City for Dreams

City for Dreams

New Spaces for Hayfilm, Armenia

aac Workshop, Hamburg, Germany
27.02. bis 22.03.2024 at the Campus Rainvilleterrasse in Hamburg


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Description of Workshop Topic

This year's spring workshop of the aac dealt with the design for a Revival of a "Film city" in Armenia.

A new place of creative output around the production of film and related arts was to be built on the site of a former film production facility in Yerevan, dating back to 1976, while retaining significant parts of the existing building.

The historical film production ensemble on the site consisted of office buildings and large halls used for shooting and producing films, as well as parts of the building that served as archives and prop storage. Screening rooms and a larger screening room were also part of the film site.

Over the last 30 years, many of the buildings have been misappropriated and rented out for other purposes, and some of the buildings have already been demolished.

Now the city wants a serious international facility for artistic activities, including but not limited to film production, as well as a cinema complex, a film museum with archives and catering facilities, i.e. an international film and arts centre on the site.

New studios, additional workshops and the necessary ancillary buildings for the production, editing and post-production of cinema films, series, TV formats and other moving image media were to be built on the site.
In addition, parts of the film city were to be made accessible to the public and attract visitors from Germany and abroad with a film museum with a film archive, a cinema centre and catering facilities.
Film funding with training centres and accommodation for scholarship holders and artists and filmmakers, studios and workshops as well as exhibition spaces and galleries for various art forms were also to be located here.

In this way, the "City for Dreams" became a springboard for the realisation of innovative dreams.

Description of Workshop Format

During the three-and-a-half-week aac workshop, international groups of four students worked closely together to develop project contributions on the topic.

Supported by personal tutors and under the guidance of a gmp partner, the designs were further developed in discussion rounds with renowned guest architects. Topic-specific experts complemented the programme with lectures and reports on their experiences.

A scholarship was available for all participants, which covered the tuition fees for the course including all working materials. Free accommodation in Hamburg for the duration of the workshop was also on offer.

The aac studios with spectacular views over Hamburg harbour were equipped with individual computers, software licences and workshop materials.

The aac workshop for architecture students in their Bachelor's or Master's degree, as well as young graduates, will took place during the lecture-free period from 27 February – 22 March 2024.
The workshop results were presented by the participants in an exhibition.

aac Team: Enno N. Maass, Annika Göttle, Anja Meding, Gabriela Hopf, Daniel Owusu

Workshop Team: Volkwin Marg, Nikolaus Goetze, Stephan Schütz, Nicolas Pomränke, Tobias Keyl

Tutors: Annika Göttle, Prof. Philipp Kamps, Anja Meding, Sona Kazemi

Scholarship Holders: Alessia Beni, Marah Doleh, Tim Arne Böttcher, Yi Du, Benedikt Fietz, Melanya Hakobyan, Lucy Millichamp, Mineh Nazarian, Amran Nazaryan, Katharina Niesing, Qixuan Hu, Tamás Kocsis, Leon Kremer, Arusyak Sadoyan, Maximilian Vogel, Jiaqi Zhou

Visiting Professors and Experts: Chris van Duijn, Johannes Pilz, Eike Wolf