Demolition Man

The eleventh edition of the BHSF Workshop Talks will take place under the title “Demolition Man”.

Over the last few years, building in the existing fabric has become an increasingly important topic in Swiss and international architectural discourse. Numerous publications, symposia, research projects and discussion groups now deal with the topic. But as has often been noted in these formats: in practice, the primacy of new construction remains almost unbroken. Conditions still favor demolition and replacement new construction. This is shown by the controversial discussions of recent years around prominent competition procedures, for example in Zurich around the Maag Halls, or around the “School for Climate Youth” in Manegg, to name just two.
Against this background, we want to use the BHSF Workshop Talks as a format of discussion from building practice to launch the “Agenda #keepingwhatsgood”. As a concrete, collectively supported roadmap at the practical level on how we can move towards resource-efficient construction by preserving what we have, and feeding what we don’t keep to other construction in cycles. In this context, we would also like to take a critical look at the demands for a moratorium on new construction, not because we do not share the goal, but because certain questions arise from a practical construction point of view when we take a closer look.
To this end, we have chosen a new structure for the workshop discussions: after a half-hour impulse from the guests, a half-hour discussion follows, the results of which are jointly recorded and successively condensed into an agenda in the course of the series. This has a collective authorship, and it is not meant to compete with other efforts, but to complement them. How this is accomplished will also be the subject of our discussion.
The talks will take place on Thursdays at 19h in Geerenweg 2. The exchange before and after are also part of our agenda-setting. We invite everyone to be part of this process.

Dates 2022:
17.11. Niels Lehmann, Managing Director DXMA
19.01. Andreas Ruby, Director SAM
15.12. Antonia Steger, Urban Equipe

Confirmed guests 2023 (dates to follow):
Enzmann Fischer
Conen Sigl
8000.agency
Jörg Lamster, Studio Durable
Silke Langenberg, ETH Zurich
Caspar Schärer, BSA