STUDIO

KNOWSPACE was founded in New York and has since functioned as a studio for practice and research on architecture and cities.

KNOWSPACE is concerned with spatial and programmatic organisations that combine local differentiation with overall coherence. Its objective is to identify synergies between practice, design research and teaching and to proliferate them as sources of knowledge, The organization of this knowledge serves as the foundation for the conceptual engagement with spatial and programmatic complexity, and the making of space, material and form.

Many of the studio’s projects view façades not as mere interfaces between inside and outside, between building and city, but use the spatial depth of façades as a key means to organise and zone space, define programmes and orchestrate atmosphere and affect. Operative and performative façades play a key role in dealing with the dichotomies between tabula rasa and contextual integration, between global and local, monolithic and differentiated, singular and multiple.

KNOWSPACE understands its role as that of a moderator and organizer of the complex interactions between cultural, political, economic and material forces and the multiple agents that determine a project. In this sense, we act rather as competent trans-disciplinary generalists than as narrowly specialized experts.

PRINCIPAL    Erhard An-He Kinzelbach  金安和

Kinzelbach is a licensed architect in Austria and Germany. He studied architecture and urbanism at TU Darmstadt, ETH Zurich and Columbia University New York, and received a Diplom (Dipl.-Ing.) with distinction and a Master of Science in advanced architectural design awarded with an Honor award for excellence in design.

Kinzelbach was a fellow of the German National Academic Foundation and the DAAD, and was the first recipient of the Bruno and Max Taut Award, awarded by the German Government and the Chamber of Architects. He also received the William Kinne Fellows Memorial Prize from Columbia University.

Before founding his studio KNOWSPACE, Kinzelbach was a project architect at the architectural firms Office for Metropolitan Architecture/Rem Koolhaas and ROY Co., both in New York and worked with Foreign Office Architects on the Bundle Tower project.

Erhard An-He Kinzelbach is currently teaching architectural design and theory as a professor at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He previously taught design studios and seminars on strategies for cities at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he was an assistant professor. In addition to teaching in Vienna, Kinzelbach served as a guest lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. He was also a member of the 1st convent on building culture appointed by the German Federal Initiative for Architecture and Building Culture and. Kinzelbach has been invited as a guest critic to various international architecture schools including Columbia University, Pratt Institute, RPI, ETH Zurich, TU Vienna, University for Applied Arts Vienna, TU Graz, Hong Kong University Shanghai Study Center.