Superposition

51N4E × OTTO LASKE — INSERT with OK-RM and guest editor Freek Persyn 
A 32-page experimental insert developed together with OK-RM, confronting the work of Brussels-based 51N4E — an architectural practice invested in urban and social transformation — with that of social scientist Otto Laske. Rather than documenting form, it asks what agency architectural form has. Going through his 28 dialectical thought forms means starting with context and moving over process and relationship towards transformation. The transfer from social sciences to architecture here doubles as an invitation to think with complexity and act with compassion. The insert functions as a bridging apparatus between guest editor Freek Persyn’s practice and the teaching at the NEWROPE Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation at ETH Zurich. In a Special Edition developed for NEWROPE, the insert is enlarged by a so-called educational frame that adds an additional layer of annotations. For Superposition, this frame is cut to match the publication’s size, leaving only the cut marks as residue — a trace of a larger publication that was once there. Initially a collaborative experiment between Superposition and its guest editor to expand beyond the traditional boundaries of publishing, Persyn finalised the insert in a takeover, asking the editorial board to trust the experiment and editing it completely independent together with OK-RM. The investigation was led by Freek Persyn and produced together with Ellena Ehrl, Tibor Bielicky, Rory McGrath, and Barnaby Mills. @freekpersyn @51n4e @newrope.world @okrm_london Superposition Workout - 2023 Guest edited by @freekpersyn Published and edited by @leobettinioberkalmsteiner @tiborbielicky @maxcreasy @ellenaehrl @itsnikikim Art direction and design by @daly_lyon

Grace Prince - INITIAL SENSATIONS TO THE END RESULT In his essay on Cy Twombly, Roland Barthes describes gesture as a „surplus of an action.“ Working within the theme of WORKOUT, designer Grace Prince pursues a related question: what would a surplus of a fragile action look like within design — and why does she, as a designer, crave to bring fragility into function? Her answer reaches back to childhood, to a nostalgia for breaking and reconstructing objects as a way of learning. As children, we are acutely sensitive to materiality: we learn the difference between throwing and placing, dragging and lifting, falling and balancing. These initial encounters are transient and rare — moments of material truth. It is from this principle of the rare that Prince’s work draws its perseverance, the drive to encapsulate use within a gestural assembly. Like first love, fleeting, and nothing quite as authentic. @grace____prince Superposition Workout - 2023 Guest edited by @freekpersyn Published and edited by @leobettinioberkalmsteiner @tiborbielicky @maxcreasy @ellenaehrl @itsnikikim Art direction and design by @daly_lyon

Fredi Fischli & Niels Olsen - ONE-MAN? OFFICE: THREE BUILDINGS BY PAUL TITTEL Photos by Tibor Bielicky How is the afterlife of Swiss modernism going? Belonging to the unknown post-war architects working in Zurich, Paul Tittel operated a one-man office whose legacy was long overshadowed by widely published contemporaries such as Pierre Zoelly, Eduard Neuenschwander, and Theo Hotz. Yet his small built oeuvre — three realised projects in Zurich — rewards close attention. The Kantonsschule Stadelhofen impresses with its effortless attitude: an angled grid of glass and concrete volumes cut into the steep terrain above Calatrava’s train station, offering intimate hidden spaces alongside a connecting public pathway. A bus stop and post office at Burgwies, partly demolished and only remembered through archival photographs, transformed a non-place at the edge of central Zurich into something habitable through subtle intervention. A former mail-order company in Hottingen, now housing several architecture offices, captivates with its radical simplicity — a gleaming aluminium façade ribboned by large windows and fragile metallic shutters, as if the modernist box were dressed in a sheer garment. Still today, fragments of his projects survive like ruins in the midst of the real estate onslaught, serving as quiet meeting spaces for a diverse community. @fredi_niels_official @tiborbielicky @gta_archive_ethz Superposition Workout - 2023 Guest edited by @freekpersyn Published and edited by @leobettinioberkalmsteiner @tiborbielicky @maxcreasy @ellenaehrl @itsnikikim Art direction and design by @daly_lyon

Superposition at Available Works Art books and magazine fair presented by @somethingspecialstudios and @wsanyc , and co-curated with @geoffsnack photos by @jordy.png

Johnston Marklee, MOS, Ehrl Bielicky - ON PRACTICE Partnerships in architecture are a standard model found everywhere. Sharing expertise and experience, having more workforce to distribute work and complementing skills all favour close and long-lasting collaborations. Therefore, the often close work relationship needs a stable foundation of trust and mutual validation and the ability to credit and respect each other. In a trio-partnership roundtable-discussion end of January 2023, Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of Los Angeles-based office Johnston Marklee, Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS from New York, as well as Ellena Ehrl and Tibor Bielicky from Ehrl Bielicky in Zurich, openly discussed partnerships, collaboration and the future of the architecture office. @johnstonmarklee @mmmosarchitects @ehrlbielicky Superposition Workout - 2023

OK-RM (Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath) in conversation with Wayne Daly As part of guest editor Freek Persyn’s ecosystem, Superposition’s Wayne Daly speaks with OK-RM about projects and strategies in connection to 51N4E, Newrope and beyond. OK-RM , a design studio founded by Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath, began collaborating with architect Persyn in 2018 during a project in Brussels called ‘You Are Here’. This initiative involved various architects and urbanists discussing the future of lowland Europe. Their partnership is built on a conversational and open-minded approach to design, which Persyn encapsulates as ‘design-in-dialogue’. They focus on both conceptual and practical methodologies, emphasizing the development of tools and rules to guide their projects. Key collaborative projects include Newrope, Persyn’s studio at ETH founded in 2019, which functions as a model of an architecture school, and 51N4E, a model of an architecture practice as platform. These projects operate on levels of presentation (tools) and representation (what the tools achieve), embodying speculative ways of teaching and practicing design. OK-RM employs ‘performative pragmatism’, a blend of analytical precision and creative expression, a trait they admire in Belgian design practices. Their work spans various scales and contexts, from small publications to large exhibitions. They aim to break visual identity out of traditional graphic design, integrating scenography, choreography, and theatrical settings. This approach allows them to question and redefine design’s role and presentation, creating contexts that enable fluid and liberated design processes. @okrm_london @okofokrm @rmofokrm @daly_lyon @51n4e @newrope.world @freekpersyn Superposition Workout - 2023

Schneider Türtscher & Arkitekt Jonas Løland - BODYBUILDING For WORKOUT we connected two architectural practices, from Zurich and Oslo, focusing on collaboration. Despite differences in size, location, and longevity, knowing both practices for a long time and being in an ongoing conversation for years suggested they were ideal for this experimental feature. The process involved year-long dialogues through mails, encounters, and messages, culminating in a visual compendium combining their works. The framework used five athletic-inspired phases: WARMUP (early project phases), WORKOUT (project development methods), FETISHISATION (aesthetic evaluation), IMPULSES (complementary distractions), and STRETCHING (adaptation and flexibility). Both practices, Schneider Türtscher and Jonas Løland, explored their projects‘ contexts, merging traditional and innovative elements. Their collaboration emphasized accepting process traces, balancing digital and analogue methods, and recognizing the rigorous yet rewarding nature of architectural work. @schneidertuertscher @j_loland Superposition Workout - 2023

Bianca Felicori - Italian Pop Nostalgia: Between Pleasure Time And Hyper-Work Italian summers evoke nostalgia for simpler times, with families on crowded beaches, children playing, and lifeguards flirting. This enduring scene reflects Italy’s post-war economic boom when mass capitalism transformed leisure into a universal right. Tourism shifted from elitist to accessible, leading to the rise of prefabricated holiday villages. These self-sufficient resorts, although initially popular, often clashed with their surroundings and fell out of favor. Today, amidst hyper-technology and blurred work-life boundaries, we long for the carefree leisure of the past. The image of a peaceful, phone-free moment by the Mediterranean symbolizes our yearning for a simpler, happier time. @biancafelicori Image Credits: - Pages from brochure Binishells spA, may 1967 / Dante Bini. - Dante Bini and Frei Otto, Isola dei Cappuccini project, 1972 / Dante Bini. - Francesco Cortese Superposition Workout - 2023

Valeriia Karaman - 50.47164841517112, 30.498701410206127 Text by Valeriia Karamann Photos by Alex Bykov and Kurt Heuvens (Due to a no-photography policy of ∄ we blur the photographs on Instagram) In Kyiv, a former brewery has been transformed into a techno club, serving as more than just a place for music – it’s become a cultural institution and during times of war a safe-space. Through conversations with Valeriia, a number of the individuals associated in different way with the club share their stories. Valeriia recounts the genesis of the techno label and the community it has fostered. In a city marked by turmoil, the club stands as a symbol of resilience, unity, and the transformative power of music. @valeriiakaraman @valkarart @k41community.fund @anand_ransher @paul_georg_ @dianaazzuz @alex_bykolay @kurtheuvens @sashakurmaz @voloshyn1992 @vystavka.k41 @nikita_marykov Superposition Workout - 2023

Power Out of Restriction (POoR) Collective in conversation with Matthew Blunderfiled In an in-depth conversation, POoR Collective’s Shawn Adams, Larry Botchway, Matt Harvey and Ben Spry speak to Matthew Blunderfield about their backgrounds, making young people an integral part of the design process and collaborating with people in a meaningful way. Ben Spry: “We are trying to think critically about the most appropriate ways of uplifting and upskilling young people. Is it always a designed outcome? No. Sometimes it’s a programme.” Shawn Adams: “We still see ourselves as designers, but the output of our work could be a poem. It doesn’t necessarily mean that everything must have a built form, but at the same time it often has a spatial component to @poor_collective @blndrfld @_shawn_adams_ @larrybotchway @matt_harveya @benspry Superposition Workout - 2023

Takeshi Hayatsu - Making Friends Conversation between Takeshi Hayatsu and Hikaru Nissanke
Photos by Max Creasy An investigation into the work and process of architect Takeshi Hayatsu. The article includes a conversation between Hikaru Nissanke and Takeshi Hayatsu. In it they discuss the red and white school of Japanese architecture, slippages of the eye and Bricolage. “HN: Working with what’s at hand. Do you think those narratives are still important in your work? TH: Yes, because then you can ground yourself in the context; making connections, making friends with the things surrounding you, that is what I think is the core of Bricolage, connecting the dots.“ @takeshi_hayatsu @hikarunissanke @maxcreasy Superposition Workout - 2023