Sub-program of research portfolio Department of Architecture ‘The Architectural Project and its Foundations’

Urban and territorial conditions are considered the prime forces of influence for contemporary architectural production and reflection. The 'Borders & Territories' research group aims to chart this field in order to establish the rules for and the reasons behind architectural conjectures in the context of the emerging territory and the spatial conditions around borders and within territories. Metropolitan city-regions as well as specific urban border conditions are investigated in order to determine the rule, or minimal preconditions, underlying their construction, which is simultaneously considered essential for an informed operation of design practices in these contexts. The particular field of study in Borders & Territories deals specifically with spatial boundaries and fields of operation within a framework that relates theory to practice and research to design. The framing of architectural operations is investigated in four distinctive ways:

(1) Discussion of architectural space and form within a multi- and trans-disciplinary framework (discussing the similarities and differences between disciplines such as urbanism, geography, art, technology, philosophy, etc.);
(2) Development of architectural form as an object situated within the spatial conditions of the (urban) territory;
(3) Employment and testing of different, trans-disciplinary means in order to conduct experimentation in architectural design;
(4) Development of specific methodologies and instruments informing the architectural project.

As this research program enquires the intrinsic nature of the architectural project (and its conceptual and theoretical construction), within the context of regional territories and urban border zones, the research project positions itself within the entire scale palette from the region to urban localities. The program will investigate how questions of space across borders and territories can become the (basic) material for the architectural project, which is regarded as the concrete instance where regional logistics meet with local conditions.