Based at the Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, at the Department of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ, CH), Professor Hubert Klumpner of Urbanthinktank_next opened the Fábrica de Cultura: School of Arts and Popular Traditions, in Barranquilla, Colombia on 27 January 2022.
The Fábrica de Cultura: School of Arts and Popular Traditions complex in Barrio Abajo, a working-class neighborhood in Barranquilla, Colombia, is built into an abandoned Tobacco Factory, adding a new building and offering a public square for the Barrio. Located at the Caribbean coast, the Fábrica provides a ‘maker space’ for 2800 young people to learn the creative arts and popular traditions centered around the culture of the UNESCO World Heritage Carnival of Barranquilla. Operated by the Municipality, the facility offers arts and crafts education in - 11 disciplines music, dance, sculpture, dress making, painting poetry, theater, food production, digital film and audio techniques - to local residents, regardless of their social or economic background.
The design builts on vernacular patterns, behaviors and phenomena, utilizing local materials and processes and fabrication providing open building principles establishing a creative framework of stacked covered and uncovered spaces that can be modified and reprogrammed by users over time. Fábrica de Cultura offers a flexible building prototype wthat is beeing replicated in other parts of Barranquilla and Colombia as a whole using popular arts and culture as a strategy for inclusion throughout the region.
The Fábrica de Cultura is part of the larger Colombia Urban Transformation Program, a collaboration between the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), among others. The drawings and models for the project were shown at 17th International Architecture Biennale in Venice 2021.
studio mobil / think tank station @ Vienna Biennale
2021, the studio mobil / think tank station is back and invites from May to October to a journey imagining a visionary city outdoor-laboratory, engaging ideas around the future of food. By touring the city, taking the streets, performing five sessions with more than 20 partners the studio mobil / think tank station acts as a nomadic outdoor agora. As an alternative form of urban practice the think tank station welcomes people to participate by (re)activating, collecting, and sharing knowledge about food. Presenting workshops, debates, and lectures around alternative food and food spaces as the emerging theme that concerns all of us. Based on the idea of a gasoline station for the post-fossil age – perhaps one of the most iconic 20th-century purpose-built infrastructures—studio mobil / think tank station provides 24/7 services and infrastructure, including shelter, light, a library, performances, informal encounters, market, and a continuous supply of food for thought, but without gasoline—in short, a large-scale mobile sculpture anchored in public space.
studio mobil / think tank station in Vienna Biennale Guide 2021
studio mobil / think tank station Tour Poster with Dafi Kühne
PROJECT FACTS
Project type: Architectural design
Location: Vienna, Austria
Client: MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna Business Agency
Program: mobile city outdoor-laboratory
Project year: 2020–2021
Completed: In use
TEAM
Curators: Hubert Klumpner, Michael Walczak
Designteam: Anne Graupner, Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero, Hubert Klumpner, Michael Walczak
Documentation: Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou
in collaboration/partner with:
MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna Business Agency (Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, Alice Jacubasch)
OTHER CONSULTANTS
Production: Seidl Sails Andrea Seidl
Graphicdesign: integral designers ʃ Ruedi and Vera Baur
From Shelter to Home
Hurricane Eta (December 2020) post-disaster recovery proposal for efficient, incremental and sustainable housing units for San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands (Colombia)
In a context in which the urgency of reconstruction, preservation of identity and durability are essential conditions for new homes on the Caribbean Islands, the incremental development integrates criteria of prefabricated housing, environmental quality and solutions in accordance with the traditions of the families from the first moment.
This incremental proposal on its first stage (the Shelter / El Refugio) is built up by an efficient and industrialization support structure, technical installations, the roof and the facades with elements that guarantee the stability of the houses against natural phenomena such as hurricanes, rains or flooding, that will also occur more frequently. At this stage, the houses are configured by a perimeter structure that allows the occupation of the first half of the house and that contains an exterior and interior social area, kitchen, clothing area, bathroom and two bedrooms. This space, where its components are industrialized to efficiently address the deficit caused by the emergency, guarantees the habitability of homes and the future safety of the community.
The second stage (The Home / El Hogar) is the space for growth and adaptation of the dwellings to the cultural traditions and family needs during the post-disaster recovery process. There, new domestic spaces or complementary spaces (small shops, workshops, educational spaces, among others) can be extended, preserving social traditions and the identity of the communities as a strategy to configure a new appropriation by diversity of people, uses and local traditions.
PROJECT FACTS
Project type: Architectural design
Location: San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands (Colombia)
Project year: 2021
TEAM
Architects: Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya, Hubert Klumpner and Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann
Team: Manuela Henao, Ana María Mejía, Daniel Molina, Sara Monsalve, Sebastián Ramírez, Juan Pablo Zuleta, Daniel Zuluaga
Climate Innovation Districts Vienna
Vienna studies on "Vienna Northwest Railway Station" and "Alberner Hafen" as models for "Climate Innovation Districts" testing design processes in postindustrial sites for incorporating new housing strategies.
PROJECT FACTS
Project type: Architectural design
Location: Vienna (Austria)
Project year: 2020
TEAM
Team: Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann, Melanie Fessel, Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak
Rural-Urbanthinktank
Inside-out, flexible growing house in timber
Maria Bayer, my grandmother, used to tell me her story of becoming a refugee, living in four different countries, without ever leaving her house. Until being expelled, arriving in the late 1940s as a displaced person, starting a new life with her remaining and new family. Her new house was the oldest building in the hamlet of Eichham, near the city of Salzburg, across the Austrian-German border. The hybrid living and building cultures and contradictions embedded in this 17th-century historical monument and its new inhabitants and old neighbors have been an anchor and inspiration.
Built in 1680 as a one-gabled log cabin around a natural stone masonry, vaulted basement, kitchen, stove, and chimney in late 2018 we continued the simple, economic and archaic, analog process of restoring up-keeping the house with the help of family, friends, and neighbors. Reinterpreting vernacular construction traditions, log, saw and cut the timber, and shingles from the surrounding forests, stone from the nearby Untersberg quarry. We were rebuilding with local materials the roof, workshops, and naves hollowing out half the house, leaving the other half intact, constructing the former barn inside out, leaving the centuries-old frame intact, and rebuilding a new timber frame inside the old house. Then re-planking the weathered skin with larch wood, remaking the façade into single- and double-height sliding elements to allow for daylight. After long-term testing, all the work was carried out of local needs, applying crafts and common sense, with an open program for long life and loose fit.
PROJECT FACTS
Project type: Architectural design
Location: Eichham (Germany)
Project year: 2018
TEAM
Architects: Hubert Klumpner
Design / Planning
Green Corridors Initiative: The Barranquilla Case
Due to the increase in temperature in different cities of Colombia, environmental deterioration and increased risks for the most-vulnerable population, this initiative replicates sustainable-planning criteria based on natural components to improve environmental conditions and quality of life. This strategy makes it possible to go from a city scale to a country scale. In the case of Barranquilla, the aim is to increase the quantity and quality of public space through the articulation of natural borders with urban centralities and the continuity of natural landscapes to reduce temperatures, improve air quality, increase local fauna and flora, offer employment opportunities for the most-vulnerable communities and supply the city with an environmental, sustainable and productive concept through urban agriculture.
This project is supported by the Fair Cooling Fund – Ashden (United Kingdom)
TEAM
Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya, Hubert Klumpner and Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann
in collaboration with:
UPB Medellín, Fair Cooling Fund-Ashden
Stuttgart Rosenstein
Rosenstein – a new urban district to be developed over the next 20 years in the very heart of the city. The competition has appeared as a response to the major infrastructural transformation in the central area of Stuttgart. Hence, the new urban district is called to reconcile the city’s strong industrial identity with inevitable structural changes to meet the needs of the citizens and to become an exemplary model for the future development of Stuttgart and the region.
At the center of the proposal is the 150-year-old railway structure and remaining beautiful constructions that have endured both war and high-speed trains – but now emerge as a city. Bridges, slopes and viaducts have been ingeniously incorporated into the new city converging their synergies to the new public realm – Gleisbogen Park. Additionally, the overall concept creates potentials for high-quality daily life for the residents, taking into account microclimate and water management, mix of functions and variety of scales, enhanced connectivity and future mobility strategies. With its strong historical identity, valuable green areas and vast social and cultural programme, Rosenstein is envisioned to become both – a destination to explore and a place to live.
PROJECT FACTS
Project type: International open two-stage urban design competition
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
Client: Stuttgart City
Program: appr. 85 ha of a new residential district with socio-cultural facilities and expansion of Rosenteinpark and Schlossgarten
Project year: 2018–2019
Completed: Fourth prize
TEAM
Urban Research and Design Consultants:
Hubert Klumpner, Melanie Fessel, Michael Walczak, Lukas Lerchs, Clearhos Papanicolaou
Entwicklung von Ideen für eine zukunftsweisende Neugestaltung des Kulturquartiers in Stuttgart rund um die Stadtautobahn B14.
Unabhängig und frei von jeglichen Restriktionen und Zwängen sollen Vorstellungen entwickelt werden, wie der öffentliche Raum nach der Zerstörung durch die Verkehrsschneisen der Bundesstraßen B14 und B27 wieder zurückgewonnen werden kann. Aus der in Stuttgart einmaligen Dichte kultureller Einrichtungen in diesem wichtigen Bereich der Innenstadt, soll endlich ein lebendiges Kulturquartier werden.
PROJECT FACTS
Project type: Workshop
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
Client: Aufbruch Stuttgart
Project year: 2018–2019
TEAM
Hubert Klumpner, Melanie Fessel, Michael Walczak, Lukas Lerchs, Clearhos Papanicolaou
MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, Stubenring 5, 1010 Vienna
Radical Care / Re-imagining Architecture and Urbanisation for the many
Armando Silva's Urban Imaginaries / Imaginarios Urbanos project is the continuation of the development studies carried out between 1998 and 2004 in Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain. The objectives of his thesis presented in 2002 at Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany are to capture an anthropological understanding of contemporary urban phenomena from the citizen's perspective. Silva is proposing a radical change from the understanding of traditional urbanism towards an urbanism created by the citizens, constructing imaginaries from their perceptions and activities from which the reality of the city is experienced and lived. For instance, the urbanism organizing public spaces as a manifestation of physical infrastructure is confronting the perspective of a "citizen urbanism" made by the people for their city. Various techniques and particular research methodologies have been developed for the observation and register to produce Urban Imaginaries.
In a next step, Silva is looking with urbanthinktank_next at the contemporary laboratory of cities using advanced digital tools and performative practices from activism and contemporary arts to create urban case studies departing from the Urban Imaginaries baseline archive. The principal objective of this exhibition is to create an archive determining the profound linkages between the collective perceptions for the design process for cities. The use and evocation of urbanism from this citizen's perspective, as a base enabling the construction of new urban strategies and mentalities, allow us to live together in our future cities. Translating social transformations into urban transformations. Architectural, building practices and ultimately transforming the built and natural environment into a framework of access for tools and a perspective on the imaginaries nurturing, dwelling, moving, and generating reaching social and ecological justice for the many.
A Design Agenda for Active Engagement on Different Scales of Climate-Care
What if our assumptions about our achievements as a society and the limitlessness of progress and growth are wrong? Our attention has been focused on human actors and the effects of human actions and these dominate the contemporary social, environmental, scientific, technological, political, and economic discourse. Climate change is real and it concerns all forms of life on Earth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized how vulnerable we are. What if we decided to cooperate and adjusted our actions to our realities?
Consider this: What if smart cities and the reliance on technological fixes don’t provide us with a better, happier life in the future? What if we cared for each other instead and advocated for a world with equal opportunities for all? What if it took a new mindset of re-thinking and re-designing our world around the re-imagination of CLIMATE CARE?
The mission of the IMAGINARIES section is clear: Our common home on Earth is based on the co-existence of particular climates that interact dynamically with the biospheres allowing the existence of all organic life. This life thrives in a thin blanket of air, water, and soil, stretches from approx.10.000 m below to 10.000 m above sea level, is wrapped around planet Earth, and connects with every aspect of our future.
With regard to our search for a catalyst of interconnected dynamic processes, methods, and tools, we present prototypical case studies within four corresponding sub-chapters: NURTURING, DWELLING, MOVING, and GENERATING. These are presented on a global, regional, and local scale. A framework for a new kind of design research agenda of relations, thoughts, concrete materials, devices, and information platforms is proposed. This agenda will augment design as a key to the quality of life. However incomplete and open-ended, it provides a necessary forecast—a collection or toolbox of ideas and concrete pilot projects. It calls upon people from various disciplines to collaborate and brainstorm together whether there may be scenarios to lead us from the present unsustainable situation towards circular thinking and advocacy for radical care. Design confronts us with possible futures. It presents concrete examples focused on choices and our influence on and anticipation of a close spiritual connection between a defiant Earth and humankind's power to understand and change the systems of the Earth. Grimson Architectural Historians coined this Anthropocentrism 2.0.
Our call is inseparable from trans-scalar design thinking that connects all disciplines and schools of thought. At the core of this concerted action stands the idea of collaboration instead of competition when it comes to the future of our climate. This places culture, art, architecture, and urban design alongside science, technology, and politics. Fifty years after the publication of the last Whole Earth Catalog, we propose a starting point for developing guidelines that will provide “access to a toolbox for the 21st century.”
This agenda is about concentrating on the Earth as a whole. We proposed a Design Agenda for Active Engagement to conduct baseline research at four different University Institutes in Vienna and Zurich by one hundred students. The next generation of digitally connected designers and architects took on the task of thinking, refining, developing, and presenting their ideas and research. These contributed to the Imaginaries Project 100 Ideas for Vienna.
In a series of self-driven original pilot projects, a diverse group of distinguished and emerging designers, architects, urban designers, and planners expressed an enduring flow of proactive initiatives engaging with real-world problems. Projects show integrated and inclusive thinking; they range from a system of local drinking fountains on an urban scale to a global infrastructure project extracting CO2 from the atmosphere in an Icelandic village.
Design is all about ideas, determination, and endurance. This conceptual toolbox inspires a collaborative network through design by means of teaching, research, and concrete project development. It proposes a new design agenda with mindful design projects on different scales of CLIMATE-CARE.
It's time to start a myriad of small and large interventions, and it’s time to do so together. Act now!
Nurturing
Re-designing our environment and using clean air, water, and soil in a mindful way are at the core of vital, local interactions and behavioral aspects concerning food systems. However, the idea of Nurturing also includes the culture of production, processing, packaging, and distribution of food, creating awareness of the increasing impact of plant-based diets. We call for a re-evaluation of supply chains that respect human and non-human actors' health and well-being. The ecosystem of Nurturing challenges design to create new ways for climate-caring food supply: from temporary land-use solutions to innovative raw materials, such as dairy and meat analogs, algae, and insects produced by urban farming, or processing concepts.
The burden of overnutrition and malnourishment is symptomatic for our fragmented society. A more sensible and better distribution of affordable markets offering Nurturing solutions to reduce society’s growing division as well as deficiencies worldwide is needed. Low-income populations in developed and developing economies require practical solutions to improve their nutrition while achieving balance across geographies. Design solutions and ideas avoid environmental, economic, and social costs and address conflicts between nature, food, and feed production with the goal of healing the climate for the benefit of our ecosystems.
Dwelling
As a society, we have relatively static views on our way of settling. In the future, we will see the emergence of new forms of family, citizenship, and urbanization. The distinction between housing and living has never been more detached from a physical space. Through advanced understanding of ethnography and sub-cultures, we see emerging design ideas. These include increasingly blurred concepts of urban and rural life, prototypes utilizing material ingenuity to discover new forms of habitation, re-wilding of our cities in green corridors for socio-environmental benefits, indigenous learning and teaching as a collective effort, as well as circular timber and paper architecture transferring and scaling sustainable construction efforts. All these ideas are bringing forward design innovations for a shared global living room.
Moving
Most contemporary needs in an urbanizing environment are sustained by the permanent and massive mobilization of goods and services. The global movements hunting and gathering raw materials and resources challenge us, and refugees and climate migrants demand refuge in need of safety and security. However, by coming to terms with the reality of the situation, we can sustain and re-build environments by improving and optimizing our immediate surroundings and diversifying our social interactions and engagement. The scales of climate care reach from nomadic seasonal movements, design and integration of infrastructures, the need to negotiate more temporary settlements due to rising water levels, and conflicting borders reconciling us with our environment. Acknowledging our local environmental footprint raises questions regarding the necessity of daily commutes, re-engagement with our immediate surroundings, and providing of essential services of work, education, and culture. New media, digital technologies, and massive online tools challenge our ability to engage with the natural and built environment on all scales
Generating
There are numerous examples of creating new materials, tools, and frameworks to imagine circular strategies for a Design Agenda of Active Engagement. The generative power of care is highlighted in projects analyzing ecological zones as transborder opportunities, material practices, considering people’s work as resource rather than cost, growing, adapting, and upcycling for alternative value chains. Craftsmanship requires new forms of digital fabrication and vice versa. The harvesting of waste produces energy while emerging strategies point to zero-carbon solutions that meet the need to store carbon dioxide. These technologies generate new opportunities in the laboratory of the experimental engagement with real-world problems: We can already imagine and envision collective ideas and actions for a mindset-changing lifestyle for a circular climate future.
Hubert Klumpner and Melanie Fessel, 15.04.2021
Research
Laufen Manifesto
In Search of a Process, Laufen Manifesto for a Humane Design Culture
Anna Heringer, Andres Lepik, Hubert Klumpner, Peter Rich, Line Ramstad, Peter Schmal, Andres Bäppler, Emilio Caravatti, Dietmar Steiner, Christian Werthmann, Martin Rauch, Dominique Gauzin-Müller, Helena Sandman, Enrico Vianello, Rahul Mehrotra, Alejandro Restreppo, Susanne Hofman, Anh-Linh Ngo, Louis Fernandez Galliano and Alejandro Echeverri
Too many people worldwide subsist in undeserving living conditions, and their ranks are growing by the day. As repre - sentatives of the professions collectively shaping the built environment, it is our responsibility to resist this intolerable sit - uation. We are speaking out to define an alternative position. We must produce spaces that counter exploitation, control and alienation, whether in urban or rural landscapes. With all our expertise, crea - tivity and power, we need to contribute more dynamically and consequentially to the global quest for equality. Across a range of pilot projects, we have begun to initiate a more humane design culture, working with a robust network of communities, craftsmen, planners, builders and organizations. These alternative prac - tices demand not only further development, but also substantial scaling-up. Guided by a deeper understanding of individual needs and aspirations as our fundamental concern, we must urgently multiply our efforts to improve the ecological, social, and aesthetic quality of the built environment, while developing more effective design strategies to anticipate predicted future growth on a global scale.
Der Fall des 50 Jahre andauernden eisernen Vorhangs im Jahre 1989 hat eine grosse Transformationswelle in der Stadt Wien ausgelöst. Teil davon ist die 1992 entstandene erste Fassung der ‚100 Ideen für Wien‘. 25 Jahre danach werden die ‚Ideen‘ wieder neu aufgegriffen und bewertet.
Methode:
Der Donau Richtung folgend über Sigmaringen, München mit einem Einführungsvortrag vor der Pinakothek der Modern, Laufen am Hubertusplatz mit einem Round-Table, Linz mit einer ‚Maker-Space‘ Besichtigung in der Peter Behrens Tabakfabrik und Ybbs an der Donau erreichte das Studio-Mobil Wien.
Als alternative Unterrichtsmethode in Zeiten von Pandemien und Corona wurde durch Urban-Think Tank Next, Hubert Klumpner und Michael Walczak, im Entwerfen ‚100 Ideen für Wien‘ an der TU Wien, das Konzept des temporären mobilen Studios vorgestellt. Dieses Format präsentiert sich losgelöst von physischen und absoluten Gebäuden und agiert direkt im urbanen Raum Wiens.
Die Aufgabe der Studierenden bestand darin Prototypen entlang von Sehnen durch die Stadt zu entdecken welche sich bis nach Niederösterreich streckten. Anhand von echtzeit GPS-Ortung konnten die einzelnen Teams lokalisiert werden und Tischbesprechungen direkt im Studio-Mobil an den jeweiligen Orten stattfinden. Da alle Treffen und Vorlesungen parallel auch über Online Medien stattfanden, erlaubte es dieses Methode den nötigen Abstand und Hygiene Vorkehrungen einzuhalten.
Zwischen- und Schlusspräsentation fanden physisch am Studio-Mobil statt wobei das Vehikel für redaktionelle Meetings als Whiteboard umfunktioniert wurde.
Parallel sind alle Erkentnisse und Entdeckungen in eine interaktive digitale Sammlung aller Prototypen (Bild 05) geflossen. Dies war vorallem für Gastkritiker aus New York, Johannesburg, Salzburg und Konstanz wie auch als Übersicht für die Studierenden selbst nützlich.
Neben einer interaktiven 3D Karte mit geolokalisierten Prototypen, welche im Co-Design aller Studierenden entwickelt wurde, sind als finales Produkt ‚100 Ideen für Wien‘ mit jeweils einem Titel, Beschreibung, axonometrischer Zeichnung und atmosphärischem Bild entstanden.
In baldiger Zukunft werden die Resultate in digitaler- wie auch Buchform verfügbar sein.
Wien, 2020
Gastprofessur TU Wien Städtebau
Prof. Hubert Klumpner, Dr. Michael Walczak
uttnext @ TU Munich
Technical University of Munich, visiting professor, TUM Global Visiting Professor Program
The Klumpner Chair of Architecture and Urban Design is based at the ETH Zürich, in Switzerland.
Our research and design activities are organized within the framework of Teaching, Making, and Researching.
We are galvanized in recognizing that our local and global models of urbanization are in crisis. We respond by proposing possible models, scenarios and relationships that advance our understanding of new forms of urban potential. We harness the resulting creative power to implement changes in the way we live in cities.
Our outputs triangulate urban design, policy-making and habitat-building in current and future global research zones including Latin America, the Balkans, and southern Africa. Beyond teaching outputs, we also design and execute built projects, organize exhibitions, participate in international colloquia, publish and edit articles and volumes, and engage in audiovisual practices such as filmmaking.
The Chair operates in close collaboration with the Institute of Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP), the ETH Wohnforum–ETH CASE, and is the regional representative of the UN Habitat University Informal Urbanism Hub.
Urban-Think Tank emerged from a garage project founded by Hubert Klumpner and Alfredo Brillembourg in Venezuela, as Caracas-Think Tank in 1998, and has been active ever since in architecture urban planning, design, and art. Other project offices existed in several locations until the opening of a second studio in 2011 in Zurich (CH). In 2019 the partnership with Alfredo Brillembourg came to an end.
Consequently, Hubert Klumpner started a new studio as Design Principal and CEO with a generational, gender, and geographical shift, focusing on socio-ecological design for Climate_Care, re-founded as urbanthinktank_next (uttnext) in Zurich (CH). Soon later, they established another office, moving operations from Caracas (VE) to Medellin (COL), and developed a network of project partners and new associates from the Balkans and South Africa.
Since 2020, Michael Walczak co-directs uttnext projects in Vienna (A) and Sarajevo (BiH), experimenting during the pandemic with the mobile studio, think tank-station. Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya and Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann are co-directing the office in Medellin (COL). Our theoretical framework for Radical Care and Climate Action is on display at the Vienna Biennale for Change 2021 in the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) main exhibition. uttnext is uniting a growing network of collaborators and local partnerships developing and constructing original prototypical projects. Our theoretical framework of Radical Care and Climate Action is a critic against the technology-reliant smart-city movement and presented in the MAK main exhibition. The Climate-Care exhibition builds theory and proposes concrete alternatives for social and environmental justice by agency and design.
uttnext re-imagines urbanization through architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and urbanism by designing and providing access to analog and digital tools, methods, and prototypical projects augmenting the quality of life for all people in existing and new cities - against the backdrop of an interwoven world-primarily from southern perspectives.
Born in Madrid / ES, he is a Spanish-Swiss architect and urban designer with a bachelor's and master's degree from the Polytechnic School of Madrid (ETSAM), where he graduated with honors. His final thesis received awards from the Emerging New York Architects (AIA) and the Bi-annual Pasajes-Iguzzini International Award. He has worked and studied in Madrid, Berlin, New York, and Zurich.
Currently based in Medellín, he is the Director of the Urban Transformation Program in Colombia (UTPC 2014-2022) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) / Chair of Architecture and Urban Design and Invited Professor of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. He has widely lectured at schools including Columbia University New York (GSAPP), Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Polytechnic School of Engineers in Madrid (ETSII), and in Universities in Colombia as La Nacional, Javeriana, and de Los Andes in Bogotá.
Under Diego’s lead the Program has received several awards like the "Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design 2016 Award" for the Fabrica de Cultura project in Barranquilla and was runner-up for the "Re-Thinking the Future Award, 2020" for the School Prototype in Cartagena /CO.
Languages: Spanish, German, English.
Born in Konstanz / D, Melanie Fessel is a German-American architect and urban designer. She is a Lecturer, Academic Coordinator, and Doctoral Researcher at the ETH Zurich, Department of Architecture. As Principal Investigator at Open Network Ecology, an interdisciplinary research initiative for the socio-ecological design. She is the Lead Member of the Terreform Network in Europe. Melanie was Director of Design at Terreform ONE, Non-Profit Architecture and Urban Design Research Group. Previously, she was Head of Design Development for Alice Aycock Ltd., Founding Member at ONE LAB, and Managing Editor of Ecogram. Melanie is a former Associate Fellow with the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design.
She won national and international awards, including; LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for North America, AIA New York Urban Design Merit Award, and the Victor Papanek Social Design Award. She is co-author of "Ecotarium: Unlimited Lifecycle Design" (Moncaster Press, 2015). Her work has been published in; "Design with Life: Biotech Architecture and Resilient Cities" (ACTAR, 2019), "XXL-XS New Directions in Ecological Design" (ACTAR 2017), and "Architecture of Nature: Nature of Architecture" (Applied Research & Design, 2019). Additionally, her work has been exhibited at White Box Gallery in New York, DOX Center for Contemporary Art in Prague, MASS MoCA in North Adams, The Building Centre in London, DAZ in Berlin, OCAD in Toronto, NAI in Rotterdam, and the Venice Biennale. Melanie received: M.Arch The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Dipl.- Ing. Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain.
Melanie is currently Co-curating the Vienna Biennale for Change CLIMATE-CARE main exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna / A.
Languages: German, English.
Anne Graupner, Johannesburg / ZA, Salzburg / A
Hubert Klumpner, Zurich / CH
Born in Johannesburg, she is a South-African - Austrian architect and urban designer with a master's degree from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (Studio Zaha Hadid), where she graduated cum laude. She co-founded in 2003 the firm 26" 10' South Architects in Johannesburg. She headed the office's urban and spatial development projects while taking an active part in all design, teaching, research, and knowledge management projects. In 2019 she joined the ETHZ Chair for Architecture and Urban Design and a collaborator with Urbanthinktank_next.
Anne is currently in charge of the think tank station design under construction with Seidl Sails in Salzburg.
Languages: German, English.
Born in Salzburg / A, he is an architect, design principal / CEO, and Director of the Swiss-based Urban-Think Tank Hubert Klumpner Architects LLC. As co-founder of U-TT, he is considered one of the originators of the "social-turn," a movement that had its breakthrough in 2010 with the MoMA exhibition Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement. Klumpner is a tenured professor at ETH Zurich, leading the Chair of Architecture and Urban Design. In 1993 he received a Master in Architecture degree at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where he studied with Hans Hollein, and in 1995 a Master in Urban-Design degree as a Fulbright Scholar from the GSAPP at Columbia University / NY, where he also thought 2007 to 2010 as Adjunct Professor. U-TT has received numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Gold Holcim Award for Latin America, the Curry Stone Design Award, and the Chicago Museum of Architecture and Design Award.
Hubert Klumpner is currently curating the architecture section of the Biennale for Change under the title Imaginaries, and the thinktank-station in five locations in the City of Vienna presented from the 28th of Mai to 3rd of October 2021 at the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna with the Wiener Wirtschaftsagentur in Vienna / A.
Languages: German, English, Spanish.
Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya, Medellin / CO
Maria-Gabriela Sarmiento, Zurich / CH
Born in Medellín / CO, he is an architect, graduated with academic honors from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, Colombia in 1996. Specialist in Business Management for Architecture from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, 2001. Doctor of Engineering and Architecture graduated with academic honors from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany, 2018.
Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya is based in Medellín. As a three-time winner of the Honorable Mention at the Colombian Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (2003, 2008, 2020), winner of the Antonio de la Torre y Miranda Award from the Colombian Society of Architects for the direction of strategic urban projects in Medellín and for the contributions to urban development in Colombia (2020), three-time winner of the National Corona Pro Habitat Award (1998, 2003, 2009), winner of the Corona Organization Professional Excellence Award (2012), winner of the Holcim International Award Encouragement Category (2004) and winner of the Distinction and Recognition Award at the Pan-American Architecture Biennial in Quito (2004).
He is a Professor at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Faculty of Architecture since 1996, a Global Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Munich, and was Guest Professor in different universities in Europe, America, and Asia.
Between 2016 and 2019, he was Director of the Office of Strategic Urban Projects of the Medellín Mayor's Office. Since 2018, he is the Director of the Urban Transformation Program in Colombia from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, in Medellín.
His professional work has been built and exhibited in different countries. He has a scientific inventor's patent in Colombia and a scientific inventor's patent in Panama for the Industrialized Modular Constructive System to design and construct houses and institutional buildings.
Alejandro is responisble as the local architect of record for all projects executed in Colombia.
Born in Caracas (VE), she is a lawyer, human and environmental rights activist specialized in international trade law. As founder of Sarmiento Núñez Consulting, she is leading the Zurich office and is a registered member of the Caracas Bar association.
In 1996 she graduated from the Central University of Venezuela / UCV and earned 1998 her Master's Degree in International Trade Law from the University of Bourgogne in Dijon /F. In 2003, she completed her Postgraduate Studies in Int. trade law at the University Inst. of European Studies, Turin / IT. Maria-Gabriela worked for the Int. Telecommunications Union / ITU and the International Trade Center / ITC in Geneva, on digital transformations in South America, Africa, and Asia.
Since 2018 Sarmiento conducts her Ph.D. studies investigating international economic crimes and foreign stolen assets recovery at the Faculty of Law at the University of Zaragoza (E).
Sarmiento is co-founder and president of Save My Identity, an NGO and social justice organization providing legal counseling for migration and international protection to forcibly displaced refugees and asylum seekers, building capacity for migrants.
Gabriela Sarmiento is based in Zurich, directing and managing Urban-Think Tank Hubert Klumpner LLC.
Maria-Gabriela is providing legal counsel for our projects and policy-activism.
Born in Tirol / A, studied in Vienna and at the McGill University in Montreal. He received his Dipl. Ing. degree in Architecture from the Technical University of Vienna in 1994 and a Master's degree in Urban-Design as Fulbright Scholar in 1996 from the GSAPP at Columbia University, New York. Based in New York City, he is practicing as an Architect and has developed large-scale projects over more than two decades with R. Meier & Partners in the US, Europe, and Asia. He is a licensed Architect in Germany since 1998 and a member of the BDA since 2001. Since 1998 he frequently collaborates with Urban-Think Tank on various design projects. In 2019, Stefan joined urbanthinktank_next.
Stefan is responsible for supervising complex key projects.
Languages: German, English.
Born in Nuremberg / D to a Polish family, Michael an architect, researcher, and lecturer. He studied architecture at the Bern University for Applied Sciences (BFH) in Burgdorf, where he attended a semester at Stanford University and an exchange semester at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences. For his interdisciplinary doctoral studies, Michael graduated with distinction from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, bridging his work with the ETH Zurich Institutes Laboratory for Energy Conversion (LEC) and the ISTP Urbanization Research Incubator. His doctoral dissertation is titled "Digital Urban Imaginaries: Digital models transforming citizen-centered design processes" and received the state award „Award of Excellence“ from the Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Science and Research for the best dissertation. The research resulted in the co-development of commercialized software "Enerpol" for large-scale urban simulations coupled with data-driven analysis. He has been part of ETH Zurich Chair of Architecture and Urban Design since 2017. He is currently a Post-Doctoral researcher leading the Sarajevo Urban Transformation Program and developing the general urban plan for the City of Sarajevo.
Since 2019 Michael is co-directing urbanthinktank_next in Vienna (AT) and Sarajevo (BiH) and is responsible for digital technologies and decision-making processes.
Michael is currently co-curating the "think tank station" in five locations in the City of Vienna, presented from the 27th of May to the 3rd of October 2021 as part of the Biennale for Change at the Museum of Applied Arts / MAK with the Vienna Business Agency.
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News
15.09.2023
"100 Ideas for the Western Balkan - Designing Urban Imaginaries", curated by uttnext's Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak is launching 100 metaphorical and prototypical projects for Sarajevo. Anchored in Sarajevo, we celebrate the first iteration of this exhibition in the Western Balkan driven by the energy of the 15th Days of Architecture Sarajevo – providing the ideal platform for lecture series, conferences, symposia, and workshops in Sarajevo, the region’s most diverse and multicultural city and capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina – to set off discussions and debate around an emerging design community, simultaneously expanding the scope and audience for architecture in the Balkans. The Western Balkan cities are the sites of profound exploration, giving stimulus for diverse models of spatial imagination, considering the so-far overlooked architectural examples in architectural practice that are developing below the radar of predicament and digital innovation.
During today's Official Olympic Day, uttnext is launching the "Sarajevo 2024 Architecture Olympics, legacy project", as part of this years 15th Days of Architecture Sarajevo, uttnext's Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak were appointed as curators.
Image: City of Sports, Olympic Training Center on the Banks of the Danube in Vienna/AT, awarded best Urban Design Project of the National Olympic Committee in Rome, and Architecture Award of the City of Vienna, Project: Hubert Klumpner, Urbanthinktank_next
uttnext's Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak were selected as curators for this year's Days of Architecture/Dani Arhitekture in Sarajevo! Stay tuned for the announcement of the theme.
Fábrica de Cultura School of Arts and Popular Traditions in Barranquilla, Colombia is selected for a pre-nomination for the Building of the Year 2023 by Archdaily/Dornbracht.
Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (UABB) 2022 opens with "DESIGNING URBAN IMAGINARIES EXHIBITION". Curated by uttnext's Melanie Fessel, with Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak, with projects of, Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Rahul Mehrotra, Rural Urban Framework, Doreen Heng Liu, Kristina Orehounig, Urbanthinktank_next Medellin / Zurich and many more Architects and Designers. Based on the seminal work of Armando Silva on Urban Imaginaries. Exhibition and Graphic Design in Vienna and China with Ruedi Baur, Vera Baur Kockot. The exhibition was first presented in the framework of the Vienna Biennale for Change, initiated by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein at the Museum of Applied Arts / MAK.
Congratulations to Bosnia and Herzegovina for the EU candidate status, just in time concluding our one-year baseline study on atmospheric climate and air quality measurements, using the Studio Mobil “Mobile Citizen Science Lab”, for the first Sarajevo general urban plan after 40 years.
Upcomming lecture by uttnext's Hubert Klumpner at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, KN 67 Nyagurenge, Kigali on the 26.10.2022 at 15:30 in the Auditorium. We will propose and discuss the topic of "Urbanising Earth", its history and future implications on sustainable development.
20.10.2022
uttnext’s Dr. Michael Walczak held a lecture as part of the Urban Stories lecture series at ETH Zurich Klumpner Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, sharing Sarajevo’s past and future urban imaginaries in the virtual and actual reality.
uttnext's Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak were selected to engage with a workshop on the topic of "in-side-out: Daylight in Urban-Design Modelling" at the Velux Stiftung DLA (Daylight Academy) Annual Conference & General Assembly 2022, developing a novel daylight assessment metrics for urban design processes
"Salon Public" in Lucerne, with uttnext's Architect Hubert Klumpner, Architect Matthias Sauerbruch, Historian Jakob Tanner, Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, and many more, on the topic of City of the Future, House of the Future.
uttnext in Sarajevos Museum District in front of the Museum of History of the City of Sarajevo, Urbanthinktank_next with „False Clouds“, curated by Gabriela Manda Seith, investigating how science and technology influence the arts, and vice versa. With a contribution of Urbanthinktank_next on Urbanisation and Conflict designing Atmospheres, Imaginaries and Climate-Care for Sarajevo and other cities, presented on site by Michael Walczak (uttnext) and Jasmin Sirco (LIFT-Dani arhitetkure Sarajeva, BIH), at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo BiH. Img Credits.: False Clouds
New lecture online by uttnext's Hubert Klumpner. Launched on the occasion of the exhibition "Gego. The Architecture of an Artist", the conference "Gego. Procedencia y encuentro" ["Origin and Encounter"] took place at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.
uttnext's partner and legal counsel Maria-Gabriela Sarmiento is giving a talk on 05. May 2022 at 10:00 pm MEZ: Social and Environmental Justice needs legal frameworks for interventions and implementations in urban development zones. This project initiative has the potential to deliver a perspective to millions of displaced people around the world. A brave and fascinating thought provoking initiative with the potential to provide support to the people who most need it.
Armando Silva writes about the Fábrica de Cultura in El Tiempo. The philosopher's feature on Colombia's flagship newspaper makes valuable observations about our latest built project
uttnext's Michael Walczak published new chapter titled "An Approximation to Digital Urban Imaginaries" in the book "Nonlinear Urbanism: Towards Multiple Urban Futures" edited by Anton Falkeis et al. This publication is the result of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Department for Special Topics in Architecture Design supervised by Prof. Anton Falkeis, Prof. Hubert Klumpner and Prof. Dr. Reza S. Abhari; and is published by Birkhäuser.
New Book publication out! uttnext's Hubert Klumpner, Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya and Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann together with Ashden, write on the topic of "Environmental Urban Planning".
New Interview with Stylepark, uttnext, Hubert Klumpner discussed what is important in the planning of urban spaces today and what we can learn from the cities in the global south.
uttnext's Michael Walczak and Hubert Klumpner are glad to announce the launch of the ISTP ETHZ interactive 3D multi-user policy web platform "Urban Research Incubator"
On the occasion of the exhibition "Gego. The Architecture of an Artist", a two-day symposium (7 & 8 April 2022) will take place. The professional and social contexts in which Gego was embedded, first in Stuttgart and later in Caracas, will be discussed. Among other distinguished guests, uttnext, Hubert Klumpner, will be part of the Podium on 07.04.2022, 16:00, in the "Kunstmuseum Stuttgart", a contemporary and modern art museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
New Interview with the Solothurner Zeitung, uttnext, Hubert Klumpner discussed the potential of the whole of the Swiss Mittelland, with a focus on the Gäu region as a case study. Putting in the context of other European examples.
Keynote, lecture and debate, by uttnext Medellin: Hubert Klumpner, Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann and Alejandro Restreppo
Climate change is playing out its effects more and more on the local level. As the sea level rises, so does the number of natural disasters such as extreme weather and floods. The lack of green spaces, disorderly occupation, and low soil permeability in cities result in growing problems in urban areas. Climate change reinforces the need to adapt cities to handle these situations and look for green initiatives of urban development. Large green areas and more sustainable responses are crucial in dense cities to avoid natural catastrophes as to make cities more liveable for all. At the same time, during COVID-related restrictions, the lack of green spaces negatively influenced the well-being of many people living in dense urban environments. The access to public green spaces and adaptation to climate change might have a common approach in applying nature-based solutions in urban planning.
Our Fábrica de Cultura project in Barranquilla, Colombia got just published on archdaily. The Fábrica provides a ‘maker space’ for 2800 young people to learn creative arts and popular traditions centered around the culture of the UNESCO World Heritage Carnival of Barranquilla. Check it out for more images and info.
uttnext, Prof. Klumpner, will give a lecture on Wednesday 16 March 2022 on Sustainable Cities and Communities as part of the ETHZ SDG Lecture Series (the Sustainable Development Goals in Context Public Lecture Series).
Our common "The Laufen Manifesto" is, after the MAK Climate Care show, now on display as part of the Anna Heringer Exhibition at the "Museo ICO" in Madrid
"100 beste Plakate" in the MAK (Museum of applied Arts) Vienna, Congratulations to Dafi Kühne, from BABYINKTWICE, Switzerland, who made this award winning poster for our "Turboblock Nr.8" Chair: seeking the interpolation between bentwood Thonet chair and the stackable polypropylene cast Monobloc chair. Soon our Design can be seen in use as a 3D-print made of recycled Western Balkan PVC in our Sarajevo urbanthinktank_next office.
At the opening ceremony of the Fabrica de Cultura in Barranquilla, Colombia: Arq. Hubert Klumpner, (ETHZ / uttnext), María Theresa Fernandez (Secretaria de Cultura y Patrimonio), Valeria Charros (Reina del Carneval), Arq. Diego Ceresuela-Wiesmann (ETHZ / uttnext, Medellin)
uttnext, Dr. Michael Walczak, is part of the teaching activities within the Bern University of the Arts (HKB) Data Visualization Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS).
Our Fábrica de Cultura as part of work at ETH Zurich Chair of Architecture and Urban Design - Urban Transformation Program Colombia, hosted first public events and got published in local newspaper El Heraldo: "interactuar con el teatro, la danza, el circo y al mismo tiempo puedan beneficiarse los artistas para que desarrollen sus talentos."
urbanthinktank_next, Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak, is hosting the opening of the ETH Zurich "Urban Design Studio Sarajevo" together with representatives of the City of Zurich, Swiss Embassy in Sarajevo, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo Museum directors and curators
urbanthinktank_next, Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak give a lecture on the 02nd of December, 18h15, as part of the "Design en relation" seminar of Ruedi and Vera Baur at the University in Strasbourg
"This year, the ever-changing festival headquarters was located on Sachsenplatz in Brigittenau, Vienna's 20th district. The aim of the Vienna Design Week (VDW) is also to discover and activate rather unknown parts of the city. The "studio mobil/think tank station" by urbanthinktank_next (Hubert Klumpner, Michael Walczak) was parked in front of the headquarters. The transdisciplinary urban food project was created in the context of the Vienna Biennale for Change 2021, which offered impulses for reorientation during four months at several locations in Vienna under the motto "Planet Love"."
urbanthinktank_next, Hubert Klumpner, gives interview on Monocle M24 radio channel:
"Alexei Korolyov travels to the 15th Vienna Design Week to explore how designers are pondering sustainable solutions to food consumption and production."
urbanthinktank_next, Michael Walczak, is part of the Vienna Business Agency "Content" Competition for Digital Design Jury
Funding is provided for creative professionals to support the production and further development of their digital projects - from games to virtual reality to animation. In cooperation with the VIENNA BIENNALE FOR CHANGE 2021 two special prizes on the topic PLANET LOVE are awarded. We were looking for creative artistic projects addressing the topic PLANET LOVE – Climate Care in the Digital Age.
urbanthinktank_next, Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya, participates in the panel of experts at NYC Climate Week.
This 90-minute online event will highlight exciting sustainable cooling solutions in India, Rwanda, Egypt and Colombia. Enjoy discussion and presentations from frontline organisations, and the screening of an inspiring new short film. The session will strengthen the links between cooling and development priorities such as poverty reduction, gender equality and better health, and explore how marginalised communities can be empowered to create change. We will ask how governments, city and state leaders, philanthropists and global organisations from a range of sectors can unlock the finance and policy action needed to create radical progress.
urbanthinktank_next, Hubert Klumpner with Melanie Fessel and Michael Walczak with Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero participated at the Architecture Days Sarajevo
urbanthinktank_next, Hubert Klumpner, in Podcast with "Tonspur N - The Podcast on Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship"
In the fourth episode of the podcast series "PLANET LOVE for Change", Annemarie Harant and Roman Mesicek talk to Hubert Klumpner (architect and professor of architecture and urban planning at ETH Zurich) and Thomas Madreiter (planning director of the City of Vienna and head of the competence centre for higher-level urban planning) about living and eating spaces in cities, where breaks are necessary and who owns the space above buildings.
Last week, "ThinkAustria | Strategiestab des Bundeskanzlers" had the opportunity to talk to Hubert Klumpner, Alejandro Restrepo and Michael Walczak from Urban-Think Tank Next (Zurich, Vienna, Sarajevo and Medellin) about innovative #urbanplanning, #living space design and "smart city" management.
urbanthinktank_next, Hubert Klumpner, presents at the Salzburg Summit the innovative role of Architecture and Urban-Design as an imaginary for Climate-Care.
The Salzburg Summit was launched to provide a platform for exclusive exchange of ideas. Global leaders and exciting personalities discuss key topics with a high-caliber public. Topics range from business, politics and science, and speakers share their expertise, special insights and thoughts on what they regard as the most vital innovative trends and consequences on the economy and the society at large, as the challenges of our digitalized future are leaving all European countries with crucial questions.
The studio mobil / think tank station will stop at the Naschmarkt, Vienna from 29 to 31 July. Together with „architektur in progress“ and our guests, we would like to discuss, on the 30.7. at 18h-20h, the Naschmarkt as green climate corridor with the ProBACH initiative by the Institute of Building, Research and Design (Peter Holzer and Renate Hammer), KLK Architekten/Urbanauts (Jonathan Lutter), Team Wien (Quirin Simon Krumbholz/MADAME architects), Lilli Licka (landscape planner, BOKU Vienna), Initiative WestBahnPark (Hannes Gröblacher / BLA), Vienna Business Agency (Alena Schmuck), City Farm Augarten (Wolfgang Palme requested). Join Us!
On the occasion of the Daylight Academy Annual Conference, uttnext Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak are part of the about-light interview installation by artist Siegrun Appelt
We congratulate our TU Vienna Summersemester 2020 students for winning the "Vienna Business Agency Challenge" and joining us at the studio mobil / think tank station with the Food Atlas
Looking for potential locations for the Ashden climate corridor by Michael Walczak, applying the Medellin corridor in Sarajevo, anticipating the Warm Festival.
Assessing resilience and regeneration of public space through architecture and urbanism, together with the people of Favoriten and uttnext
Vienna is the most northern city of the south, and the most western city of the East, and no other place makes this more evident than the 10 District of Favoriten, with its 200.000 people strong, density, cultural diversity, and youths. They are defying dichotomies of rich and poor, local and global, rural and urban.
While Vienna is hosting the heads of government of the Western Balkans, utt_next is designing together with local partner Super-Wien, presenting access to our architectural toolbox with a particular focus on an alternative imaginary for the Balkans, a place of learning through food/heat/arrival city jam sessions together with partners of our project network (Western Balkan, Colombia, Venezuela, South Africa, Pearl River Delta and Vienna) through the lens of Markets as public places and programs of social, environmental, and economic inclusion. uttnext is re-imagining architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and urbanism by designing tools, methods, and prototypical projects to augment the quality of life for all people in existing and new cities.
Join us from 24th to 27th of June for three days and two night of continuous outdoor studio, bringing our urban imaginaries of the CLIMATE-CARE / MAK exhibition as a large-scale public sculpture agency to the 10th district at Victor-Adler Markt, Favoriten at the think tank station.
urbanthinktank_next, is now partner of the network of integral designers, Paris. Extending our expertise into digital technologies, graphic design and publishing.
"The exhibition may therefore ultimately be most productive as a clearinghouse for evaluating which tools – practical and metaphorical – will be needed to change the planetary mindset."
Final Review @ Angewandte Vienna Special Topics in Architecture Design; with students from studios of Díaz Moreno and García Grinda, Greg Lynn and Hani Rashid; led by Prof. Anton Falkeis with uttnext Melanie Fessel, Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak as guest critics.
10.06.2021
Vienna Biennale in "El Tiempo" with uttnext and Armando Silva
(from left to right) Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, General Director of the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, and Leonore Gewessler (Green Party Minister of Climate Action, Environment) at the virtual opening of the Biennale in front of the imaginaries exhibition on architecture and urban design; Photo: Courtesy, Ministry of Climate Action, 2021
27.05.2021
Vienna Biennale for Change 2021, With the Exhibition in MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna and other locations, the Biennale calls for Climate-Care. Image: of think-tank station. The “Studio mobile / think tank_station, currently operating in front of the MAK, will later travel to Viktor-Adler-Market (25. Bis 27.5). Outdoor Public Space versus Abstraction …with this project, the Biennale moves closer into outdoor public space, attempts answering yet another question: How to reach people who do not visit the Museum? This cooperation project between the Vienna Business Agency and the MAK is bridging Art and Science. The think tank_station will conduct its workshops and research in five locations in the city. How can we consume and produce, and what will be our future food? In the Conference Planet Matters (at the AzW, Vienna Architecture Center) in Fall, the results of the Biennale will be displayed…
27.05.2021
Hubert Klumpner (urbanthinktank_next) engaged in discussion with Leonore Gewessler (Green Party Minister of Climate Action, Environment). „Die Klimakrise ist die große Herausforderung unserer Zeit. Wir alle sehen und spüren ihre Auswirkungen: Hitzesommer reiht sich an Hitzesommer, Naturkatastrophen werden immer häufiger. Wir müssen jetzt die Weichen stellen, damit wir unsere Klimaziele erreichen und auch in Zukunft noch einen lebenswerten Planeten haben. Hierzu leistet die VIENNA BIENNALE FOR CHANGE 2021 mit ihrem Motto ‚Planet Love. Klimafürsorge im Digitalen Zeitalter‘ einen wertvollen Beitrag. Denn sie schafft Diskursräume und sorgt für eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Klimakrise in allen Lebensbereichen: die Politik, die Wirtschaft und die Gesellschaft.“, so Klimaschutzministerin Leonore Gewessler; Photo: Courtesy, Ministry of Climate Action, 2021
27.05.2021
(from left to right) Ruedi Baur, Mareen Hollmann and Vera Baur (Integral Paris), Antje Pritzer, Mario Kotejinski (MAK), Hubert Klumpner (urbanthinktank_next), Veronica Kaup-Hasler (SPÖ, City Senator for Culture and Science), Leonore Gewessler (Green Party Minister of Climate Action, Environment); Photo: Courtesy, Ministry of Climate Action, 2021
03.05.2021
Vienna Biennale for Change 2021 'Planet Love and Climate Care' soon to be open
30.04.2021
Siegrun Appelt preparing with children the sound installation of the 'Imagine' exhibition on Daylight curated by Hubert Klumpner and Melanie Fessel as part of the Vienna Biennale for Change 2021 'Climate Care'
30.10.2019
Keynote lecture by Hubert Klumpner on the occasion of the Urban Design Lab Handbook Book Launch with Roland Krebs and IDB
Under the banner of 'Thinking Ahead', which will also be the theme of the international art and architecture festival taking place in Breitenbrunn in 2021, Hubert Klumpner and Michael Walczak will give a talk and guided tour surrounding Peter Noever's Land Art Project, 'THE PIT / DIE GRUBE', a traditional wine cellar built more than 200 years ago. The more than 70 meter long passage way opens up to the heathland.
Other participants include Mark Mack (DJ Orange, architect, architecture professor at UCLA and co-founder of the Bombay Beach Biennale, CA; Los Angeles), Andrea Lenardin (architect, principal and creative director of a l m project; Los Angeles), Roland Hagenberg (writer, artist, photographer and founder of the Storkhouse in Raiding, Burgenland; Tokyo), Marc Leschelier (architect, author, founder of Unbuilt Archive and currently working on a book about Raimund Abraham supported by the Graham Foundation to be published by NERO editions; Paris), Rüdiger Andorfer (museum director emeritus, art and media curator; Vienna), Oliver Hangl (performance-artist, curator and organizer of the upcoming "Die Grube – Kunst und Architekturfestival 2021"; Vienna) and Peter Noever (current measures) – Ausstellungsmacher; Vienna).
