open design academy | ajdinvukovic

urban void, diverse framing
an open design academy for Paris
project within the institute of building theory and design, TU Vienna

visualization academy garden

The project can be understood as a possible contribution to the topic of the ongoing separation of the place where art is being made from the place where it gets displayed. It is also a position towards the role of design in our society; a civilization, in which - especially in the field of the creative economy - the effortlessly finished product is taken for granted, while the process of designing, making, and researching it is left out as an unappreciated part of the piece of art.

In order to create more awareness of the design process itself, the project concept emphasizes visual culture (understood as an umbrella term for art, architecture, and design) as a public concern.

In this sense, the open design academy consists of an accumulation of atriums, appearing as holes in a public park and providing visual & physical contact to the academy underneath. These atriums densify themselves towards a free center, which creates an urban void and serves therefore as a reaction to the heterogeneous urban structure of Montreuil.

The academy underneath is structured in secondary, longitudinal functions parts on the border sides and performs primarily as an open space, whose seminar areas, studios, auditoriums, and workshops are differentiated through mere manipulation of the floor.