Luigiemanuele Amabile in conversation with Tina Gregoric.
LA: In light of current debates on architectural pedagogy, could you outline how you conceive and structure a design studio – addressing organizational frameworks, pedagogical objectives, and the ensemble of methodological tools – and indicate which pressing epistemological or societal challenges you consider most urgent for studio-based learning today?
TG: Yeah – thank you for your question. I don’t believe in one universal strategy. I believe that every topic, theme, and site demands a tailor-made design studio. I have been teaching within this context of TU Wien for more than ten years – design studios – and I had to adapt my previous teaching methods to a large university. The context in Ljubljana or London, at the AA where I studied and briefly taught in both institutions, is very different. There, you build a vertical design studio where students stay with you for more than one semester. At TU Wien, each semester essentially starts from scratch. You present a topic, a brief, and from a large pool of students, you get a series of applications. Then, of course, you begin this journey. Over these ten years, we have dealt with significant differences in scale, topics, and contexts – and there is no single recipe.
Let’s start from the most recent, which was the most radical. Last year we became very involved in adaptive reuse. But last year we managed, through collaboration with external institutions, to define a bioregional design strategy, a design studio called Biofabrique Vienna, that was initiated by Wirtschaftsagentur Wien and Atelier LUMA with TU Wien as the executive partner. It was in collaboration with Luma Arles, which has become a kind of laboratory – showing, in one-size-fits-all recipe.
LA: Immersing students in one-to-one prototyping, as you did with Biofabrique Vienna, must alter the way they later navigate professional practice – in your observation, how does that lived material experience influence their ethical stance and decision-making once they leave the university?
TG: What students learned from that was: yes, you can have the agenda of circularity, bioregional approaches, and adaptive reuse – these are all familiar topics. But if you’re given the opportunity to physically inhabit and work within the very space you are proposing to transform – working directly on-site, sourcing and assembling materials on site – the entire process and outcome change dramatically. It completely shifts students’ mindset and sense of responsibility. Because they were inhabiting the space – the existing building they aimed to adapt into something else – they were living and working in the place they had to change. And it wasn’t something abstract. We used it throughout the entire semester. It wasn’t just about the brief or the methodology; it’s also about the location in which you can teach and the platform you offer students to work on. And especially at a large university like TU Wien – where we don’t have shared studio spaces for students – this was a major shift.
LA: Building on the Biofabrique case, how does that pedagogical experience compare with other studios you have directed, and which cross-cutting methodological principles or evaluative metrics remain constant across such diverse formats?
TG: What was not much different from all the other studios is that – as probably influenced by my Anglo-Saxon education 25 years ago at the AA in London – we always structure the design studio around mid-presentations and final presentations, with a strong emphasis on discourse and discussion. That is a key strategy. And of course, we also integrate a series of workshops, where in the same space – whether here or somewhere else – you truly work together as a team of students. What is unique to TU Wien is that it’s very intense but also a very short period of time because it’s only four months. More or less, with two weeks of holidays – either at Christmas or Easter – it totals 14 weeks. So we really plan each week strategically: what is the task, what is the expected output. It’s a weekly structured methodology in each of the design studios.
LA: You have worked in a variety of contexts and conditions across Europe. How do you prepare students to work with local stakeholders while balancing academic freedom and local community needs when situating studios in such diverse rural or urban features?
TG: Over the last ten years, we have explored a wide range of topics: healthcare architecture, nanotourism (a coined term describing a creative critique of the current environmental, social, and economic downsides of conventional tourism, as a participatory, locally oriented, bottom-up alternative, ndr), adaptive reuse in general. For over a decade now, we have also been rethinking the countryside. Naturally, the countryside north of Vienna is very different from the countryside in Istria on the Adriatic coast, or from the Alpine lakes in Austria. Understanding these contexts deeply – covering not only in spatial terms, but also regional, cultural, political, and economic specificities – is essential. We always combine projects with intensive excursions.
For example, when we started studying healthcare architecture, we focused on Denmark. After an intense research phase – probably around 2018 – we realized Denmark was already among the most progressive countries in healthcare design. Since healthcare architecture typically takes about ten years to fully develop, we wanted to study it in depth. These intensive excursions at the beginning of a design studio, where participants experience the typology or topic is experienced one-to-one, have been one of the decisive ways to engage with the project. For instance, during our healthcare studies, we visited Nord Architects’ Cancer Center, the Patients’ Hotel, and the Hospice – also by Nord Architects. These visits helped us understand strategies used in high-end hospitals, children’s hospitals, and smaller typologies. Ultimately, we worked on three specific sites in Copenhagen.
Another example involves redefining the pedagogy of a creative university – a concept for an Open Design Academy where art, design, and architecture would once again be taught cohesively, rather than as separate disciplines. Visiting Nantes to see Lacaton & Vassal’s architectural school and the Art Academy, a radical adaptive reuse project, was crucial. It allowed students to radically rethink what architecture or an Open Design Academy could be. Since we had sites in those two European countries, the students needed to understand the community and local context, how people were approaching those topics locally. We needed to spend time there, which we do that, we pair with local architects.
We also launched a series called Odd Lots, starting at the end of the COVID period. The theme of odd lots was inspired by Gordon Matta-Clark’s Fake Estates, where in the 1970s purchased these bizarre, oddly shaped, super small plots across New York – mostly in Queens – thought to be impossible to develop. We asked the question: given that we already build too much in Europe and don’t need more new buildings – since we already have plenty of empty structures already exist – are there opportunities in Vienna’s odd lots compared to other cities, despite efforts to densify urban centers? After all, Vienna is still expanding significantly with new housing, one of the few European capitals doing so extensively. We collaborated with various schools and another city. The first was Odd Lots: Vienna–Ljubljana, then moving to Vienna–Brussels, Vienna–Barcelona, and Vienna–Berlin. Through these collaborations, working with local schools, universities, and architects, we aimed to explore an alternative model of urban development – trying to curb the ongoing production of poorly planned urban masterplans that result in low-quality architecture. This is currently happening in Vienna’s new developments. After four years, we organized an intense symposium and an exhibition last year in Vienna, bringing together key protagonists from these cities so that urban planners, decision-makers, and the public could see that this isn’t just the architects’ perspective, but a broader conversation about treating cities and spaces.
LA: How do you navigate the tension between academic speculation and real-world implementation when engaging stakeholders?
TG: It’s about how the entire structure – how we initiate and approve new projects, how decision-making works – defines the urban condition. That’s why we invited the chief architect of Brussels, for example, to discuss their approach. Because the Brussels method, including their competition culture and planning tools, is completely different. My thesis was that, thanks to 15 or 20 years of competitions, institutional commitment, and leadership from figures like the chief architect, Belgium has created an entirely new architectural culture – not because Belgian architects are inherently more talented, but because young architects had opportunities to secure commissions and rethink the fundamental questions being asked.
LA: Considering the expanding hybridity of representational media in architectural research, to what extent do you prescribe or curate the instruments of inquiry – drawings, physical and digital models, computational simulations, narrative artefacts – and how do these choices shape the epistemic trajectory and critical outcomes of student projects?
TG: Yes, great question. We follow a specific template for research and output scale. For example, during starting excursions, like in Barcelona, students are given tasks to conduct targeted research while visiting architectural offices or touring important buildings. Each group might examine elements like entrances, fences, windows, and doors – key architectural features – and prepare detailed reports. Afterward, they present their findings to the class. This process uses structured templates to support group learning.
In contrast, their creative responses – such as in our New York trip – are entirely open in technique, tied to themes or sites we’ve explored related to Fake Estates and Odd Lots. They choose their medium freely, with the only requirement being a specific, precise model in a defined scale. But we don’t prescribe the material for the model. We don’t require a uniform type – what we focus on clarity and accuracy.
Similarly, for visualizations, we avoid hyper-realistic renderings. Instead, we favor collage or other representational methods that encourage critical thinking about materials. For instance, in the ‘Prefab’ studio, students select a material at the start of the semester – like rammed earth, CLT, or prefab concrete – and develop their project around its properties and techniques. Different materials require distinct design approaches.
While we give some freedom of expression, certain parts of the work – research, line drawings, and specific representational elements – are strictly defined. We maintain a balance, neither authoritarian nor entirely open. This flexibility sometimes surprises juries. We also organize all research in a structured format, including final materials, to streamline the publishing or exhibition process.
LA: That structured yet collaborative approach seems crucial. But given how quickly architectural practice evolves – with new tools, materials, and societal demands – how do you see the role of foundational teaching versus adaptability? Should curricula prioritize core principles, or is flexibility the new imperative?
TG: My own educational experience from the mid-90s to around 2002 aligns with this. During that period, digital architecture and parametric design began to take shape. By the time I visited the AA in 2000, these tools were already quite advanced. So, by the time it reached Die Angewandte a few years later, it was already outdated, which I found hard to accept because it focused solely on form. Even back in 2000 at the AA, we were skeptical, seeing it as a narrow focus on formal exploration. Testing these methods from various perspectives made us realize they are just tools. What troubled me most – having graduated in architecture and been involved in research and practice here in Ljubljana – was the idea of teaching architecture as merely formal experimentation. I believed that was fundamentally wrong in 2000. Now, 25 years on, we still question this, which seems strange to me. Especially since digital tools don’t account for material properties. You might start designing a shape resembling chewing gum, then search for a material to bend into that form, but that approach is flawed. Many materials simply cannot do that. Genuine parametric, contextual, and responsive design has existed since the 1960s, just not in a purely formal sense. Looking at Serge Chermayeff or Giancarlo De Carlo provides strong examples of what parametric architecture can be – beyond just shapes.
LA: You reject formalist digital design, yet computational tools are ubiquitous. Are there ways to teach design thinking that aligns with your material-first approach–for instance, through bio-inspired systems or fabrication constraints?
TG: I believe that teaching architecture only through formal experimentation is problematic, and this view has persisted for a long time. Instead, education should emphasize responsibility – understanding what already exists. This includes cultural and historical layers, like those in Italy, or environmental factors. The world isn’t unlimited. It’s only in the past decade or so that ecology has become a more mainstream concern. Of course, during the 1970s energy crisis, it was briefly a topic, but after oil prices fell, it was forgotten. Now, it’s finally taken seriously again. Ultimately, the aim of architectural education is to teach students to think critically. They must develop the ability to think conceptually while considering community, ecology, materials, and all contextual layers. It’s not just about creating a visual language that reflects themselves or their group. Architecture is a collective endeavor, and we’re only now beginning to truly grasp that.
LA: Given the enduring tension between generalist formation and early specialization within European architectural curricula, what is your position on balancing broad disciplinary literacy with domain-specific expertise, and how might curricula be recalibrated to prepare graduates for an increasingly complex professional and research landscape?
TG: I believe architecture is a very different field of study compared to, let’s say, mathematics, physics, or even art. In school, you engage with art, but you have almost no exposure to architecture before entering university. The first three years of architecture should focus solely on foundational knowledge – understanding resources, culture, and the history of architecture. You should ask: Why was something built in Athens differently than in Rome? You need to grasp that. Or why, in your own region or city, buildings were constructed in a certain way – who made those decisions and why? Of course, you must also learn the basic structural principles to build your general knowledge. You should also be introduced to urban and architectural history. However, our education – like many others – was biased. Modernism was glorified and not critically examined as it should have been. Postmodernism came and went, but honestly, that doesn’t matter much now. The key is understanding that styles aren’t the main point. What truly matters is understanding the conditions – at a specific time and place – that shaped a particular architectural response. The question is: What are the conditions today? What is the situation in a particular region, city, country, or even a small place? That’s what you need to respond to.
LA: What shifts would you advocate for in current architectural education to bridge the gap between material experimentation and the realities of contemporary construction practices?
TG: We shouldn’t teach students to be solely problem solvers. We should teach them to question the problem itself. If a student can’t challenge a competition brief – if they can’t come to me or my team and say, “What you are asking isn’t relevant because of this and this” – then we have failed to teach them how to think critically. And without that skill, wherever they specialize in their 50-year-long careers, they’ll become obedient, and they won’t change anything that truly matters. So yes – they need to be resilient. They have to be highly adaptable. But they also need a solid foundation, a base of knowledge, in order to be able to respond effectively. I genuinely appreciate the fluidity of architectural education in Europe – where you might start your bachelor’s degree in one place and finish your master’s in another. At TU Wien, many of our master’s students come from abroad. We’ve developed a strong bachelor’s program with my colleagues at the Institute of Architectural Design, so we expect students in their fourth year – the first year of master’s – to know the fundamentals. But of course, only about half have completed their bachelor’s here. The rest come from various backgrounds. And that’s wonderful – it fosters exchange and diversity. Erasmus programs are extraordinary. I even had an excellent student from Naples a few years ago, during the Open Design Academy studio. The only challenge is when students come from schools where the base isn’t strong – where they haven’t learned the necessary tools or architectural culture – they’re at a disadvantage. Architecture remains a relatively young discipline. And I believe you shouldn’t be entitled to design freely until you understand what you’re building on. Otherwise, it’s just ignorance. Students also need to be much better educated about material knowledge. They should be engaging more with design students and encouraging cross-disciplinary exchange. I’ve always admired the culture that existed in Italy in the 60s – at least from the outside – with figures like Bruno Munari, Andrea Branzi, and the Castiglioni brothers. The way they taught and discussed design didn’t matter whether it was a lamp or a city. Or think of Ernesto Nathan Rogers, writing from the spoon to the city. That’s the ideal I believe in. We should still teach students to design both the spoon and the city. Only by understanding all the scales – how one influences the others up and down – can you truly grasp what design entails. If we don’t foster this generalist perspective, then creating specialists might actually generate more problems. than solutions.
LA: Your description of alternating roles – from intensive studio mentoring to strategic advisory oversight – invites reflection on academic leadership models; could you elaborate on how these shifts in engagement influence learning cultures, staff development, and knowledge production within your institute?
TG: In our department, we have about ten people. Ten teachers plus me as the chair. This means that in some design studios, I’m one of two or three instructors, and I’m very involved. I see the students every other week, and we dive deeply into their projects. In other studios, my role is more like an advisor to the team – one or two of my staff prepare the brief, and I challenge them as they develop the methodology, references, and research structure. I only see the students’ work at the midterm and final. I switch between two very different roles, and both are important. But in some studios, when I’m more directly involved, I get much quicker feedback from the students – and they get it from me.
LA: Drawing on your dual engagement in professional practice and academic research, how do practice-based insights reciprocally inform your studio pedagogy, and conversely, in what ways does scholarly inquiry within the university milieu reshape the agendas and methodologies of your architectural practice?
TG: Yes – it’s obviously an exchange. I started teaching the same year we launched our practice. So I have always done both simultaneously. That means I have accumulated practical experience – from construction sites and legislation to detailing and building materials – that directly influences how I teach. For example, a few years ago, we won a competition for a new Science Center in Ljubljana. It was an international competition. We aimed to incorporate a circular approach in our design – low-tech, resource-saving, open-ended. But we faced serious challenges during the execution phase – not because of the design itself, but because of legislation. Public procurement makes it very difficult to use new materials that aren’t officially certified. We wanted to propose certain assemblies or techniques that lack standard certifications. The tender system actually works against circularity. And that was a huge lesson for me.
LA: When legislation stifles innovation, should studios train students to hack those systems–or to advocate for policy change? It seems you do this through a deep knowlege of materials and the technologies and techniques behind them.
I brought my experience back to the studio. The students need to understand that sometimes, even with good intentions, the system itself can be the main obstacle. This is especially true regarding materiality. Our practice has always had a strong focus on materials. From our first building – because we came from the AA – we aimed to show that architecture isn’t just digital but about construction and real materials. Of course, theoretical architecture matters, but when it comes to building, it’s about brick, stone, concrete, or wood. If you don’t understand how these materials behave – if you haven’t worked with them – you shouldn’t be designing with them.
My ideal is every student visits a sawmill. For example, in 2016, we did the Slovenian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, emphasizing this. We built an inhabited structure inside the Arsenale – a curated library-home – and the goal was to create a space for people to linger, share knowledge, and experience open-source learning. We worked solely with untreated wood. The entire studio visited the sawmill. I had experience with that because my father owns a forest, but for most students, it was their first time. Understanding how wood is cut, treated, and its properties is vital, just like clay and bricks. Early in our careers, we experimented with brick and unfired clay, and we’ve incorporated that into our current work. Last year, someone asked me: «Why, as a professor of architectural typology, are you so focused on materials?” I responded simply: all architecture is material. Without rethinking typology through materials, your experiments – digital or physical – may miss future realities.
Beyond materials, we strongly value interdisciplinarity. We tell students they must collaborate with other creatives, artists, and material researchers; staying in a bubble isn’t enough. For example, in Ljubljana, we redesigned Slovenska Cesta to be nearly traffic-free, allowing only buses. We redefined the pavers used for sidewalks, collaborating with a company to develop those pavers and later, for the Science Center, to create a recycled version. That industry collaboration revealed how existing systems can be “hacked” to become more ecological. I also bring this approach to students because practice provides feedback – both on what worked and what didn’t. Revisit a housing project from five years ago and speak with its residents – that’s the real test.
LA: This process may be likened to a scenario where students are encouraged to engage with a continuous cycle of feedback that is enabled by practice. This entails a process of reflection and refinement, which involves revisiting and subsequently reintroducing elements into the studio environment.
TG: Again, we have built around a thousand affordable housing units. That scale provides a lot of feedback, which can be shared in teaching – not just about what your intentions were but also about the real outcomes. You learn what you missed, what failed, and what surprised you. That’s why I value collaborations like the one we now have with BC Architects. We invited them as long-term guest professors. They have gathered knowledge over 15 years of practice – something you can learn in school. You learn it by doing. What’s beautiful now is that in Europe, due to the urgency of the ecological agenda, people are much more willing to share what they’ve discovered. It’s no longer about hoarding knowledge. Designers and architects want to share methods, results, and even mistakes so others can build on them. Only then can we collectively create a real shift in architecture practice. And I have to say, what I enjoy most – when I have the rare opportunity – is working with first-year students or those in their very first semester. When you’re just starting your architectural journey, you are open to everything. You haven’t yet built resistance or preconceptions. If you set high standards from the start, foster a critical mindset, and give students real motivation, then you can do magic. But if from the beginning they are guided toward a banal, client-serving mindset – even with public clients – then you lose them. Another challenge we face is the quality of public clients in Europe. It’s not just commercial clients who lack culture or architectural awareness; public ones often do too. It’s extremely important how we define architects’ roles and responsibilities at the start of their education. We should motivate students not only to aspire to be the next Otto Wagner or an iconic figure – which is fine, of course – but also to understand the potential of working on the client side, whether in Vienna, a small town, or their own village. As a well-educated architect, you can achieve extraordinary things in those roles by asking the right questions and identifying the true potential of that land, community, or place. So yes – a lot of ambition, and not enough time. But for me, teaching is something I truly love. I get goosebumps just thinking about it because it’s a rare opportunity – where you can share and inspire more people than in practice alone. Your office might complete one great housing project, but with your students, you can influence the quality of many public spaces and neighborhoods if they carry that mindset forward. That’s what I want to see – when our students succeed in creating something meaningful in their own contexts. That’s the biggest reward. That’s why I try to stay connected, remaining active both in practice and teaching, and bringing questions from the university back to the office and vice versa. It’s all connected.
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Luigiemanuele Amabile – Architect and PhD, research fellow of the project DT2 (UdR Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”).
Tina Gregoric – Professor of Architecture and Head of the Department for Building Theory and Design (Gebäudelehre und Entwerfen), Institute of Architecture and Design at TU Wien; architect and principal of the architectural practice Dekleva Gregoric architects (co-founded with Aljosa Dekleva in 2003)
