News
ETH Medal and SIA Master's Prize
On 12 April 2023, Olga Cobuscean presented her (hand-drawn!) Master's thesis in our rooms, which she completed at ETH Zürich last winter term. Quickly everyone became clear that this work is something great.
Meanwhile, her Master's thesis was awarded for the ETH medal, a great honour! With the SIA Master's Prize for Architecture from the SIA's BGA professional group for architecture and the Swiss Architecture Council, this work has now been recognised a second time as one of the three best Master's theses in the field of architecture in the whole of Switzerland.
She was also the only one of the award winners to be invited to be part of the independent jury for next year.
Dear Olga, we are very happy for you and know that you more than deserve this honour!
Univ.-Prof. Thomas H. Schmitz
https://sia-masterpreis.ch/hotel-national-arriving-back-home
Free nude drawing WS23/24
The Wednesday session for free nude drawing will be held in WS23/24 from 6-8pm (and not until 9pm as in the past). For the first half of the semester, the course will not be open to interested persons and students without a certificate of participation due to high course enrollment. The opportunity for participation will be available for all during the second half of the semester.
The following events are available as offerings to all (without pre-registration). 6-8 p.m., room 215, 2nd floor, Schinkelstrasse1, 52062 Aachen, Germany.
For participation and the model there is a contribution fee of 4 € per event and person.
Please bring your own drawing materials.
20.12.23
10.01.24
17.01.24
24.01.24
31.01.24
Exhibition GENOVA
Actually, for us, travelling is always about exploring a place as 'terra incognita' and seeing other people's natural and built environment with new eyes and in a different light, overcoming distance! And how much more do we see when we go off together and inspire and be inspired by each other while drawing in an exciting place!
During the excursion week (25.5.-4.6.), together with 40 students, we saw GENUA + EXPERIENCED WITH ALL THE SENSES! And we brought back many wonderful works.
On 19.7. at 6pm we will open the exhibition of the works created in the KüG rooms on the 2nd floor of the Reiff and cordially invite all interested parties to come and celebrate with us. The exhibition can be visited in the rooms of the department until the beginning of the winter semester 23/24.
time to say goodbye
Our lovely Gisela Everhartz celebrated her retirement with a wonderful party last Tuesday. We are delighted that she is approaching her new phase of life in the best mood, with many plans and good verve. Many thanks for a fun-loving, wise and always entertaining contribution to our team. At the same time, we welcome Nina Heimes, whom many already know from the 'Plastik' in Wüllnerstraße!
Thomas H. Schmitz
Searching for hiwi!
Studentische Hilfskraft (w/m/d)
IT area
--Thank you very much for the applications. The position has been filled.--
Hello Reiff, Hello World, Hello Meta! I have long resisted making such commercial monopoly platforms even stronger by using them myself. But I also see that the community of the curious has good reasons to fish in this currently alternative-less stream. Thank with me Fabian, Leander, Cyril, Jiaqi and some other drawing geeks from our architecture faculty. They convinced me of this 'Instagramability' of the Department of Visual Arts on a field trip to Rotterdam this summer, and I'm now going to push it with full energy. It's all made possible by the efforts of our great k:g team!
Follow us and dare us! It will be great fun for us to report to you regularly on current topics from teaching, research, workshops and labs. Maybe this place will help us to inspire each other? After all, that's what it's all about!
Univ. Prof. Thomas H. Schmitz
https://www.instagram.com/kg_rwth/
Remembrance
"... The Austrian painter, draughtsman and caricaturist Rudolf Schönwald was professor at the Department of Visual Arts from 1976 to 1993. He died at the age of 94 on Friday, 14.10.2022 in Freiburg im Breisgau. His magnificent drawings of abandoned industrial sites, which he interpreted as industrial cathedrals, remain in our best memory. ..."
Univ. Prof. T.H. Schmitz
Annual Exhibition JAA22
Annual Exhibition JAA22
08 - 10 September 2022
Start: Thu. 16:00
This year objects will be exhibited in the Ceramics Studio, Stone Courtyard and Drawing Room.
play your city!
The goal of the city of Aachen is to make the city center more attractive for children and young people beyond the classic playgrounds and to ensure a noticeable added value - an increase in the quality of stay for this target group - on site in real space.
In the summer semester, we will address this concern in three different course formats with different focuses on concepts of play according to defined rules, purpose-free play, temporary play offerings, but also visionary concepts that could be manifested in the inner city in special play events or temporary/permanent installations. In addition, we are concerned with the design of permanent play equipment or play places with clearly sculptural qualities, which as participatory offers could revitalize places that are already lively or also so-called non-places that are avoided by the public, especially outside of demarcated "playgrounds".
Exhibithion
Opening
- 14. July 2022
- 18 PM
- R 215
- Reiffmuseum
We welcome everybody to join us at the opening.
Final presentation of the project "Sound makes Space
under the direction of Dr. Arch. Josep Llorca Bofi, Junior Principal Investigator
Start: Monday 18 July 2022,
10:00 a.m.
Room 215, Faculty of Architecture
Join zoom meeting
https://rwth.zoom.us/j/95472536210?pwd=OFljd3g0MjBMUnZwSkxVQlRaZE1HQT09
Meeting-ID: 954 7253 6210
Kenncode: helloPAAD
Journal Articles
Media Practices of Architectural Design
Two publications in: Wolkenkuckucksheim: international journal for theory and science of architecture
Groninger, Hannah
Visual Negotiation: Sketches and Co-speech Gestures (pp. 173-186)
Klug, Christina; Meyer, Joost
Meta-Ton: Digital Design at the Intersection of Abstract Calculability and Material-specific Empirical knowledge (pp. 125-139)
Reiff Hack: Online platform of action knowledge
By students for students: Reiff Hack is online!
YouTube Channel of the Student Council for Architecture, RWTH Aachen University
Podcasts about manual practices in everyday study life
The Reiff Hack project is a collection of short practical films, so-called life hacks for the study of architecture. They deal with manual practices in everyday study and support in particular the creative development of ideas. The films offer the possibility to profit from the knowledge of others and to provide knowledge for learning by doing as an open source. The offer extends the support of the practically oriented teaching of the workshops as well as practical seminar offers of the faculty and promotes the exchange of information. The podcasts are hosted via the YouTube channel of the Fachschaft für Architektur RWTH Aachen University. The goal is to keep expanding the offering with the help of students (by students for students) so that we can post new videos at regular intervals.
SEDIMENT – Rene Kersting - Exhibition in the Raum Matjö, Köln
Die Abbildung eines Ortes.
A period of time captured in ink on glass. A process, controlled by the place itself. Oppressive heat, bone-chilling cold, suffocating smog, crystal-clear air, burning sunbeams and deepest shadows form, depict the place. An illustration without being pictorial.
Assuming that a place has a soul, it is hidden and yet essential for the sensation of a place. It is perceptible, has influence on the human being, his behavior and his emotion. How does a soul come into being? If it is formed from the place itself, is it stored in it? Can this spiritual tension be transferred to man and object? Can it be conserved, transported and released again?
Matter becomes spirit, spirit becomes matter.
https://www.matjoe.de/rene-kersting-sediment-die-abbildung-eines-ortes/
Manual action practices in design : a methodological interpretation of Alexander Cozens' 'blot method' as a suggestive interface to the preconscious.
[Book contribution, contribution to a conference volume].
In Artifacts of designing : sketching, drawing, scripting, modeling / Rikke Lyngsø Christensen, Ekkehard Drach, Lidia Gasperoni, Doris Hallama, Anna Hougaard, Ralf Liptau (eds.) ; Netzwerk Architekturwissenschaft, 24-49, 2020.
Based on the thesis that planning is also determined by its
tools and methods, the approach presented here focuses,
developed in the context of design theory, focuses on manual
Practices of action in early, searching design phases,
in which guiding questions, directions of thought and interpretations of projects are
interpretations of projects are first identified. These practices
are described as a wordless thinking-with-the-body
and programmatically contrasted with the interpretation and conceptualization in the word.
Netzwerk Architekturwissenschaft — Forum Architekturwissenschaft Bd. 4
Petrichor - Exhibition at CIAP Kunstverein Genk
with Félicia Atkinson, Ismaïl Bahri, Sina Hensel, Bárbara Prada und Luca Vanello, curated by Lucie Ménard
Named after the heady scent emanating from the dry soil during the summer rain, Petrichor echoes the evanescent character of the artistic practices included in the exhibition. It is a celebration of micro-phenomena, inviting us to slow down and focus on the almost imperceptible processes that surround us at every given moment. A gesture that might seem simple but holds deep political implications, especially today, in the face of the global slowdown caused by the pandemic. As the world stands still, our relationship to labour and productivity is disrupted. What if this forced stop would become an occasion to unlearn and to become aware anew of what surrounds us?
Video Tutorials: Visual Design
Online teaching has begun: Each week, newly-produced video tutorials will be uploaded to the RWTHmoodle learning platform with content and recommended actions for the Visual Design course. The videos are self-explanatory and serve as a starting point for trying out new techniques and materials. The aim is, on the one hand, to deepen topics already covered in the BIG 1a course and, on the other hand, to encourage students to experiment in new ways.
Project funding: Hybrid thinking tools
CURRICULUM 4.0.NRW Designing university curricula for the digital world
The Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in cooperation with the Stifterverband and the Digital University NRW is funding the project Hybrid Thinking Tools - Research-Based Learning at the Interface of Material Experience and Digital Abstraction (HYDE).
First year of study: drawing excursion to Liège, Antwerp and Brussels
The focus is set on the development of a 'culture of travel'. The excursion not only encourages to get to know cultural diversity (in particular the Euregio area), but also to get familiar with significant as well as less known architecture and architectural ideas. These new experiences are processed visually in a personal sketchbook.
// EXCURSION CANCELED: WE ARE WORKING ON AN ALTERNATIVE FORMAT //
Drawing Excursion to Armenia: 29.05.2020 - 07.06.2020. Lecturers: Univ.-Prof. Thomas Schmitz, Anja Neuefeind, Sina Hensel
The event format 'On The Road' thematizes a places through travel. Excursions lead us away from the familiar to new experiences. The unambiguity of the situation of a 'drawing excursion' creates an atmosphere, for those involved in such an undertaking, that 'inspires' everyone.
// EXCURSION CANCELED: WE ARE WORKING ON AN ALTERNATIVE FORMAT //
Lecture: Bugs, glitches and other unpredictabilities. Anja Neuefeind.
Anja Neuefeind: 'Bugs, glitches and other unpredictabilities. Resistance of digital drawing tools and their aesthetic potential'. Conference: "Hacking the Computable. On the aesthetic critique of digital rationality" 16.01.2020 - 18.01.2020
Lecture: Modeling movements, noting space. Dominik Mohs.
In January 2020 Dominik Mohs gave a lecture on "Modeling movements, noting space". In addition to his theoretical approach and anthropologically based spatial concept, he will provide insight into his analysis of artistic practices. With the help of motion capture processes and collaboration with dancers, he conducts movement studies in architectural spaces. All students are cordially invited.
Lecture: Designing as memories. Univ.-Prof. Thomas H. Schmitz
The online magazine archimaera celebrates its relaunch and its new issue “atmospheres” at the UAA with a lecture by Thomas H. Schmitz on the subject of “designing as memories”.
Friday, November 22, 7 p.m. at the UAA Ungers Archive for Architectural Studies. Cologne.