Gear

Parallel Landscapes 2020

architecture

Wednesday, 12 February 2020, 18.00

Exhibition by Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE) Department of Public Building Design, Department of Residential Building Design, Department of Industrial Building Design, Department of Urban Planning

open until: 2020 02 23

Department of Public Building Design
location: Pécs, bauhaus 100

In 2019, TT3 focused on Pécs, among other things because of the city’s many links to the 100-year-old Bauhaus. Pécs has an extremely rich built heritage from the pre-modern era and beyond, ranging from early Christian burial chambers to the latest contemporary investments in the framework of the European Capital of Culture 2010 program, which many of our teachers were also involved in.

The design tasks are connected by a strong urban design aspect: we are confronted with the existing fabric of our built heritage, or more generally the relationship between the existing and the new. This is prevalent both in the relationship between Bauhaus and preceding architectural periods, and in the relationship between contemporary architectural culture and the Bauhaus, which is we now see fading into the past. What does this heritage mean to us? To what extent are questions raised a hundred years ago still relevant today?

The tasks were designed to give a richer picture of the current urban and architectural problems of Hungary’s fifth largest city, and to touch on the concepts of built and intellectual heritage in general. We would like to thank Dr. Ders Csaba, University of Pécs’s chief architect, and Zsolt Szécsi, chief architect of the city of Pécs, for helping us prepare the curriculum!

Department of Residential Building Design
location: Budapest

The locations for this year’s Departmental Plan 3 were selected together with Quintus Miller’s class at the University of Mendrisio in Switzerland. During the semester, the Swiss class also designed for locations in Budapest.

Sites: Empty plots below Bécsi kapu tér (1st district)
The area between Graphisoft and K Bridge (3rd district)
The empty plot by the Dohany Street Synagogue (7th district)
Area near Árpád Bridge (3rd district)

At the beginning of October, Swiss students visited the sites in Budapest for four days. A joint workshop was also held at BUTE, where both groups of students presented their concepts. Mendrisio professors also participated in the assessment of some of the designs.

It was interesting to see how the students arrived at the final solutions despite their different architectural approaches and educational backgrounds.

Department of Urban Planning
location: Csepel

The BME Department of Urban Planning and Design introduced a common urban studio, focused on mass housing neighbourhood planned as an urban unit with residential buildings, public facilities, open space.

Csepel, the 21th district of Budapest, as a former industrial town, is the site of several neighbourhood units inherited from the second half of the 20th century. Their development and renewal design demand a complex approach those balance social and physical components. The semester project is based on continuous scale transformations between the city, district, housing estate, neighbourhood unit and building, to understand the post-socialist context and design a sustainable, and liveable urban environment for all.

Department of Industrial Building Design • TT3 + KKX
Next Generation School – learning systems, spaces and workshops
TT3 – UP ↑↑↑ (let’s get to work)!

In TT1, the first half of the thematic year, we were looking at how to make schools better with the available resources. In the second semester, TT3, the plan was to design a new educational institute focused on practical knowledge. Generally vocational schools are set up for this purpose, but on more difficult terrains, a different approach is needed: a more complex, multifunctional institution that not only provides vocational training, but also helps students to get started and apply for jobs, and later also focuses on helping alumni retain their jobs and deal with potential conflicts.

The broader target group are young NEET people, meaning ‘not in education, employment or training’. This is an existing and acute problem on a European level, especially in Southern and Eastern EU countries.

As mentioned above, the task was to design an employment center in 6th and 8th district locations, which would provide vocational training while supporting, mentoring and, if necessary, helping students to find jobs, plus periodically hosting job fairs and other events.