Halfforms

Research


Halfforms - Halfway

midpoint exhibition (2023 - 2025)



Hosted by the Department for Experimental Architecture Building Design and Construction Schmidbaur Group at the University of Innsbruck, the exhibition showcases work developed within the arts-based research project Halfforms, led by Prof. Karolin Schmidbaur and funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) — PEEK Programme, as well as teaching work carried out at the Institute.

Opening Event – Wednesday, December 3

Venue: Ortner & Stanger, Fürstenweg 66, 6020 Innsbruck
Entrance via courtyard / parking

18:00 — Keynote Lecture: Marc Leschelier
19:00 — Opening of Halfforms – Halfways
Spatial installations, prototypes, and research documentation

Exhibition Opening Hours

The exhibition is also open every Friday of December 2025 and January 2026.
from 14:00 to 16:00, except on December 19, December 26, and January 2.

Exhibition team:

Karolin Schmidbaur
Lukas Allner
Gonzalo Vaíllo
Gilbert Sommer

Assistants:

Dario Lantschner 
Elias Geser 
Anna d’Eredita
Klara Gassner
Jonas Klett
Luca Lazzari
Linus Memmel
Richard Schneider
Greta Süß

Exhibition book

About the Research

Halfforms investigates how architecture can emerge from the intrinsic behaviors of materials rather than from predetermined forms. At the center of this inquiry is vulcanized fiber—a cellulose-based biopolymer whose natural deformation during drying generates unique, self-formed geometries. Strong, lightweight, and ecologically promising, the material enables new construction logics in which digital methods mediate the designer's intentions and the material behavior. The project proposes an architectural methodology rooted in material intelligence, hybrid production, and the co-authorship between designers and matter.

Funded through the FWF PEEK Programme, this research advances an arts-based understanding of how material agency can reshape architectural thinking and making. This exhibition marks the midpoint of the four-year research project, presenting the outcomes of its first two years and offering insight into both its current findings and its evolving questions.

The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme that situates the research within a broader disciplinary discourse. It includes a keynote lecture by Marc Leschelier, as well as a symposium with invited guests, providing a platform to critically discuss the project’s methods, results, and future directions.



Exhibition



The exhibition is organised into four sections:
1. Main Projects present key installations and prototypes that demonstrate material-dependent spatial formation. 
2. Material and Methods documents the hybrid analogue and digital protocols developed to work with vulcanised fibre’s unpredictable behaviour. 
3. Studies gather experimental tests and analytical explorations that inform the main projects. 
4. Teaching shows how the research is translated into pedagogical formats, extending its questions into architectural education.



Keynote lecture


Keynote Speaker: Marc Leschelier (https://www.marcleschelier.com/)

Marc Leschelier is a French architect whose practice builds “architectures without function”—raw, immediate, and unmediated forms situated beyond regulatory and disciplinary confines. Drawing from performance art, vernacular construction, and industrial abstraction, his pre-architecture challenges habitual notions of authorship and resonates directly with the experimental ethos of Halfforms.

Symposium

The symposium brings together guests and department members to critically discuss the Halfforms research project at its current stage. Conceived as an open forum, it reflects on the project’s findings, methodologies, and implications, while collectively exploring its future directions within architectural research and practice.

Invited experts:
•  Moritz Heimrath (Bollinger + Grohmann ZT, Wien)
• Barbara Imhof (LIQUIFER / Universität Innsbruck)
• Marc Leschelier (Marc Leschelier, Paris)
• Tobias Nolte (Certain Measures / Leibniz Universität Hannover)
• Tobias Wallisser (LAVA / Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart)
• Susanne Witzgall (Akademie der Bildenden Künste München)