The Master’s thesis studio by NEWROPE understands the forthcoming transformation of HIL as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the architecture school. Learning is not limited to classrooms, but conceived as a multilayered assemblage that includes libraries, cafeterias, urban spaces, gardens, and informal settings alongside traditional teaching environments. The studio explores how these diverse learning environments can be connected and which spatial, social, and urban conditions are required for a contemporary architectural education.
In a first step, historical and contemporary “Radical Pedagogies” are analysed, and experiences from ONA are used as a 1:1 testing ground. ONA serves as an example of a self-organised, open, and collective learning environment whose spatial and organisational openness has enabled new pedagogical possibilities. At the same time, the surrounding urban fabric – from Hönggerberg and Oerlikon to sites in Tirana – is considered an extended field of learning, where urban spaces become potential sites for teaching and research.
Building on this, the studio develops spatial interventions and prototypical formats that understand learning as an active process between disciplines, users, and places. The work follows an iterative process of analysis, dialogue, and 1:1 experimentation. The “Rooms of Entanglement” provide moments of collective reflection, where projects from both chairs are brought into relation and discussed as part of a larger learning ecosystem.