THE BANK OF A MILLION SEEDS

A botanical library for the Mathildenhöhe

As the climate crisis puts renewed strain on all resources, new places of preservation and of study must be created, allowing for a reinvention of our relationship to these resources. The studio proposes the planning of a seed library preserving strains and the associated knowledge, as well as researching new possibilities for their cultivation in the current conditions.

The seed archive and associated research center are to be placed within the Matildenhöhe Künstlerkolonie in Darmstadt, a highly valued and marked architectural heritage. The study of Jungendstil is key to the studio and will unfold both in the work on the Künstlerkolonie and in a fieldtrip to Vienna.

The studio provides the students with a range of computational design workflows enabling them to manipulate emblematic ornamental and architectonic elements from Jugendstil buildings of the Matildenhöhe Künstlerkolonie. The elements are recombined to form novel spaces for a seed library located nearby. The students familiarize themselves with the potential for recombination, reinvention and iteration of digital design tools, while expanding their knowledge of architectural history, both regarding older attempts at cataloguing combinatorial components and regarding Jugendstil ambitions for design.

The seed archive therefore not only explore conditions of preservation of our resources, but also demonstrates the architectural reinvention emerging of its encounter with computational design methods.

Teaching Team: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Oliver Tessmann, Dr. Nadja Gaudillière-Jami

Tutor: Mirko Dutschke

Students: Nawal Aziz, Anna Burak, Raul-Constantin Burlan, Sarah Gawel, Sevban Koyugölge, Giang Le, Samar Mansor, Danijela Mitrovic, Marie Molz, Karla Noll Viloria, Sinem Özdemir, Vanessa Puls, Gianna Varma, Ronald Kevin Edwin Ronny Volz, Leon Wietschorke, Hongyi Zhang