practices in the field of urban mobility. 

Marco studied Industrial Design at the University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück and spent one term abroad at the PUC Rio de Janeiro. After his Bachelor in 2012 he was working at the Institute of Design Research Vienna for more than three years focussing on research and design for socially and ecologically sustainable futures. Marco completed his M.Sc. in Industrial Design at TUM in 2018. He was a working student at Hans Sauer Stiftung and is co-founder of the social enterprise überkochen e.V.. In 2019 he returned to TUM as a research and teaching associate at the Chair of Industrial Design and joined the team at the Professorship of Urban Design in 2020. At the same place, he began his doctoral thesis under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Benedikt Boucsein and the mentorship of Dr.-Ing. Sandra Hirsch. 

“IN BETWEEN. Exploring hybrid planning for redeveloping informal settlements in the mumbai metropolis.”

Ayesha Müller-Wolfertshofer, since 2020

Informal settlements, slums, favelas, gecekondus, barrios or townships, part of cities across the globe, are an immediate response to the lack of affordable housing in them. Urbanization in the search for economic, social or political improvement has led to a densely populated urban fabric where the common man struggles to find a home in real-estate markets driven by neo-liberal policies. Citizens are forced to build tenements on vacant plots of land without authorisation, often lacking electricity and basic sanitation. These settlements become a base for the underprivileged and alienated, sheltering people In-Between regulations, jobs and housing, as they attempt to improve their status.

Mumbai is presented as a case study for understanding the context of informal settlements, where participatory planning methods will be studied to integrate top-down and bottom-up initiatives into the redevelopment process. Current ‘slum-redevelopment’ projects primarily take into consideration residential requirements of informal communities, without providing adequate spaces for economic or public services. This dissertation project explores mixed-use hybrid buildings as a means of combining Mumbai’s housing needs with the individual and community requirements of inhabitants.

Ayesha Müller-Wolfertshofer completed her Bachelor in Architecture at Vidyavardhan’s IDEA, Institute of Design Environment and Architecture, in India between 2010 and 2015. At the Munich University of Applied Sciences she completed her M.A. in Architecture with a specialization in Urban Planning from 2015 to 2017. Ayesha has worked in various architectural and urban planning firms since she began her studies and is an architect under the Bayerische Architektenkammer since June 2020. In July 2020 she officially began her thesis at the Technical University Munich under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Benedikt Boucsein and in collaboration with her Mentor, Hussain Indorewala, from the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies in Mumbai.

This research is funded by a scholarship from the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung; a foundation in service of democracy, peace and development in Germany as well as abroad. 

New Pathways: A Study of European Railway Stations from the Perspective of Sustainable Development.

Alice Lunardon, since 2020.

Alice Lunardon’s dissertation project "New Pathways: A Study of European Railway Stations from the Perspective of Sustainable Development" investigates causes and effects of the current development of stations and their relationship with cities’ sustainable development. The connection between the railway and the city is the railway station. In this key position, the station has two roles: it is a node but also a place. As a node, it is a point of access to trains and, increasingly, to other transportation networks. As a place, it is a specific section of the city with a concentration of infrastructure and a diversified collection of buildings and open spaces (Bertolini, 1998). Moreover, in the last decade new different forms of urban mobility have emerged (sharing mobility, micro-mobility, etc.), but even if they are accessible, low-cost, and green, they are not yet fully integrated into stations’ mobility offer. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge about sustainable cities by focusing on the role of railway stations as infrastructures with the potential of contributing to their development. The research aims to look at different aspects of the topic, such as the urbanistic and architectural aspect, the policy and city governance aspect and the relationships between its stakeholders, the economic aspect focusing on the analysis of the station’s business model and its link with the sustainable or un-sustainable development of the city, and the engineering aspect treating the station as a unique infrastructure in the city with a huge potential in the integration of circular economy.

Alice Lunardon studied Architecture in Rome, Italy, at Università La Sapienza, Facoltà di Architettura “Valle Giulia” (2004-2011), and she graduated with honours with a thesis about hospitals treating the topic with a holistic approach, as she aims to do with the PhD thesis. During her studies, she spent one year in Valencia, Spain, at the UPV University and in Paris, France, at the ENSAV University. Also, she spent 3 months in Paraguay for her Master’s thesis. Successively, she started working in France and she took two Executive Masters in 2018 and 2019, one in Environmental Governance and Policy Making at the IHEID of Geneva, Switzerland, and the other in Sustainable Business at the University of Cambridge, UK. During that period, Alice started developing the research about railway stations as she was also working in the French railways (SNCF), and she had the opportunity to present that research to the European Parliament, and to several international conferences.

Democratization of urban public space-

A case study of Turkey‘s „Nation Gardens“

Deniz Köse, since 2021

The doctoral research of Deniz Köse (she/her) investigates democratisation of urban public space through the lens of feminist environmental posthumanities. The research will examine and analyse different approaches in urban public space design as well as explore feminist design strategies within the patriarchal structures of the architectural profession.

This thesis will focus on parks as inherently democratic public green spaces and use Turkey’s rapidly built and spatially immense “Nation Garden” projects as a case study.

Deniz Köse graduated with a Dipl. Ing. from the Technical University of Darmstadt in 2014 and later worked at the Institute of Building Biology  Turkey. In 2017, she moved to Munich for work and became a freelancer in architecture. In May 2021, she started her PhD thesis at the Technical University of Munich under the tutelage of Prof. Benedikt Boucsein.

„Empowerment als Strategie des transdisziplinären Städtebaus in Münchner Quartieren"

Mareike Schmidt, seit 2022

Die Dissertation von Mareike Schmidt bettet sich in das Reallabor AQT „Autoreduzierte Quartiere für eine lebenswerte Stadt“ im Rahmen des MCube Clusters (Münchner Cluster für die Zukunft der Mobilität in Metropolregionen). Hierin untersucht Mareike aus der Perspektive der Architekt:innen und Stadtplaner:innen, ob die Verkehrswende nicht nur über viel besprochene positive sondern genauso negative Folgen für das Quartier verstärken könnte. Bei vielen Restrukturierungs- und Aufwertungsprojekten anderer Städte konnten verschiedene Phänomene der Gentrifizierung beobachtet werden. Im Kontext der Transformation von öffentlichem Raum im Zuge der Verkehrswende wurde diese Problematik noch nicht näher untersucht. Das Dissertationsprojekt „Empowerment als Strategie des transdisziplinären Städtebaus in Münchener Quartieren“ untersucht in diesem Rahmen einerseits, welche Relevanz die möglichen negativen, soziogeografischen Auswirkungen der Transformation des öffentlichen Raumes auf das Quartier und seine Identität für die Praxis der Architekt:innen hat, und untersucht im nächsten Schritt, inwiefern Formate wie Reallabore als Element des bürgerlichen Empowerments als Methode des Städtebaus dienen können, um frühzeitig zu sensibilisieren und ihnen schlussendlich auch aktiv entgegenzuwirken.

Mareike Schmidt studierte Architektur und Städtebau an der Universität Stuttgart und absolvierte 2016 ihren Master of Science. Bevor sie an der Professur für Urban Design ihre Forschungstätigkeit begann, war sie zunächst bei UTA Architekten und Stadtplaner in Stuttgart und bei bogevischs buero in München tätig. Mareike ist eingetragene Architektin in der Bayerischen Architektenkammer. Parallel zur praktischen Planungstätigkeit begleitete sie seit 2019 die Lehre an der Professur für Urban Design. Seit 2021 ist Mareike wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin und arbeitet an ihrer Dissertation im Rahmen des Reallabors AQT.