The studio understands working with existing structures as a central architectural task. At a time when engaging with what already exists is framed as a new attitude, this approach recalls that architecture has always been shaped by transformation, addition, and continuation. From historical spolia to contemporary reuse practices, it becomes clear that building within existing contexts is less about radical new beginnings than about precise interventions that take material, construction, and spatial organisation seriously.
The point of departure is HIL, considered as a university setting, a space of everyday life, and an architectural substance. The building is to be re-read within its structural, cultural, and spatial conditions. As a conceptual tool, Richard Serra’s “Verb List” serves to articulate spatial actions through operative verbs: to cut, subtract, densify, shift, open. From such a verb, a spatial and constructive strategy is developed, capable of extending from the detail to the scale of the campus. Additions are understood as a common denominator, opening up possibilities to rethink HIL in multiple directions—programmatically, constructively, or at the scale of individual elements.
At the same time, the studio considers every stage of the building’s development to be temporary, and every intervention to be part of an ongoing process of transformation. Engaging with HIL therefore addresses the fundamental question of how architectural and institutional structures can be designed to sustainably support collective life, diverse uses and the complex demands of an architecture institute.