From 26th to 28th of May 2011 the Dense Cities Symposium was held in the Aula and the auditorium 1 at the Graz University of Technology.

The magazines Archithese, Zuschnitt and Architektur&Bauforum have dedicated an issue to the topic of “Dense Cities”.

Density (Dietmar Eberle)

Dietmar Eberle from Faculty of Architecture TUGRAZ on Vimeo.

Face to the necessary habitat intensification, the various townscapes still stays prisoners of motionless symbolic evidences. We had the impression that – until few years ago – only two alternatives were imaginable: the multifamily building depreciated by the image of the housing complexes of the 60s and the suburban housing, both iconic and archetypal images of the desire to possess its own personal home.

The different projects presented in the lecture share a common emphasis to challenge the practice of urban planning and architecture by exploring various relations in between densification strategies and particular contextual qualities. This relational design practice urges the creation of a mutual encounter with local conditions such as matter/energy properties, specific human resources and the environment.

The lecture will address JDS‘s approach to architecture in which building performance is a guiding design principle. This information-driven design approach is open for a broad variety of performance parameters, both on a spatial, social, cultural,
environmental and technical level. JDS follows this integrative approach in order to develop buildings that create multiple links and relations, both internally and externally. In the lecture JDS will show examples of both performance in architecture and prformance of architecture on different programmatic fields.

The densification of cities is a constant leitmotiv behind all conceptions in our practice. The setting of Barcelona, one of Europe’s most dense city sets of course a predisposition but also does the belief that in the process of densification lies the creation of a “friction zone“ latent in the contemporary global living of today. Different scenarios generate different architectural strategies as a response to the salvage densification of the ‘70s occured during the years of mayor Porcioles.

Our home is now the city which becomes compact and mixed, which grows inwards and renews itself. We are returning to the historic city, the modern city, the postindustrial city while we are re-densifying the expanding city of the last decade. We are returning to the narrow plots of the medieval grids, to the 19th Century urban expansions and the new cities of the 60s. Five recent examples of work carried out on blocks

DenseCities (Luis Fernández Galiano)

DenseCities – Luis Fernández Galiano from Faculty of Architecture TUGRAZ on Vimeo.

The focus of the firm is on urban housing. In co-operation with building developers and occupants, the firm elaborates a range of dwellings that is as diversified as it is sustainable, creating residential properties of lasting value based upon high-quality precursors from the Gründerzeit and modern era. This includes work on the floor plan and on specific details, but also enhancing the residential setting, with the appearance of the buildings, now selfconfident and powerful, now amiable and warm, corresponding to the quality of living conditions within.