Design Studio Master in Collective Housing Programme ETSAM, ETH Zürich
Alison Brooks led an intensive postgraduate design studio in Madrid as part of the renowned Master in Collective Housing (MCH) programme at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) and ETH Zürich, alongside Architect and Teaching Assistant, Carlos Chauca Galicia.
Alison’s studio, entitled Inhabited Boundaries, explored collective housing through the lens of consciousness, identity and architectural edges. Set in Madrid’s historic Barrio de La Latina, students worked on ‘Plaza Fiesta’, a public space bridging two streets at C. del Almendro and C. de la Cava Baja.
More than any other typology, urban housing impacts our collective understanding of place. It is the frame for streets, squares and passages in which civic life takes place – a three-dimensional boundary between the public realm and the space of private dwelling.
How does nature of the urban ‘street-wall’, the boundary, the façade and its structure express these new conditions? Can a wall be re-imagined as a place of invitation, of liminal being, of environmental absorption or social expression?
‘’Urban housing impacts individual and collective consciousness at multiple scales. Each dwelling offers an intimate stage for individual experience: of home, of shelter, of daily domestic rituals and as a place for social exchange. Volume, light, material and acoustic properties of the dwelling are experienced sensorially. Moments in everyday life engrain themselves in human conscious or subconscious to forge our sense of place and a sense of self,’’ Alison Brooks explained.
This year’s MCH workshops feature an exceptional faculty including:
Hrvoje Njiric (Zagreb)
Elli Mosayebi (Zurich)
Momoyo Kajima (Tokyo)
Jan De Vylder (Brussels)
Juan Herreros (Madrid)
Anne Lacaton (Paris)
Huge congratulations to Alison’s brilliant international cohort for their energetic and imaginative contributions.
MCH Students
Alejandro Gonzalez (Mexico), Bea Candano (Phillipines), Vipasha Chauhan (India), Anna Fatourou-Sipsi (Greece), Juan Begino (Argentina), Martina Carassale (Argentina), Kihyun Ahn (South Korea), Claudia Izquierdo (Chile), Myrto Peppa (Greece), Guillermo Hernández (Mexico), Soham Jamdar (India), Daniela Maestre (Colombia), Jatin Nimmala (India), Abel Chamberlin (USA), Luis Molina (Chile), Luis Gutierrez (Mexico), Nima Kordjanbaklou (Iran), Nada Azzez (Tunisia), Mariana Cantú (Mexico), Stergios Kaloudis (Greece), Ricardo Valladares (Mexico).
