Studio z00
Please introduce yourself:
We are Studio z00, a research and architecture studio founded by Sophie Schaffer and Katharina Sauermann. We’re working on the the intersection of space-making and culture, using architecture as a medium to develop narratives, curate and produce architectural designs, events, installations and scenography.
Recent projects critically examine contemporary social challenges by looking closer at embodied speculative food futures and the role of digitalization within the domestic and public realm. Together we have participated in national and international exhibitions such as Tallinn Architecture Biennale (2022), and Vienna Design Weeks (2020,21,23) and Milan Design Week (2022), as well as institutions like MAK in Vienna and Spazio Maiocchi in Milan.
Yes, that's right, we did our masters at the TU and the Angewandte, but we already studied together during our bachelor's degree and started our own smaller projects on the side. We have known each other since we were 15 years old. So it was only a matter of time before we founded our studio together. And for our contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, Studio z00 then became official.
#1 You recently completed your master's degrees at the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. How did you find each other and how did the idea for Studio z00 come to life?
Return of the Senses - Intro Image
#2 One of your first projects together was "VIRAL RECIPE". In 2020, you won the "Living in Isolation" competition of Atelier Kopfhoch and were also invited to the AA Visiting School San Francisco. Can you tell us a bit more about the project?
The Viral Recipe project came about during the first COVID lockdown - our first real opportunity to do a competition together. From one day to the next, our daily lives changed radically. The pandemic turned the world upside down and raised questions we hadn't thought about. The idea of Viral Recipe was to take advantage of this surreal situation and propose a speculative housing scheme that seeks an alternative approach to living together.
We experimented with the immediate shift of subjectivity to create spaces that could be adapted by each individual, giving us the rhythm and simultaneous diversity we sought during social and physical isolation.
Kathi was living in San Francisco at the time and Sophie in Naples. So thanks to the time difference, we were able to work on it remotely 24 hours a day haha. In the course of the project, we also had the opportunity to attend the AA Visiting School in San Francisco. The exchange with designers from all over the world was very exciting - after all, Covid got us all, but the ideas and reactions were so different.
Viral Recipe on Display at Atelier Kopfhoch
#3 Do you see the project as a utopian idea of spaces that can be adapted to the different needs and rhythms of individuals or as a realistic prototype of a future form of living?
Of course it is a utopian scenario of a society, but it is also meant to be thought-provoking above all. We are interested in how architectural structures can support human and non-human actors to redefine intuitive experiences and choice. It is always about the interplay between the individual and their needs - and the placement in a social system, the private and the public. How does one place oneself in space, where are the boundaries. We also ask the question of how much privacy the individual actually needs. - And further, how does this interplay create a new spatial structure?
Viral Recipe - Ground Floor Plan
#4 What does your work process look like?
Our work begins at the intersection of space-making and culture. The process is always very intuitive and varies depending on the project. But it always starts with an intense exploration of a topic that currently interests and inspires us. We see architecture as a speculative and investigative medium that relates people, spaces, objects, ecologies and other systems to each other. Design and research are closely linked, and trusting in the process is the most important. In the end, the result is often unexpected yet much more exciting.
#5 "The Banana Gas Machine and Amino Feast deal in different ways with food and how we as consumers perceive it through smell, touch and taste. How did you come to deal so strongly with the food industry and where do you see interfaces with architecture?
Food influences all aspects of life - from the energy flow of resources and systems in our cities, politics, climate and even our personal bodies, desires and well-being. Even the history of the city is based on the interconnectedness of people and land. Agriculture along with increasing urbanization triggered the development of systems to feed us. So our relationship with food is deeper and more complex than we often think.
Whatever the scale, we are fascinated by the fact that the food industry is still so deeply entangled in urban structures - eventually becoming the biggest challenge we will face in the future of cities!
Banana Gas Machine and Amino Feast
#6 What's next for you? Are you currently working on a new project or is there something you are particularly looking forward to in the near future?
After a very intense summer with several exhibitions, our workshop at the Vienna Architecture Summer School and the just finished project at the Vienna Design Week, we are looking forward to a somewhat calmer start into autumn. Kathi has just moved to New York, and we're already excited to see what's next for us - and especially where! Haha
#7 How do you see the role of an architect in today's society?
The role of the mediator - transdisciplinary, at the intersection of theory and practice - architects should experiment with this in a variety of ways, from investigations on the present and future dynamics of the city to installations and designs, always focusing on the role of design as an element to build new relations.
#8 How does your environment influence your work?
Very much! In the last few years, we have both traveled and moved around a bunch - which inspired us a lot. And most importantly, we influence each other through this. Sophie's experiences in design and fashion from her time in Milan, and my insights from Scandinavia and the US in curatorial and press work, brought new inputs and references.
#9 Three things that inspire you at the moment?
The digitalisation and it's resulting cultures - in terms of food culture, we are currently fascinated by the phenomena of Snacking.
Another inspiring momentum we notice is the disappearance of time zones and our changing relationship to proximity and distance throught the digital medium.
Amino Feast
#10 What do you currently read, watch, listen to?
Through the research projects we did last year, we were able to read an incredible number of exciting books and articles, such as classics like “Flesh and Stone” by Richard Sennett, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff), Quattro capanne (Leonardo Caffo), Machines of Loving Grace (John Markoff), but we also often refer to Silvia Federici and Beatriz Colomina. "The Extreme Self" (Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist) is also a good one!
We flip through Pin Up Magazine again and again, and of course started re-watching the old Sex and the City episodes haha ;)
Links:
Instagram: @studio.z00
Images/Drawings: © Studio z00, Amino Feast Image and Installation Photos Studio z00 and Magdalena Weiss
Interview: Emily Paefgen