Rational Architecture is geared to the typological and morphological analysis and critique of the existing city on the scale of the city as well as on the scale of the building. The assumption is that responsible architectural and urban interventions should be made on the basis of a thorough understanding of how the city came about and a carefully reasoned approach to context and detail. The chair of Transformational Design complements this approach by exploring the adaptation of the existing building stock to new programs.

The study of the morphology of the city and its most important building types is central to all studies.

Equal importance is given to the study of architectural language in order to connect an object with its past and with this, with all architectures. We see this approach to architecture as essential in nowadays planning and building practice, in order to give a building relevance in the long run. RA focuses on a cultural tradition of architecture that builds on the idea of ‘type’ as the constant carrier of architectural design. Variations of this constant, in order to respond to contemporary building questions and conditions, define the working field of the chair. The formal basis of architecture, frequently within the spatial context of existing urban constellations, is central to this.

By creatively questioning the formal fundament of architecture, RA aims to stimulate architectural research by design. Research has been integrated into Rational Architecture through the establishment of the design-based research group Bauhütte.

In the field of education, the graduation studios and research seminars are the courses that that most heavily rely on research. For example, within the choice of graduation studios we offer, the so called ‘city-series’ tries to uncover the genesis and transformation of European cities and its buildings. In the past decennium, Amsterdam, Potsdam, Berlin, München, Turin, Rome, Milan, Antwerp and Madrid have been studied typo-morphologically. The result of such a study is in each case a so-called ‘atlas’ on which ultimately the individual projects of the graduation students are based. Within the seminars we focus on architectural language and on building types.

In the field of applied research, the design-based research group Bauhütte is working on a variety of commissions. We are specialized in master planning on an urban and architectural scale. Prominent commissions include masterplans for TU Eindhoven and Tilburg University.

Some of our research partners are:

• TU Dortmund
• RWTH Aachen
• Politecnico di Torino
• Politecnico di Milano
• University of Applied Science Potsdam
• IUAV University of Venice