Vienna International Summer School on New Social Housing 2024

Housing experiments revisited

Curated among others by Brigitte Felderer, Christina Schraml and Judith Lehner, Social Design - Arts as Urban Innovation, University of Applied Arts Vienna

HOUSING EXPERIMENTS REVISITED
Research task:
combining perspectives and linking sessions
The summer school combines various formats that allow to learn from each other. These include an international symposium and an evening lecture to map the annual theme, classroom sessions where papers will be presented and discussed, and field trips, where participants will get an insight into current practices and debates in Vienna. Two workshops (Wednesday and Friday morning) will provide space to reflect on what has been discussed and bring the various perspectives together. In a final plenary session on Friday, participants will present these reflections to a group of representatives and experts from the social housing field in Vienna. This will be an occasion to test hypotheses and ideas that will emerge from a certainly intense few days of cross-disciplinary collaboration.
For the two reflection workshops on Wednesday and Friday, we will split into three groups, each pursuing one specific route of thought. On Wednesday morning, the session will open the field with appraising the international contributions, whilst on Friday morning we bring in impressions from the excursions. To guide the reflections, we have proposed three themes through which housing experiments can be explored:


1.          Experimental Housing: Exploring Ideas, Concepts, and Biographies of Historic Project
What have been forward-thinking elements of social housing experiments – or the possible dystopian outcomes – that (still) resonate today?
Why have some experiments gained prominence and were placed in public or academic archives while others have slipped institutional or collective memory?

2.          Housing Utopias: Understanding Contexts, Ambitions, and Translations into Practice
How have projects adapted to social and generational changes? How do housing experiments position themselves within their surroundings?
How did experiments fail, and what were the underlying reasons for their failures?

3.          Housing Innovation: Examining Drivers and Outcomes of Technological, Ecological, and Social Change Over Time
How have housing struggles and protest inspired the development of new solutions? How have dwellers, the state and the market collaborated in housing innovation?

Participants are asked to make best use of talks and walks, visits and presentations to think about these questions. We will use documenting and mapping methods to visualize thoughts, gathered material, references, photos on the map for each group. To pursue the themes and corresponding questions, participants will apply mapping techniques by collecting impressions (through pieces of texts, photos, quotes,…) and relating them amongst each other as well as with the framework provided by the map. Prepared map material will be handed out to each group. Feel free to print additional material, sketch and draft ideas on the maps. The maps will be scanned and presented on screens during the final discussion. In the workshops, the individual views will come together to a collective position, and the groups are encouraged to produce statements to stir debate in the final plenary session. These need not be fully elaborated, but will hopefully be thought-provoking and bold.

Opening Symposium
16 September 2024, 14–18:00
TU Wien, Seminarraum Argentinierstraße 8, 1040 Vienna
Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Inputs by
Golnar Abbasi & Arvand Pourabbasi, WORKNOT! Collective of architects, educators, researchers
Kathrin Golda-Pongratz, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Department of Urbanism, Territory and Landscape
Heidrun Holzfeind, Artist & filmmaker
Heike Oevermann & Research Team, TU Wien, Heritage Conservation and Building within Existing Fabric
Tatjana Schneider, TU Braunschweig, History and Theory of Architecture and the City
Daniela Zupan, Bauhaus Universität Weimar, European Cities & Urban Heritage

moderated by Simon Güntner, Research Unit of Sociology,
TU Wien, and Christoph Reinprecht, Department of Sociology, University of Vienna


Public Lecture
18 September 2024, 19:00
TU Wien, Kontaktraum, Gußhausstraße 27-29, 1040 Wien

Keynote by
Ilze Wolff
Wolff Architects, Cape Town, South Africa

Responses by
Brigitte Felderer, Social Design Studio, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Julia Girardi-Hoog, Baudirektion, City of Vienna
Michael Obrist, Housing & Design, TU Wien

moderated by Bernadette Krejs, Research Unit of Housing & Design, and Judith M. Lehner, Research Center for New Social Housing, TU Wien


Final discussion
20 September 2024, 13:30–15:00
TU Wien, Seminarraum AEU140, Karlsplatz 13, 1040 Wien

with Amila Širbegović (MA50, Referat für strategische Projekte und Internationales) and invited local experts on housing and urban development


Public events open to interested audience

https://newsocialhousing.conf.tuwien.ac.at/405-2/

Vienna International Summer School on New Social Housing 2024
Symposium

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