Position

We are a design-research agency working at the intersection of architecture and landscape urbanism. We operate across different modes of practice, including commissions, research, teaching, publishing, exhibitions, community engagement, and activism. These are used to advance inclusive, sustainable, equitable city making and formulate optimistic alternatives for the future.
Our projects integrate different modes of engagement and have achieved changes in urban policy, as well as international recognition through prizes, display at the Venice Biennale, and book publications.

 

Site-specific projects are informed by careful engagement with existing places and communities. Our research aims at extracting hyper-local knowledge and engaging in multiple perspectives, uncovering networks of interaction, histories, local micro economies and extant natural and manmade resources.

These establish what is there, to drive design narratives of urban transformation and renewal while considering architectural, urban and territorial scales together. Thereby, project questions and solutions emerge through the investigation of places that test and rethink a given program brief.

Our modus operandi is rooted in autoethnographic thinking, that acknowledges multiple human perspectives, and approaches of landscape urbanism: These understand the city through the lens of dynamic processes, interactions, the natural world and systems, rather than through a static perspective that focuses on built form only.

 

Ambition

We aim to develop urban typologies and models that demonstrate an integrated position in both architecture and urbanism to form a successful urban ecology.
In each of our projects, we seek to merge cultural, infrastructural and natural factors into a responsive beautiful whole.
Our body of works stresses a claim on diversity and sustainability. 

 

About

XPACE practice was formally established in 2005 by Maud Cassaignau and Markus Jung and has participated in numerous national and international competitions, winning prizes and honourable mentions.

Previously, the two partners have practiced for several years in renowned architectural firms on high profile projects in New York, London and Zurich.

Both partners regularly give lectures, workshops and teach at architectural schools and institutions in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

 

Network

Peter Breen (e2designlab), Alice Clayton (Juno Studio),  Sylvain Hartenberg + Eva Pfannes (Ooze), Alexandre Kapellos (oneframepersecond), Duy Phan (visualisation), Jon Shinkfield (RealmStudios), Sumari Smith (Cardno), Prowse (Quantity Surveyors), Jianbin Wang (CRCWSC), Christoph Ziegenhardt (Commonground)

 

Clients

CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, Kunshan Construction Investment & Development Group, Planning Bureau Kunshan City, City of Melbourne, Eurobodalla Shire Council, City of Zurich, Municipal Council of the City of Geneva, Monash University, Liverpool University, HES-SO Fribourg

 

 

 

 

 

website credits

unfolded webdesign, zurich ch
taywa gmbh typo3 programming, zurich ch