Campus de la Transition
At schools known for ambition, not activism, students are calling for climate change to be at the heart of the curriculum, and telling the companies that recruit them to change their ways. (...) Frustrated by the disparity between the world they dream of and the one they are offered, students are pressuring universities to put climate change and other environmental issues at the core of their curriculums.
Cécile Renouard, a philosopher who teaches at several universities, said that courses on the environment in higher education “are not always radical enough and not systemic enough.” “The challenge is also to show how ecological questioning invites us to revisit all our subjects,” she added. In 2018, Ms Renouard founded the Campus de la Transition, or the Transition Campus, an alternative academic institution where a range of subjects, from economics to law, are taught through environmental lenses.
Constant Méheut: At Elite French Universities, Students Demand Environmental Action, in: The New York Times 30.01.2021
Campus de la Transition is an alternative academic institution that was founded in 2017 in France by a group of people around Cécile Renouard. It will form the conceptual and spatial starting point for the design studio. The campus is a 12-hectare site at Domaine de Forges to the south-east of Paris, comprising a Baroque palace, a potager and a woodland. An overarching study of the term campus and the combination of design-driven and academic working methods lead to findings which will be developed in group work into specific architectural designs. The goal of the design studio is to examine design approaches to the various spatial, social and programmatic features of the campus through environmental lenses. The seminar consists of a six-day excursion to Paris and Forges. The programme includes a visit to relevant architects’ practices in Paris and active participation in the curriculum at the Campus de la Transition. Requirements for attending the design studio are the willingness to work intensively in the studio and experiment with drawing, model making, photography and other suitable presentation techniques.
Allocation: B.Sc. Architecture 5th core module, M.Sc. Architecture project module, B.Sc. and M.Sc. Architecture
Time: Summer semester 2022
Place: Weimar
Tutors: Verena von Beckerath, Till Hoffmann, Hanna Schlösser
Guest contributions: Kirsten Angermann, Baptiste Cuche, Felipe De Ferrari, Nicolas Dorval-Bory, Beverly Engelbrecht, Benoît Halgand, Christina Köchling, Ulrike Kuch, Tom Renault, Daniela Spiegel Cooperation: Campus de la Transition
Participants: Kerstin Franziska Baier, Linus Baumhove, Lena Beckmann, Said Derkaoui, Hannah Diem, Simon Doms, Victoria Egle, Anastasia Eppinger, Alisa Fainberg, Frieda Fischer, Frédérik-Philipp Habermann, Stefan Haal, Alisha Hauk, Maximilian Hoffmeister, Anne-Fleur Ising, Leonhard Kaiser, Felicitas Klinke, Annika Knapp, Olivier Mayette, Leon Mones, Jan Gerrit Müller-Scheeßel, Clara Emilia Natalis, Viktoria Renz, Nico Schmitt, Rose Schuller, Benjamin Schumacher, Eva Schütze, Andreas Stanzel, Lea Stein, Olga Sulek, Paul Weck, Martha Elisabeth Willée, Leonhard von Zumbusch