The sustainable transformation of urban spaces requires human empathy to the environment, ecological sensitivity, community engagement, and adaptive nature-based interventions. This year architecture students’ workshop startarch explored how humans and non-humans can coexist and what nature-based solutions (nbs) could be applied to the Birštonas Nemunas river embankment in Lithuania.
Students’ creative workshop startarch is an initiative, organized 4 year in a row, that brings together 2nd, 3rd , 4th year students of architecture. This year students developed the habitats visions between humans and non-humans, using the bio-collaboration methodology (developed by ktu lectures, during the Europen funded project Greenincities).
At the beginning of the workshop, students conducted a detailed analysis of the Birštonas riverbank. Particular attention was paid to documenting flora, fauna, and their habitat areas. This step was crucial for understanding the site’s ecological value and determining how design solutions could integrate into, rather than disrupt, the existing ecosystem. Based on the collected information, visions were created for the harmonious coexistence of nature and people.
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The architect should have a good understanding of the site and its surroundings in order to create meaningful relationships between the new building and the environment. Therefore, the aim of the Architecture student workshop „starTarch“ was to explore the surroundings of Petrašiūnai. During the workshop, the second, third and fourth year architecture students had to hear, feel, touch, see and understand the site by the river Nemunas and the surrounding context and present the plot using various digital tools.
The analysis methodology chosen by the tutors perfectly reflected this year’s workshop theme “Tree Architecture”, which was chosen as a contribution to the exploration of the theme of Lithuania’s architectural pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale’25. In collaboration with the curator of the Lithuanian Architecture Pavilion, architect, professor Gintaras Balčytis, the theme was presented to the students and will be further developed in their semester projects.
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Workshop topic was continued during the 2024 Fall semester second-year course Architecture of Public Buildings 1 (Tutors: Vidmantas Minkevičius, Laura Jankauskaitė-Jurevičienė, Jurga Vitkuvienė, Diana Žmėjauskaitė) and the third-year course Architecture of Buildings Complexes (Tutors: Gintaras Balčytis, Gintaras Prikockis, Laura Jankauskaitė-Jurevičienė, Jurga Vitkuvienė). For the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture Students’ Symposium KTU Architecture school presents 2 projects (by Goda Narkutė and Aleksandra Gaidamavičiūtė) form the second-year and 2 projects (by Ugnė Bačinskaitė and Lukrecija Jankauskaitė) from the third-year architectural design courses.
2023 workshop
The first study week of this academic year 2-4 year architecture students participated in the workshop StarTarch! The workshop was the result of the second year of cooperation with the French Institute in Paris and the French Institute in Lithuania. This year, students created a vision of a vibrant Kaunas railway station district. They were advised by architects from France Colin Reynier (DATA architects) and Mike Fritsch (l‘AUC). Lithuanian Railways representative Vytautas Tilinskas spoke about the Rail Baltica project and the role of Kaunas station in it. Students were also consulted and evaluated by KTU lecturers.
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Reportage
Ingrida Povilaitienė
Jurga Vitkuvienė
Laura Jankauskaitė-Jurevičienė
