Modulverantwortung: Mulan Sun Buschor
Lehrteam: HSLU Team: Johannes Käferstein, Mulan Sun Buschor, Solhae Yoon (Assistant)
KIT Team: Masahiro Kinoshita, Hiroyuki Kimura, Lisa Johansson (Assistant)
Guests: Hiromi Hosoya, Adam Jasper, Luca Deon

The Culture of Water (TCOW) is a joint research project of The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) and the Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT). The research will reflect upon the architecture, forms of living and landscape conditions around Lake Lucerne in Switzerland and Lake Biwa in Japan. By looking at different urban scales and typologies, from an urban context and industrial developments to rural houses and fields, the project generates a thorough understanding of the singularities of each context. Ultimately its target is to develop projects that take multiple evaluations of water into account. We use architectural design and social science as a creative method of research to develop plausible solutions for contemporary positions on and next to the water and explore the interactions between nature and culture.
The research project began in the autumn semester of 2018. The first three topics are “Water and Danger” (2019), “Water and Beauty” (2020), and “Water and Commons” (2021). Water and Eternity (2022) as the fourth and final research topic led us to return to the origin of life and question ourselves on how to rebuild awareness of life and explore a sustainable future for the world. In the spring term of 2022 the design studio TCOW investigates at Lake Biwa the topic ‘Water and Eternity’ in regard to the guiding instrument ‘Metabolism’.The word ‘Metabolism’ is derived from the Greek word meaning change. Our focus is how to understand eternity in the context of biological and spiritual change, and how to continue to practice architectural design in a seemingly peaceful but actually crisis-ridden world.

*The study trip to Japan from 20.1.2023 to 29.1.2023 is exclusive to students who participate in the studio of The Culture of Water.