2024 - Luzerna

My task is to redesign an existing tennis court on my campus into a new school for engineering students. The current engineering school faces a significant problem: its labs are scattered across the campus, leading to a lack of common identity and a central meeting place for students.

This was where I started thinking about the bigger picture. In an age where technological advancements are rapidly increasing, what arguably makes us human—our warmth and connections—is steadily dwindling, especially in my country. This begs the question: does it have to be this way? Why should the essential aspects that make us human give way solely to technological progress?

Reflecting on the past 25 years, back to 1999, it was a time of fascinating technological innovations, filled with hope and imagination for the future. Companies like Nokia introduced products that were ahead of their time, symbolizing the potential of technology without sacrificing human connections. I felt that this was an era of time where people felt the most hopeful for the technological advancements to come while still retaining that human warmth and connection.

Returning to the question: ”Does it have to be this way?” My answer is this: you do not have to be a robot to make robots.

The existing Engineering School suffers from a lack of common identity due to its dispersed layout. To address this, I developed a solution that utilizes the properties of daylighting to re-establish connections, influencing the mood and atmosphere within the spaces people traverse. Through this design, I hope to mitigate the issue within the engineering school and create a potential turning point for rekindling human warmth and connections in my country, beginning with the light of our tomorrow—the young ones.