The teaching at the design studio Weinand revolves around the idea that architecture, structure, form, and material ought to be thought about together as in a holistic manner, to participate actively in the elaboration of coherent projects. The studio aims at developing projects that are not only architecturally interesting, but also integrate the constraints of fabrication, assembly and mounting in the design itself. It is our core belief that the role of the architect is changing: as the world of construction is moving towards more automation, the architects will have to be able to control their geometry, master the processes of fabrication of the different pieces and, ultimately, to be able to talk face-to-face with the engineers and companies to develop the construction method that better fits their architectural intent. Furthermore, thanks to these tools of digital fabrication, and the now large array of timber products available in the industry we think that timber has a large role to play in the emerging architectural scene.
We aim at preparing young architects to evolve in this new paradigm, providing them with the basic tools of parametrization, offering the possibility for promising projects to test their ideas in mockups with the help of 5axis CNC machines, and through the double-status of IBOIS as both an architecture and engineering chair, making them interact with engineers to further develop their ideas when needed.
Each semester is divided into four phases, each of them focused on a particular topic. Each phase constitute the foundation for the next one, starting from general geometry investigation down to a large scale prototyping.
