Media Architecture: Bauhaus University Weimar

The alliance of architecture and media occurs at three primary levels. These give an overview of the topic fields in form and content:

• First of all, architecture is itself a medium, just as language, text and symbols are. It not only conveys, processes and saves reality and its meaning, but also produces it. In this sense architecture is always a perceptual mechanism, physical technique, semiotic tool, etc. Some of the best examples include the window as a view, an image and a mirror, glass buildings as a panorama or simply space as a choreography of use. Digital media makes the expansion of real space possible and enables interaction with virtual space (calculating spaces, information and entertainment spaces, immersion spaces, etc.).
• Secondly, architecture is represented in the media. Architecture circulates in media. These media in turn present themselves, in structure and discourse, as having the ability to define architecture. The representative forms of architecture (drawing, sketch, diagram, model, book, photography, film, virtual reality) as well as the techniques of their distribution contribute to its constitution. At the same time architecture effects other media and serves as a model for them.
• Thirdly, architecture replicates itself virtually. New technologies allow the creation or simulation of a completely individual architecture of "artificial worlds", and bring forth new typologies of immersive spaces. At the same time, architecture always serves as a prototype of such immersive spaces. Architecture offers the metaphors, the language, as well as the structure for order and for the navigation of knowledge.
• In-depth Study Content
  The different subject areas outlined, although differentiated, interact with and inform one another.

Design and Architectural Theory:

• General application of the media theoretical discourse on architecture
• Architecture as a mixed medium: Perceptual mechanism, body technique, semiotic tool, physiology and performativeness in space
• Architecture in the media: Medial impression as a defining power of architecture
• Immersion spaces: Metaphors, language and structure for order and navigation of knowledge

Design and Building Form Studies:

• The "scenic": Dramatics and direction as process examples for the architectural design process
• Process-oriented perspectives in (architectural) design / functional processes in architectural space
• New levels of freedom for perceptive space: Synchronisation of the site relationship of architecture and the time relation of the medial event
• Light as a medium (spherical parameters of architecture)
• Physiological architecture

Presentation Methodology:

• Projective synchronisation and connection between the (technical presentation of) real and virtual, medial and architectural spaces (drawing, photo, rendering, etc.), geometric analysis and construction process
• Modelling, presenting, simulating
• Image-based virtual worlds (IVR and QTVR), areas of use, types, production, tools

Interface Design:

• Perception, effect and functional aspects of "intelligent" spaces
• Interaction concepts in space
• Distributed, site-dependent information and entertainment offerings
• Conception, production and distribution of multimedia interactive contents
• The dramatics of interaction in space
• Design concepts of the media in "real" buildings (architecture, temporary constructions, theatre)

History and Theory of Cultural Techniques:

• History of graphical operation
• Media of architectural design, media of planning
• Corridors, channels, thresholds: From urban spaces all the way through to film architecture
• Topography of the biopolitical,space of human existence

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW):

• Intelligent buildings: Adaptation of the space to the presence and activities of those inside
• Co-operative buildings: integrated support of social interaction and co-operation in one or several buildings
• Ambient interfaces: subtle presentation of (digital) information in space
• Architecture and cyberspace: Synergies between real and virtual worlds