Kontakte – Das Jahrbuch der KIT-Fakultät für Architektur 2023

Filling the Void:
The Death and Life of
the Great European High
Street
Filling the Void: The Death and Life of the Great
European High Street explores performance-led
design as an urgent opportunity to re-imagine
the future of our high streets as diverse communal
and social centres. Over the semester, students
staged a series of installations along Kaiserstrasse
to ask how we can fill the void at the
heart of our towns and cities today. Considering
the city as a stage, the studio was organised into
three Acts, each building upon one another:
Act I (The Life and Death of Kaiserstraße)
The students created a catalogue analysing the
abandoned spaces along Kaiserstrasse, revealing
the street itself to be a void.
Act II (Filling the Void) Collage was used as
a tool to create accidental moments. Participatory
design projects engaged the community and
tested spaces along Kaiserstrasse.
Act III (The Finale and the Beginning)
brought together members of the community over
a day-long performance. A series of installations
(Ghost Town, Synthes!zer, Unframe, Unadvertised,
Sensory Garden, Patchworkshop) evolved
over the course of the day to encourage different
activities. The Architekturschaufenster have
adopted these installations, providing an afterlife
for the project.
The semester was complimented by a series
of seminars, workshops, guest lectures, and
a trip to London.
Students: Alba Arevalo Castro, Alexandra Rodriguez
Guim, Aline Lang, Alvaro Pozo Perez, Anne
Jensch, Carlos Gallego Costa, Clement Potier,
Felix Booz, Freia Prager, Hannah Verena Krohmann,
Joan Arnold, Katja Stefanie Hilderbrandt,
Mariia Emelina, Oliver Leitzbach, Saverio Haaß,
Tim Reichert
Prof.’in Madeleine Kessler
Material Sponsor: FINSA
Graphic Design: Adrijan Karavdic
Structural Engineer: Prof.’in
Dr. Rosemarie Wagner
Guest Critics: Alejandro Haek,
Dr. Alex Furunes, Andrea Thielemann,
Andreas Mangold, Benjamin
Krüger, Christian Weyell, Claus
Temps, Dalia Hamati, Prof. Dr.
Joaquín Medina Warmburg, Johanna
Just, Miquel del Rio, Dr. Marija
Maric, Mio Tsuneyama, Petra Marko,
Prof. Simon Hartmann
A Play furniture by the installation
Synthes!zer is reassembled
into an open stage, inviting passers-by
to participate and activating
the adjacent installations
(Patchworkshop, Ghost Town and Sensory
Garden) in new ways.
B The final jury saw the students
re-imagine an alternative future
for Kaiserstrasse through a series
of installations and performances
that test the evolution of the high
street and question the role of the
architect in filling the void.
C The students' projects were theatrically
displayed as scrolls, inhabiting
vacant shopfronts, and exploring
public space as the stage
on which the life of the city is
played out. The installations evolved
to inhabit vacant spaces along
Kaiserstrasse, bringing together
stakeholders and the wider community
to contribute to the discourse
and widen the conversation about
the future of the high street.
↪ 386–387
Felix Booz, Clement Potier
D Ghost town explores the nighttime
economy of Kaiserstrasse and
opportunities for projection,
performance and art within the
unruliness of the night.
Alexandra Rodrigues Guim, Mariia
Emelina, Freia Prager, Saverio
Haass
E Synthes!zer looks at how play
can bring different generations of
a community together and encourage
accidental conversations, by creating
a play structure which can be
re-configured in multiple ways.
384
Kessler