The term «parallax» (ancient Greek: παράλλαξις parállaxis change, alternation) describes the apparent shift or change of an object when the observer adopts different positions. Applying this phenomenon, which seems to be merely a shift of one’s own perception, to reality itself reveals the inconsistency of the world. Inherent antagonisms are materialised in objects and the space around us: sometimes objects appear like this, sometimes like that, and there is no ultimate truth.

In the focus «Architecture & Material» the students approached this fluctuating space of relationships and explored it by means of various media. Ultimately they translated it into materialised architectonic interventions which rethink the relationship between the House and the City, Inside and Outside, Architecture and Landscape, in order to create spaces of community and co-existence between and beyond existing limits.

In the Spring Semester 2023, the site of observations of the Master Studio «Architecture & Material» was the area in the western part of Lucerne stretching along Baselstrasse, Lädelistrasse, Dammstrasse, Meyerstrasse, Sentimattstrasse and Gütschstrasse. The perimeter lies between the rural elements of the Gütsch Hill and the Reuss River with its bridges. As a threshold space, it is inherently heterogeneous. It is marked by rifts; buildings from different times with different grain, programmatically diverse, passed through by traffic axes, topographically and infrastructurally complex; retaining walls, underpasses, car parks, old industries, commercial and residential, the funicular. Here the potential to be a parallactic, antagonistic space is immanent.

Project by Rinor Rushiti

Collages

Video

Model