Oswald Mathias Ungers advocates the need to put a theme first in an (architectural) project, in order to avoid lapsing into a profession that is exclusively focused on satisfying everyday needs; pouring a stylistic sauce over all of this will not help either, in his opinion. Ungers states that architecture should propose, deriving from itself, the themes that it wishes to express. In using the theme as a working hypothesis, architecture allows to make ideas visible and testable, solely by the use of its language.

With this studio we question the autocentric notion of the above text, the fact that the themes for architecture should be solely found within the borders of its own realm. Can these themes be derived from other realities and workfields? Can the language of architecture be instrumental in expressing ideas and visualising ideas which might be external to architecture at first sight? How can debates - found in the periphery of the realm of architecture - be projected to the core of it? 

With this exercise we ambition to question the role and position of the architect, within society, within the architecture culture. We don’t question its tools; architecture, and its language.