SPRING 2025

Architecture plays a crucial role in shaping resilient urban ecosystems, requiring innovative strategies to address contemporary environmental challenges. This studio explores the Alpine Superblock as a transformative design approach to co-create urban quarters designed for climate resilience and social well-being. By reorganizing city blocks to limit vehicular traffic, expand pedestrian zones, and integrate green infrastructure, superblocks redefine public space as a shared, climate-fit environment for all. Focusing on Innsbruck as a case study, Alpine Superblocks mitigate heat islands, improve air quality, and foster a healthier urban climate for people, fauna, and flora. In collaboration with the city planning department, students develop adaptive spatial solutions that strengthen the ecological and social fabric of the city. The project outcomes emphasize architecture’s active engagement with the urban environment, shaping interventions that enhance both spatial quality and ecological performance. Through site analysis, mapping, and modeling, students examine the built-natural interface and propose tangible in[ter]ventions at the architectural scale to activate public spaces, foster resilience, and redefine the future of climate-responsive urban quarters.

COURSE ENVIRONMENT
Students work collaboratively in groups, with 15 participants from the University of Texas at Arlington and 15 from the University of Innsbruck. 

ALPINESTUDIO INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM
The Alpinestudio International Program is the global campus of the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) and the University of Innsbruck (LFU), engaging the fields of contemporary architecture and urban studies, focusing on climate-resilient cities in the Central Alpine Region, offering cross-listed courses open for enrollment to students from both sides of the Atlantic.

INSRUCTORS

Oswald Jenewein

Yannick Back

Vasileios Chanis

Daniel Klausner

Erik Czejka