New at the Department:
Oficina

Hanna Maria Schlösser and Lorenz Kirchner will hold the Wüstenrot Stiftung Visiting Professorship in winter 2024/25.
Hanna Maria Schlösser und Lorenz KirchnerMirka Pflüger

“We regard architectural design as a tool for thinking in order to identify larger, general issues and address them with specific, spatial statements. This can be achieved on an urban planning scale or in the design of a window detail. We are interested in the resilience of the specific – a design which has an openness that enables future transformations and at the same time draws its strengths from a distinct architectural identity.”

The architecture firm Oficina was founded in 2021 and is led by Hanna Maria Schlösser and Lorenz Kirchner in Berlin. The office's first completed projects revolve around questions of design in existing buildings and structures and are located in the field of housing. Engagement in the architectural discourse is cultivated through participation in national and international competitions, where they were able to achieve first successes. Their work on projects is preferably formed in collaboration with other architects and creative professionals from neighboring disciplines.

Hanna Maria Schlösser studied architecture at ETH Zurich. After her degree, she worked for Staufer Hasler Architekten in Frauenfeld and Schmid Schärer Architekten in Zurich. Since 2019, she has been a teaching and research assistant at the Chair of Design and Housing at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, where she took part in an interdisciplinary Forschungswerkstatt. In her research and teaching activities she explores questions of design in ecological everyday life.

Lorenz Kirchner studied architecture at the TU Berlin and the TU Delft. After completing his studies he worked for eight years at Bruno Fioretti Marquez Architekten in Berlin and Pool Architekten in Zurich as a design architect and project managing architect. Lorenz Kirchner has been a teaching and research assistant at the Chair of Design and Spatial Composition of Prof. José Mario Gutiérrez Marquez at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar since 2018. The focus of his teaching activities is the design within existing buildings in various scales and contexts.

Since 2021 Hanna Maria Schlösser and Lorenz Kirchner have been running the architecture firm Oficina in Berlin. In the winter semester 2024/25 they will jointly lead the Wüstenrot Foundation Visiting Professorship on Architectural Approach to Existing Buildings at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

Selection of projects and competitions

  • Haus am See, Brandenburg, 03/2023 – current
  • Dwelling and Bathing, Berlin Kreuzberg, 03/2021 – 02/2024
  • Selective competition Ortsmitte und Feuerwehr Lupburg See, collaboration with Trujillo Moya Architektur and Architectura Agronomia, 04/2024 – 08/2024
  • Selective competition Orangerie im Schlosspark Lauchhammer, 3rd prize, collaboration with Atelier Miething Paris, 01/2023 – 04/2023
  • Selective competition Campusmitte Westerburg, Anerkennung, with Planungsgemeinschaft Landschaft + Freiraum Kassel, 01/2023 – 04/2023
  • Apartment Berlin Kreuzberg, 01/2021 – 10/2022

Selection of publications and lectures

  • ›Bricolage as a driver of transformation – an empirical study of housing practices in single-family homes‹ In: ›Im Notstand – Einblicke in den Wandel zeitgenössischer Praktiken der Architektur‹, 9. Forum Architekturwissenschaft, Julia von Mende and Hanna Maria Schlösser, Berlin, expected 2024
  • ›Stratificazioni Napoletane – Lernen von zwei Jahrtausenden des Bauens im Bestand am Golf von Neapel‹, Lecture by Lorenz Kirchner as part of the design studio ›Scavi di Pompei‹, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2023
  • ›Zürich als Wasserstadt – Infrastruktur und Entwurf‹, Lecture by Hanna Maria Schlösser as part of the Master of Advanced Studies in Applied History, Modul Urbanization, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich, Biennial lectureship since 2017
  • ›Zwischen Razionalismo und Monumentalismo – Italienische Architektur der 1920er und 30er Jahre zwischen Aufbruch und Nostalgie‹, Lecture by Lorenz Kirchner as part of the design studio ›Colonia Marina Dux, Cagliari‹ Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2022
  • ›Ecke Edge Angle‹, trans 29, Larissa Müllner, Amelie Nguyen, Hanna Maria Schlösser, Claartje Vuurmaas (Ed.), Zurich, 2016
  • ›Zweifel‹, trans 28, Larissa Müllner, Elizaveta Radi, Hanna Maria Schlösser, Linda Stagni (Ed.), Zurich, 2016
  • ›Städtebau für Mussolini – Auf der Suche nach der neuen Stadt im faschistischen Italien‹, Publication edited by Harald Bodenschatz, with contributions from Harald Bodenschatz, Daniela Spiegel, Uwe Altrock, Lorenz Kirchner and Ursula von Petz, DOM publishers, ISBN-10: 3869221860, Berlin, 2011


After Christian Weyell and Kai Zipse, Alessandro Gess, Dijana Vučinić, Vesna Jovanović, Madeleine Kessler and Céline Baumann, Hanna Maria Schlösser and Lorenz Kirchner hold the seventh guest professorship of the Wüstenrot Foundation at the KIT Department of Architecture. The guest professorships complement the courses offered by the Master's degree program in Architecture for one semester each by making relevant and responsible contributions to the major social challenges facing building in the present and future.
They address issues of climate change and its ecological and socio-economic consequences for the built environment, the energy transition with regard to the refurbishment of existing buildings and building culture, the scarcity of resources and the circular economy, digitalization and its opportunities for new building production, but also issues of rapid global urbanization, advancing demographic and employment-related change and its effects on the planning of new living environments and spaces.

Website
oficina.studio

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