When students disassemble a car

Analysis is key to every area of science – and architecture students are now learning this through a very hands-on approach.

Enlarged view: Practical analysis: students disassembling a car. (Photo: Jon Etter)
Practical analysis: students disassembling a car. (Photo: Jon Etter)

Analysis is defined as a method of studying something by separating it into its constituent parts. The elements are then sorted in accordance with specific criteria and relationships, before being recombined to form a whole (in the opposite process, synthesis).

On Tuesday and Thursday (23 and 24 February, 2016) this week, a group of students studying under Dirk Hebel, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Construction (D-ARCH), took these words quite literally.

The students spent two days disassembling a car in the Services Department’s HEZ garage on the Hönggerberg campus, breaking the car down into its various elements, systematically sorting these into groups, and learning how the component parts fit together.

The exercise is part of the “Resource City – Building for Disassembly” design semester. The next step involves transferring the findings of the analysis to the field of architecture.

Students are receiving support from Walter Haase from the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design at the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

The disassembled car

Students in front of the disassembled car. (Photos: Jon Etter)

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