An ANCB Student Applied Innovations Lab in collaboration with Schindler
Summer Semester 2021
On-demand living spaces hovering inside a building, fluid shared environments and new access opportunities for hybrid living/working spaces are the stunning outcomes of this ANCB Student Applied Innovations Lab in collaboration with Schindler.
Conceived as a 1:1 test ground for prototypical developments and products, the Lab presents a new type of collaboration between academia and industry with ANCB acting as mediator, incubator and catalyst.
ANCB together with Schindler invited three universities – Leibniz University Hannover, TU Braunschweig and TU Berlin – to develop new designs for future work- and living spaces, including innovative floorplans and typologies and how to access them.
Point of departure was to rethink housing typologies regarding shared spatial and functional requirements and social potential. New concepts and new models for high urban quality, integrative, co-produced housing typologies as well as new ways of living and working in the same space are needed, with indoor mobility playing a central role. Thus, the movement of people outside and inside of buildings has to be considered simultaneously, including access to apartments and goods management connected to the use of robots and drones and improvements for disabled people. Connectivity can act as a key driver to combine information and process it to help new concepts and solutions for doors and windows.
How do we want to live and work in the future and how will we connect and access the home (office) of the future? What is a new flexibility and new ways of access, especially with regards to digital developments?
- Leibniz University of Hannover with Tobias Nolte (Professor for Media Architectural Representation),
- TU Braunschweig with Almut Grüntuch-Ernst (Professor for Design and Architectural Strategies) and
- TU Berlin with Jacob van Rijs (Professor of Architectural Design)
participated in the Student Applied Innovation Lab by integrating the above questions into their semester studios. The students produced a variety of inspirational and creative works, providing food for thought on how we want to live in the future. The most advanced and innovative project was honoured with a 1st prize of 1,000 EUR and two further proposals with 2nd prizes of 500 EUR each. Additionally, the three winners will be invited for a 2-day visit to Schindler's headquarter and Innovation Lab in Luzern/ Ebikon, Switzerland.
The winners of the 2021 ANCB Student Applied Innovation Lab with Schindler are:
1. Zhengyang Ke, Smart PHome, Leibniz Universität Hannover. The work was developed during the studio Domestic Automatons, asking what residential floor plans that are not static and function-bound might look like. The studio also focused on outsourcing dynamic supply chains, designing thresholds, spatial transformations and temporary access possibilities, as well as quantifying living space in terms of experience instead of adding partial areas.
2. Tiana Hilker, Strolling Home, TU Braunschweig. The work was part of three design studios taught at the university that addressed the question of "accessing the future" through varied case study projects. The students' work brought together common spaces and circulation spaces in order to create new ways to access a building or a dwelling. The circulation space is not designed to be minimal and efficient but instead defined as an area of transition negotiating public and private areas. These expand from neutral corridors to inviting collective spaces that can be appropriated physically and emotionally and therefore support a close identification with the neighbourhood.
2. Tobias Rinke, Büro-Haus-Park, TU Berlin. This work was part of a studio that asked students to redesign vacant post-pandemic office buildings to combine, co-construct and develop them in order to connect new systems with existing ones. Thus, emerging opportunities offer the chance to introduce new, flexible housing typologies in the city within established urban structures. The design brief aimed at disturbing our too-familiar reality to accentuate faults and opportunities.
The Student Applied Innovations Lab is a further development from ANCB's many design studios and workshop options and will be continued with various partners.
We look forward to continuing the Student Applied Innovations Lab with other universities and industry partners. Please contact us for further information.
