Lecturers

Dr. Roman Kirschner
, Luke Franzke, Paulina Zybinska

Guest


Timeframe

The module takes place over 6 weeks, from 3. May to 10. June 2022 from Tuesday to Friday, 9.00-17.00 - see timetable below for detailed hours and classrooms. Class sessions include lectures, discussions, mentoring sessions, in-class exercises, assignments and independent study blocks. Projects are conducted individually or in a team of three students at most.

Room

Overview and Objectives

The module 'Spatial Interaction' challenges students to deepen their practical and conceptual knowledge of human interactions in their immediate surroundings. Starting from a location in Zurich where public life and „tamed nature“ overlap, students will develop spatio-technical frameworks for situated interactions. The student projects will connect people and environmental processes with the aim of investigating local impacts of urban (or everyday?) behaviour as well as long-distance effects of individual actions. They will learn how to interface the present mesocosm (collecting environmental data, identifying relationships) and how to anticipate/experiment with advanced techniques like remote sensing or machine vision. Designing in such situations requires the development of strategies for public outreach and communication as well as basic knowledge of intervening in complex systems. Students will work in groups and in a form of self-governed organization developed specifically for this course.

Students BA:

Students MA: 

Groups: 

  1. Group members: Réjane, Silvan, Aurelian
  2. Group members: Guan, Daniel, Janosch, Shafira
  3. Group members: Micaela, Fabrizio, Armin
  4. Group members: Johannes, Eleonora, Thore, Bamna
  5. Group members: Sandro, Elena, Jolanda
  6. Group members: Nadia, Nicola, Riva
  7. Group members: Miguel, Dzhuliia, Bin, Plengpai

Schedule


Week 1

Tuesday, 03.05.

Wednesday, 04.05.

Thursday, 05.05.

Friday, 06.05.

morning

9:00 Kick-off & Introduction

10:30 Presentation MA Design Studio 2




afternoon





Week 2

Tuesday, 10.05. 
(- MA students)

Wednesday, 11.05.Thursday, 12.05.Friday, 13.05.
morning
Steering-Meeting

afternoon


Week 3 

Tuesday, 17.05.
(- MA students)

Wednesday, 18.05.
(- MA students)		Thursday, 19.05. 
(- MA students)		Friday, 20.05. 
(- MA students)
morning

Individual work: Task Phase 2 group building + concept preparation

Group work: Concept finalization

Group work:  prototype 1Group work: 
prototype 1
afternoon

Group work: Concept finalization

Mentoring

Group work: prototype 1Group work: 
prototype 1
Week 4

Tuesday, 24.05.

Wednesday, 25.05.Thursday, 26.05.Friday, 27.05.
morning

Group work: 
prototype 1

Group work: 
final prototype		AUFFAHRTGroup work: 
final prototype
afternoon

Milestone presentation
prototype 1

group mentoring 
Group work: 
final prototype
Week 5Tuesday, 31.05.Wednesday, 01.06.Thursday, 02.06.Friday, 03.06.
morningGroup work: 
final prototype		Group work: 
final prototype		Group work: 
final prototype		Group work: 
final prototype
afternoon

Group work: 
final prototype

free mentoring

Group work: 
final prototype

free mentoring

Group work: 
final prototype

free mentoring

14:00 Vernissage
Week 6Tuesday, 07.06.Wednesday, 08.06.Thursday, 09.06.Friday, 10.06.
morningdocumentationdocumentation9:00-12:00 Masters Thesis Development 1: Colloquiumdocumentation
afternoon

13:00 Final Presentation 

documentation

documentationdocumentation


Literature


  1. Donella Meadows: Leverage Points - Places to Intervene in a System.
  2. Meredith Sattler, Carolina Rodriguez. Translating Ecological Systems Models into Generative, Real-Time, Form-Based Visualizations.
  3. Georges Perec: Träume von Räumen (Auszug dt.), Espèces d'espace (extrait fr.). (per email)
  4. Natasha Myers: A Kria for Cultivating your Inner Plant.
  5. Bourdieu, Pierre (1989) Sozialer Raum, symbolischer Raum. In: Dünne J., Raumtheorie - Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, Suhrkamp 2006, 354-368. (per email)
  6. Franinovic & Kirschner: Microbiospherians. (per email)

Further Reading

  1. Morton E. O'Kelly: Spatial Interaction.
  2. Baccini, et. al.(2012) Metabolism of the Anthroposphere: Analysis, Evaluation, Design, MIT Press
  3. González de Molina, Manuel, et al. (2014) The Social Metabolism: A Socio-Ecological Theory of Historical Change, Springer
  4. Gillian Barker et al.: Entangled Life. Organism and Environment in the Biological and Social Sciences. (2014)
  5. Jakob von Uexüll: Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen. Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. (1956)
  6. Massey, Doreen (2009) Concepts of space and power in theory and in political practice, Documents d'anàlisi geogràfica 55, 15-26
  7. Mol, Arthur P. J., et al. (2018) Zur Umweltsoziologie der Netzwerke und Flows. In: Groß M. (ed) Handbuch Umweltsoziologie. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 140–153
  8. Nelson, Mark (2018) Pushing our limits: Insights from Biosphere 2, University of Arizona Press

      (provided on request)


Technical Inputs

Please have a look at the special page about Computer Vision from Bits & Atoms IV.

Mentoring


We will prepare doodles for mentoring with time slots of different lengths depending on the progress of the overall project. Reserve your slot and try to be on time. Questions can be asked anytime – also via email.

Presentations


  1. Exercises (Vegetalize, Spatialize, Leverage Points)(everybody)
  2. Task Phase 1 (everybody)
  3. Task Phase 2 (everybody)
  4. Task Phase 2 - Second Stage (informal – some approaches might not be presentable at this time. But if you want your project to be discussed by the whole group, present it here! Otherwise show up for a mandatory mentoring the same or the following day.)
  5. Final (this really counts!)