Studio Bates &

Bachelor Project

At the centre of the Bachelor course is a design project run over the course of a semester. The project, framed within a thematic investigation, is carried out in small groups, each contributing to a wider group study of a given situation. A specific neighbourhood or context is chosen within which students act on a variety of sites.

The focus is in the design of buildings, interiors and urban spaces from strategic thinking to construction detail. The course encourages a growing sensitivity to the character of the city and how the design of a building engages with the wider character of the urban context.

Alongside the design project a lecture series is run addressing related themes.

SS 26 – Bachelor Project Stitching-in
Multi-occupancy in Sendling

Historically, the need and desire for community has driven the way human societies have organised themselves. In the last fifty years aspirations in the Western world have shifted towards individualism to a degree that has become unsustainable. Today there is both a need and a demand for a wider range of options for those living alone, including the opportunity to live within small collectives where resources can be shared while a degree of privacy is ensured, as part of a community of residents.

In this semester we shall be addressing the issue of collective living - a topical idea being experimented with by small groups and developers due to the global housing crisis and the increasing instances of single or small family households. Relevant within the sustainability debate as it seeks to share resources and minimise multiple repetition it also offers an alternative to the micro-flat culture where homes are built as small as possible and as numerous as possible. The big house of many rooms may prove a relevant setting for this emerging way of life. Evolution in housing design has been interrupted in the last fifty years by the increased commercialisation of the housing sector. Instead of offering diversity and choice in the way we might live, housing developers are instead promoting an increasingly generic lifestyle providing a bland living environment which we are told will suit us all. This studio seeks to resist these conventions and instead to speculate on living environments which suit the ever more complex domestic life that we experience every day. An essential part of this study is to understand and explore the relationship between private space and the public domain, not only within the interior but also to the city - to the urban space of the street, the yard and the spaces between buildings.

The sites selected are infill or gap spaces within the heterogenous neighbourhood of Sendling in Munich. Formerly an industrial neighbourhood with working class neighbourhoods the area has undergone significant change and continues to evolve through small scale interventions, improvisation and more urbanised development. The theme of ‘stitching-in’ becomes relevant not only as an ambition to weave and thread together domestic environments of private and shared space but also to integrate new construction within the existing urban fabric to mediate and transform and at the same time achieve some sense of continuity. Your task is to offer fresh and provocative insights on collective living. Unlike the defined territories of a conventional nuclear family arrangement questions should be raised about what is shared or common space and what should remain private and autonomous. The plans may be ‘spread out’ rather than compact developing a greater sense of promenade and wandering. There should be insights in how the plan may evolve over time, providing alternative arrangements. The structure of rooms remains relevant as a flexible spatial structure but the approach to doors and thresholds may be innovative and suggestive. We seek an architecture of dignity which is both unique to its place and yet metropolitan in character – confident, present and permanent.

Work will be carried out in groups on numerous sites so that the studio engages with the neighbourhood as a joint enterprise. The exact size and character of the living groups will emerge through the detailed study of each of the sites. Your decision and presentation of the character and organisation of the collective will play an important part in the assessment of your work. Therefore, we invite you to speculate very carefully on what the atmosphere of shared living and multi-occupancy is and how it is influenced by the spaces and materials in which you employ.

Stephen Bates, April 2026