In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni experimentally investigates in two different interrelated projects the effects of concepts such as the situation or the found for the practice of architectural design. How can situations be constructed? Is an atmosphere something architectural? What potential lies in the everyday practice of using elements for what they can do rather than for what they have been conceived for? What architectural potential lies in techniques such as detournement or derive? What is the relation between fundamental architectural tools such as topography, structure, space and tools such as program and event?

What stories can architecture tell and conversely what kind of architecture con be found in stories?

In the first project techniques such as detournement and derive as well as concepts such as objet du desir are applied experimentally to the urban setting of Weimar with the aim of mapping urban conditions without the weight of preexisting mental images. Subsequently the identified single situations, with their architectural conformation and atmospheric qualities, are reintroduced into new potential continuous realities through the process of writing and story- telling.

The second project confronts the urban setting of Piazza Ostiense in Rome. It starts with the analysis of the different characters of the site, the existing different atmospheres are explored and described. Subsequently the programmatic potential of the site is assessed, the aim is to strengthen existing differences. The project takes one of the various qualities of the site and aims at strengthening it through topography, program and a series of architectural structures. Different traffic flows and land mass are interrelated in order to shape one another, and a new topography is introduced into the site, an artificial landscape, which can be appropriated by everyday life. Subsequently distinct physical and programmatic elements related to the program “waiting room without a roof”, where mapped inside the parks and the city of Rome and their atmosphere and condition recorded through drawings, texts and images. These materials enter a design process, which creates a new architectural setting on the site and new stories can unfold.