Gustav Düsing

The Informal Studio TU Braunschweig

with Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering

The new Study Pavilion on the campus of the Technical University of Braunschweig is an open space concept designed to accommodate various student activities. The concept follows the principle of a superstructure that allows the user to change and reconfigure the floor plan of the building to meet the ever-changing needs in a rapidly evolving campus context. The high degree of flexibility in the floor plan makes the pavilion ephemeral and therefore responsive, ensuring its enduring relevance as a new emerging campus typology.

*competition entry, finalist

with Max Hacke, Violetta Burckhardt and Marcel Troeger

structural consultancy: Knippers Helbig

Our award winning proposal for the extension of the Maxxi Museum in Rome is essentially an industrial scale timber-frame structure on a rammed earth base covered by a large photovoltaic screen. The program ranges from an innovation hub to laboratories and art storages. The proposal challenges the traditional definition of inside and outside, by introducing a new type of space, “mid-doors” – a naturally air-conditioned communal space that is suitable for social events regardless of pandemics.

spatial transformation,

Berlin, 2019

Photos: Johannes Förster

Sited between the nature reserve of the Rummelsburger-Bucht and the still operating, industrial monument Klingenberg, the project examines the spatial potential of ultra-light moving elements in the context of open floor plans. In various applications, light, stretched fabrics and curtains were used to create space pockets in different scales, generating areas for multiple functions. Over two floors, the layout offers auditoriums, several intimate meeting rooms, two catering areas and a number of undefined areas for expansion. The space can easily be converted from domestic to corporate and from community to private. Custom furniture elements, including tables, benches, sofas, large storage units as well as kitchens for catering, support a variety of scenarios. The multi-purpose event space serves both the local creative scene and the nearby city center and is bridging the industrial past with the preserved landscape.

Notes on Fortnightism (2020), with Carson Chan

A scalable and transportable medical facility as a response to the 2020 corona pandemic, with Carson Chan

Visuals by Grau

Pathogens do not follow spatial or temporal boundaries, and neither should architecture’s response to disease outbreaks. ›Notes on Fortnightism‹ (2020) features the Responsive Care Center, easy set-up medical quarantine tents that pop-up around the world where needed. Easily stored and shipped, Responsive Care Centers are designed to mitigate disease spread, preventing epidemics from becoming pandemics that, as we know by now, can bring human activity to a grinding stop.

Fellows Pavilion - American Academy in Berlin Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

Fellow’s Pavilion at the American Academy Berlin, 2014

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Team: Tobias Wenz (project architect), Gustav Düsing, Ulrich Fuchs, Annette Wagner
Photos © Stefan Müller © Simon Menges

Inspired by the history of the pavilion in the 20th century and from its own earlier prototypes, such as the “Loom Hyperbolic” installation for the Marrakech Biennale 2012, a light glass and steel construction was designed for the garden of the villa. The main element of the building, which offers space for seven study rooms and a small kitchen, is a double-curved roof made of steel beams that seems to float above the rooms. The shape of the roof follows a regular geometry that produces four hyperbolic paraboloids from two-dimensionally offset and twisted straight lines.

sunsight to sunclipse 2021

*ongoing project

Kinetik Installation @ Villa Massimo // Deutsche Akademie in Rom

The name ‘sunsight to sunclipse’ refers to the earth rotating around the sun, which means the sun does not rise, but rather becomes visible (sunsight) and darkens again to our sight in the evening (sunclipse). The atmosphere can ultimately be understood as a gigantic architectural shell, in which we live together with all other species. These terms were coined by Buckminster Fuller, who compares the earth to a spaceship in his book ‘Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth’.

Tent on Cuverville Island, 2017 Antarctic Biennale

Frozen Tent for the 2017 Antarctic Biennale,

Cuverville Island, Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 allows to visit the continent for research purposes only, which is why until today it has remained vastly untouched by civilization. Research, i.e. exploration of unknown territories is always a question of how well one is able to adapt to the conditions on the ground and advance further. Creating shelter from an absolute minimum of materials makes use of pragmatic technology while simultaneously appealing to one of the most primary instincts of man: satisfying his innate urge of discovery and settling on unspoiled land.

...and it came to pass, not to stay.

with Students of the University Roma Tre, 2021

For our studio at the Department of Architecture at the University of Roma Tre, we left the surface of the earth behind to create a new type of co-housing structure which is elevated from the ground as a new architectural model for a near future of material shortage and environmental consciousness. Each proposal became a cell in the larger structure, while we experimented with lightweight materials in the spirit of Frei Otto, Yona Friedmann and Buckminster Fuller.

Thicket Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

Ticket @ HOW SOON IS NOW
Judin Gallery, Berlin, 2014

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Project Architect: Gustav Düsing
Photos: ©Ina Reinecke/Barkow Leibinger

Regarding a possible future of increasing material efficiencies as a result of material shortages this spatial installation is a tessellated thicket. By reducing the material of each structural member to an absolute minimum, space is only defined by the increasing and decreasing density of material. „Thicket“ also begs a comparison between our artificially contrived one and those found in nature as in: to be lost in a thicket, a kind of labyrinth.

Loom Hyperbolic Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

4th Marrakech Biennale, 2012

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Project Leader: Gustav Düsing
Photos: Johannes Förster

The project references the flat, horizontal tents of the Berbers, in which one moves bent over and sits on the floor. The hyperbolic geometry creates a series of spaces that, through the translucency of the surfaces, combine with the simple beauty of the environment whose repetitive arrangement captures the adaptive patterns and ornaments that are omnipresent in the Arab world.

Una Tenda per due Giardini, German Embassy in Rome

*under construction, completion 2022

a demountable Pavillon for the German Academy in Rome Villa Massimo and the German Embassy in Rome, Villa Almone, engineering by schlaich bergermann partner

How much architecture do we really need in order to be sheltered? The pandemic has shown that interiors aren’t suitable for communal events. In fact, interiors are currently maybe even unhealthy for humans. What is the future scenario for social spaces? In order to react to the current environmental and health crisis, temporary light-weight structures can offer an alternative to closed up and air-conditioned interiors.

Earth-works for a hurricane site in Long Island, New York, 2018

Situated in the sandy dunes of the northern shore of Long Island, this private house is a negotiation between aspects of landscape, view and enclosure. Two dug-in, and stepped linear building volumes are intersecting in a common, inhabitable stairwell which serves as a mediator between the upper, more public part and the lower, more private area. The volumes are rotated towards north east, for am light and the lower volume towards north-west for pm light.

permanent Installation

Berlin, 2020

Team: Mariami Kurtishvili

The permanent installation on a roof between the industrial site Klingenberg and the nature reservoir Rummelsburger-Bucht serves as an elevated sundeck, allowing for unblocked views across the closed balustrade into the contrasting landscape. The galvanized steel-structure blends into the materials of modern roofsscapes with galvanized ventilators and lighting conductors. Integrated flowerpots with plants found on local wastelands puts one on the same level with the flora, like sitting in a dystopian park.

Feasibility-Study for the revitalization of an inoperative airport, Long Island, NY, 2017
Team: Sonia Cohan Blake Villwock
Image by Grau

This large hangar like building is part of a revitalization program for a disused airport in Long Island, New York which deals with the question of what kind of industrial production uses the still intact infrastructures such as runways and production halls in an appropriate, modern and sustainable way. Long Island is well known for tourism as a get-away from New York City.

Soundinstallation, with Katharina Pelosi as part of Villa Massimo in Cittá, 2021
Foto by Leonhard Clemens

The name Opaion refers to the 19th century secret room hidden under the inconspicuous concrete cover in Villa Torlonia, Rome which was only discovered in 2004. The concise round shape with it’s dome including an opaion (dome eye), its niches, frescoes and wall paintings in the Etruscan style are the basis of a sound composition that was projected into the park via hidden loudspeakers.

Talus - Berlin Teufelsberg, IAD, TU Braunschweig

Research excerpts developed as an assistant professor at the Institute for Architectural Design, Prof. Volker Staab at the Technical University Braunschweig in 2018/19

In the substance of the Teufelsberg, Berlins highest Trümmerberg, everything from intact bricks to reinforced concrete can be found. Although found to be unusable and disposed of, all these fragments still bear signs of an intelligent coherence, differentiating them as architectural fragments against the naturally grown soil from which they originate.

Log-construction build with first year architecture students at the UDK Berlin, 2016,

KET, Prof. Christoph Gengnagel
Design: Serena Abbondanza, Livia Nowak, Jan Wilkens
Teaching: Gustav Düsing

A pyramidal structure was constructed as part of the lecture series “vernacular 1:1” at the University of Arts, Berlin. In stark contrast to modern high-tech architecture, traditional or vernacular constructions stand for a site-specific and resource-conserving use of local materials. From these centuries-old techniques, contemporary approaches can be deduced and combined with modern methods to create new material systems.

Windmill Luminaire Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

Windmill Luminaire, 2013

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

Project Coordinator: Prof. Kazu Blumfeld Hanada, Werkstatt Blumfeld

The Light-Installation is mimicking natural organizations of hierarchy and structure. By turning principles of energy harvesting inside out, the luminaire is artificial and technoid but is evoking feelings of beauty and vulnerability at the same time.

Frames – Material Concepts & Systems for everyday use.
Prototypes and Small Series developed between 2009 and 2015.

The Space-Frame series are furniture designs developed between 2008 and 2011, which are based on space-consuming structural elements (space-frame). The aim was to test architectural principles of scale, structure and production on a real object. Digital and manual techniques have been researched and developed in a series of prototypes. The resulting furniture was produced in small series with a network of workshops.

The Loop Room Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

The Loop-Room, Exhibition at the BDA Gallery Berlin, 2014
Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Team: Gustav Düsing, Blake Villwock, Jens Weßel

The Gallery Space was transformed by exploiting the very basic medias of architectural representation. A series of wallpapers with two dimensional patterns were firstly translated into a three-dimensional perspectival drawings to finally being realized as a physical ceiling piece. The juxtaposition of these elements created an illusion which seamed to extend the gallery in all directions.