Research Lab for
Concrete Utopias
Research Lab for
Concrete Utopias
Design-led research for a transformative academic architectural praxis.
Architecture as design discipline and socially situated field of action – capable of analysing, questioning, and actively transforming real-world conditions.
RLCU is not an architectural office. It is an academic environment where research, teaching and building form one process, tested at full scale with the people who live there.
#autogestion
Space co-produced, not imposed: collective decisions, shared authorship, self-organised teams.
#différence
Embodied and situated knowledge from everyday life, care, gender and local voices, built into the design.
#utopie
Experimental utopias tested at 1:1, leading to concrete utopias that people actually use.
Projects (06)
Six projects since 2018 in Innsbruck, Schwaz and Zaldibia. Drag or use the arrows.
Jakob Breitenlechner, Heinrich Pan, Xotil Natke
La Unité 1.0: Eine Bühne für den Alltag
2025–26 · Innsbruck · #différence #utopie
A temporary stage for everyday life on the GEIWI forecourt, designed and built by students of Studio 2. Its action day “Diversity in Design” on 18 June 2026 opened the RLCU platform. Project page →
With the Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Research
Jakob Breitenlechner, Heinrich Pan, Birgit Brauner, Karl-Heinz Machat, Michael Kaserer, Peter Erspamer, Xotil Natke
Public Transformers: inclusive spaces for many
2024–25 · Innsbruck · #différence #autogestion
Courses, a 1:1 installation in the university’s public space and a symposium on how gender studies can inform situated design. Project page →
With the Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Research. Funded by the University of Innsbruck and Land Tirol
Jakob Breitenlechner, Heinrich Pan, Birgit Brauner, Eric Sidoroff, Anirudhan Iyengar, Koldo Telleria, Susanne Hofmann, Xotil Natke
Ertzetik Erdira / From the Edge to the Center
2021–23 · Zaldibia, Gipuzkoa · #autogestion #différence #utopie
Two years in a Basque village: lectures and workshops with 132 residents, five 1:1 interventions, and a collective masterplan for the main square. Project page →
With UPV/EHU, Udalbiltza and the Municipality of Zaldibia. Pilot study of the PhD
Xotil Natke, Birgit Brauner, Heinrich Pan, Jakob Breitenlechner
Ich bin da: Leben auf der Straße
2022 · Innsbruck · #différence #utopie
A modular, reusable shelter on a central square: gallery, stage and meeting place between students, homeless people, journalists and the public. Project page →
With the street newspaper 20er. Funded by the Chamber of Architects and the City of Innsbruck
Xotil Natke, Walter Prenner, Verena Rauch, Eleni Boutsika Palles
Potenziale 3: Intervention Lab / Common Ground
2021–22 · aut. architektur und tirol · #autogestion #utopie
Exhibition design as a threshold between institution and public: podiums, modular seating and a ramp that was circulation, stage and surface at once. Project page →
With Walter Prenner and Verena Rauch (Studio 3) and curator Eleni Boutsika Palles
Birgit Brauner, Andreas Flora, Xotil Natke, Christoph Ganslmeier
Lebensraum Schwaz 2040
2018–20 · Schwaz, Tirol · #différence #autogestion
How will people live in Schwaz in twenty years? Over 50 students, round tables and exhibitions in town, and a 600-page publication for the city. Project page →
With the City of Schwaz. Led by Birgit Brauner and Andreas Flora
“Space is not a neutral container, but a continuously produced field shaped by everyday practices, power relations, embodied interactions and social imaginaries.”
— RLCU, Research framework
How a project runs
Practice-based design research: designing, building and negotiating with partners are part of the research itself. Several courses – design, theory, construction – work on one shared subject, while inter- and transdisciplinary partners bring embodied and situated knowledge into the design. The final project is always a common one, never individual.
01
Situated knowledge
Inter- and transdisciplinary formats bring everyday, embodied and situated knowledge into the project: fieldwork, collective mapping, narrative interviews and round tables with residents, care workers, activists and institutions.
02
Experimental utopias
Temporary 1:1 structures, full-scale mock-ups and performative set-ups: proposals have to pass through bodily use and collective interpretation before they settle.
03
Concrete utopias
A real project – building, infrastructure or intervention – developed and built with external partners, within regulation, funding and maintenance. In use, it produces new knowledge and becomes the starting point of the next cycle.
Every cycle closes in public: exhibitions, symposia and publications that document the whole process – including disagreements, limits and what was learned.
Teaching as research
Studios and seminars at Studio_2, Institut für Gestaltung. Students work as co-researchers, sharing responsibility for design, building, communication and partner coordination.
Everyday Cartographies
Ausgewählte Themen der Architektur · seminar
The simple is complex in itself
Ausgewählte Themen der Architektur · seminar
The shape of architecture to come
SE Design · design seminar
Public Transformers
Ausgewählte Themen der Architektur · seminar
Spaces of hope
Barcelona and the Basque Country · excursion
Society in the Organization and Transformation of its Public Spaces
with UPV/EHU and UIK, Zaldibia 2022 · summer school
RESEARCH
The production of space as a method of radical democracy
The Lab’s framework comes from the research project The Production of Space as a Method of Radical Democracy: Transformative Architectural Practice within the Academic Field.
It rereads Henri Lefebvre’s production of space through feminist, decolonial and care theory, and tests it in practice: the projects above are its case studies, with Ertzetik Erdira as the central pilot study.
Now & next
June 2026
Project
La Unité 1.0
On 18 June 2026, during the University of Innsbruck’s Woche der Vielfalt, the action day “Diversity in Design” took place on the stage students designed and built on the GEIWI forecourt, Campus Innrain. It opened the RLCU platform. With the Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Research (CGI).
2026
Publication
Die Produktion von Raum als Methode radikaler Demokratie
Transformative architektonische Praxis im akademischen Feld. Doctoral thesis by Xotil Natke, University of Innsbruck, 2026. The theoretical framework behind the Lab and its projects. Publications →
Since 2026
Research
Joining the Forschungszentrum Care
Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Innsbruck’s interdisciplinary research centre for care, the first member from the Faculty of Architecture.
Not an office.
A lab.
RLCU gives a name to a way of working developed over several years at Studio_2: research, teaching and building as one process, carried out with partners outside the university.
Led by Xotil Natke, Dr. techn., with colleagues, tutors and students from Studio_2 and partners including the Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Research and the Forschungszentrum Care at the University of Innsbruck, the UPV/EHU and Udalbiltza.
Have a place that needs a concrete utopia?
We work with municipalities, civic groups, cultural institutions, universities and building partners on studios, 1:1 interventions and joint research.
Research Lab for Concrete Utopias
Institut für Gestaltung / Studio_2
Faculty of Architecture, University of Innsbruck
Technik Campus, Technikerstraße 21
6020 Innsbruck, Austria