"HACK"

2022 / Teaching / TU Wien

Master Design Studio at the Research Department of Housing and Design.

Def: Hack /hak/ (noun) -

A clever, unintended exploitation of a system which: a) subverts the rules or norms of that system, b) at the expense of some other part of that system.

The ongoing state of emergency resulting from pandemic, climate adaptation, distributional injustice, ongoing conflicts and resulting migration flows is becoming the "new normal". This stress test unleashes political and activist energies in society that challenge capitalist and hegemonic mechanisms and re-pose fundamental social questions. It is important to use this moment of collective awakening and the debate for new future perspectives.

In order to connect to the discourse that the journal ARCH+ opens up with its new issue "Vienna - the end of housing (as typology)", we will examine how the monofunctionality of housing can be overcome and how alternative communal forms of living together can generate impulses for the existing city.

In doing so, the political dimension and operational power of communal living will be explored and used as a tool to address social deficiencies and to create new spaces of freedom and play in the existing city. It is therefore about “hacking” existing systems of housing provision, pushing back capitalist commodification and discriminating dynamics, enable access and enriching the city with multi-layered habitats of arrival, transit and stay.

Final projects will be located in Vienna, Paris and Berlin.

Led by Max Utech

Guest Critics: 

Max Turnheim (UHO, Paris / Architectural Association, London)

Felipe de Ferrari (Plan Común, Paris / OnArchitecture)

Inputs:

Nathalie Harb (Beirut, Paris)

Kristine Hymøller (Kopenhagen)

Grayson Earle (New York, Berlin)