In 1936, Charlie Chaplin described our modern, industrialised world in his silent movie «Modern Times». In the lm an ironic version of a future world is depicted, a world that is torn between two aspects, the ever evolving technical e efficiency of modern society and at the same time the loss of the personal identity of the human being. Almost 80 years have passed since the main character of the movie, Chaplin’s little tramp, got caught in this struggle. Today, at the time of the 4th industrial revolution, the same questions remain relevant. In which environment do we want to live, what types of infrastructure do we need and how does the individual interacts with them? To find answers to these problems we need to think outside the box, outside the four walls of our apartments. We will go into the large scale of the urban context and we will analyse the existing correlations of urban logistics, in order to discover and establish new links and connections in this unknown territory.
The atelier will examine the programmatic and spatial reorganization of the Migros headquarters’ area in Zürich-West. The analysis of the genius loci and the knowledge of adequate typologies will help us to understand and to work with the complex building structure and its programmatic demands. The building as a city, the city as a building. The main pedagogical goal of the course will be to address the issue of complex planning and programmatic reorganization while dealing with a built structure almost the size of an entire neighbourhood. In order to develop a consistent architectural project, we will focus on different degrees of precision, scales and atmospheres with a range extending from large public spaces to intimate private ones.
