“On the Potential of Contradictions”

GAM: Lisa, welcome to the Faculty of Architecture at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). We are delighted to have you with us as the newly appointed professor of integral architecture. You’re from Munich, and you’ve been a partner in the architecture firm Dreisterneplus ***+ since 2019. In what way is your work here at TU Graz related to your architectural practice?

LY: Well, first of all, thank you very much; I am also very pleased to be here. My role at the university is closely related to the work at the firm in the sense that it is characterized by a working methodology that I would like to pass on and impart in my teaching here.

GAM: What does this methodology consist of?

LY: It involves a very intense design phase conducted as a team. Each week we meet in design teams, comprising two people from the management and one or two architects, who then work primarily on the design. Every four weeks, the managing partners meet with the respective project lead, ensuring that we are fully involved and, at the same time, have a say in the process. In a way, this is the most obvious and straightforward means of entering into a dialogue. Such discourse also holds the potential for taking a dialectic approach to raising and discussing differing points of view, as well as expressing and communicating our intentions. This is how we ultimately attempt to reach decisions, which, at first glance, may not be simple; but from our point of view, they create the complexity or depth that we believe leads to good architecture.

GAM: That’s fascinating! And in terms of dialectics, would you say that contradictions are an integral part of the dialogue?

LY: Yes, that lies in the nature of architecture and, of course, in an often highly complex task, one that is never clear-cut. Only through negotiation with others involved, who perhaps find certain things to be more important, does one find a solution that, ideally, is not a compromise but rather allows for something new to emerge. In my eyes, that’s the fruitful moment in the creative process, when you realize that, in the end, you’ll discover something really fun, although you may have only seen problems at the beginning.

GAM: Could you give an example from your work in the firm?

LY: The façade design of the “Stadt- haus an der Sendlinger Straße” in Munich is an example I always like to reference. Along this high street, we also designed a main entrance to a passageway that doubles as an office building. The client requested that the office front, which is nestled between historical, plastered façades, be designed following today’s technical requirements, that plenty of light comes in through lots of glass. We found this to be a challenge: How do we fit into this stone identity yet still manage to generate a high level of light and transparency? Based on this fundamental contradiction, we developed a façade that is shaped by a precast concrete block and can be masoned in such a way that, on the one hand, a brick-like structure is created which, even when viewed from an angle, actually coalesces with a certain plasticity in the façade so that it is perceived as stone-like and solid, but at the same time creates this open and generous interior, which is what the client wanted.

GAM: So how do you bring this approach to design from the practice to the university? In what ways can it be translated into teaching and research?

LY: One approach I’m currently exploring is the importance of initiating conversation. I’m trying to develop a culture of conversation, which is something that, in my experience, doesn’t always evolve on its own with students. So I feel it’s important to create an environment in the studio that might one day resemble working together in a practice, where the students themselves get involved in that exchange. In other words, trying to enter into discourse is one idea. Another approach I am pursuing involves generating the potential for contradictions in the very essence of the task. And I try to provoke the use of design methods through specific exercises that enable this dialectic and that ultimately make them overlap.

GAM: What is your current design studio at TU Graz about?

LY: My latest design studio is titled “Reinventing Munich,” in which the students are asked to reinvent a district of Munich, specifically the area around the southern railway station. Like other station districts in larger European cities, it is a fairly multicultural, bustling district with plenty of hotels and a high concentration of immigrants. The Goethestraße, which happens to be the subject of the project, is the center of the Turkish community, and if you know Munich, then you’ll realize that it is, in fact, the most atypical neighborhood of the city — less neat than Munich is usually known to be. That’s why it has a special status in the fabric of this whole district, yet at the same time it is currently under enormous pressure to be developed. The buildings constructed there had been quickly erected just after the Second World War, meaning that it is not architecture unique to this city; indeed, it could be found anywhere, and it is starting to age.

GAM: So how does this tie in with the reinvention of the city of Munich in this particular district?

LY: The first new buildings being constructed there are mainly office buildings, all embodying sustainability, which, on the one hand, is fair and reasonable. Yet on the other hand, I also think this is the common and currently only narrative used to describe these buildings. So, if new buildings are to be erected, then it would be better if they were made of wood, highly transparent and with abundant greenery. That’s what sustainable architecture looks like. And that is where I ask myself the question, particularly for this place, which I happen to know very well: Is this the uncontested solution for this site, or how is this part of town being transformed? I come from a university that placed a lot of emphasis on context — that is why I want to explore issues of identity, permanence, and the overlapping of past narratives in this place, hence the task I gave to the students. Which stories can be found here, and what can be developed from them through superimposition?

GAM: In that sense, the integral occurs at different levels in your work — on the one hand, through the context and, on the other, through dialogue with the students.

LY: Yes, exactly. I am interested in the whole picture, not in the juxtaposition of as many things of a technical nature as possible, which may be able to do much but do not achieve coherence overall.

GAM: Will there also be a dialogue with the people from the neighborhood there?

LY: No, not yet. I’m in the process of attempting to initiate this. There is already an association there with numerous initiatives. Also, cultural workers and a theater. I’ll have to see how far I can get.

GAM: Your integral approach seems to be one that strongly refers to the integration of contexts and, at the same time, tries to develop the design not only as an individual work but also taking many other aspects into account. Integral, however, happens to be — like so much in architectural discourse — quite a fashionable term. Some might say that when we refer to integral architecture, we have to orient ourselves more toward the sustainability of building. In contrast, others warn of the next crisis in the building industry, a crisis that is already making itself felt. What do you think is necessary to respond to these scenarios in architectural education?

LY: First of all, I would like to try to reinterpret the said crisis positively. In my view, a central task of our time involves taking this issue seriously and attempting to respond to it through each of our designs. I understand this paradigm shift as a time of reconsideration, in which momentum is developing toward doing things differently than how they have been done for the last few decades. I regard this to be an opportunity to a certain extent. Fundamentally, however, I still believe in the “core competence of architects” in architectural education, which is concerned with spaces, physicality, the usability of the environment, and houses for people. Furthermore, I think that design — as another core competence of architects — is a wonderful tool for all kinds of questions. At the moment, I see great potential in rethinking building culture toward a culture of redevelopment, in training people to work with the preexisting, that is, with what is already there, and in learning to observe, collect, compare, and reassemble. This is something I try to put into practice in individual design exercises, in order to, in the broadest sense, work with the values of the existing, for example, in the form of reconstruction measures or by building with reused components. Yet it can also be stories you find and retell or one’s work with the associative values of architecture. Lastly, I believe that designing alongside references can be a farreaching tool right now to ensure that we don’t forget the past when it comes to the big tasks we are facing.

GAM: You now have almost two years to realize these projects, which is quite a long time for a visiting professorship. What can we look forward to in the coming two years?

LY: In any case, the goal is a publication and one that is not just a compilation of the designs that the students have produced over the last two years but which, in the best case, also illustrates the methods I have just described in the form of design processes. And I hope to learn a bit more each semester and further refine my approach so that it will eventually result in a holistic narrative. It would be very exciting if this project I have described were to lead to designs based on references and disclosure of the work — that is, what did I work with, what were my findings, what provoked my interest — and if one could read within these images how these designs came about.

GAM: How do you obtain these found items? Is it a text, pictures, or a specific object from that particular place?

LY: We hope to encounter something through an excursion, by traveling, observing — looking at a new city with a foreign eye. The idea is to observe the bizarre, yet you should also look for found objects yourself in terms of your understanding of the task at hand.

GAM: How are these found objects then used in the design?

LY: Many specific themes arise in the design process. Right now, there is a lot of talk — not only in architecture — about the importance of telling a story, of a “narrative” in the form of images but also via social media. In terms of architecture, I always find myself looking for the poetic, which is also a form of narrative, not in the way of the quick, obvious magazine illustration, but of something that develops more depth and is multilayered. If we could get a link to that, I would be very happy.

GAM: Thank you for the interview!