„Customer orientation and being close to one's customers: from high tech to high touch“
Beat Krippendorf, Institut ibk + Partner, Bern
www.ibkpartner.ch

Sensible emotional energy, power of communication, personal responsibility and a high degree of self-motivation are building without any doubt the pre-condition for an outstanding service quality.  In these days we may not talk about proximity to customers or customer orientation without this service quality. People can no longer choose what kind of work they do, but they can always choose the way and attitude they do their work. Themed: “Choose your attitude” this topic addresses everyone. If an enterprise will be successful in the future everyone is asked to make his contribution.
With this current and provocative speech Beat Krippendorf wants to encourage everyone to re-think and possibly re-orient his professional and private personal basis.
We life in turbulent times. The effects of globalisation, the extreme virtualisation of life, the high pace of change are tampering us. Too much technique and hurried economic processes have led to an economic and life-culture in which people loose their souls.

More Competitions, please!

There are certain situations when extraordinary ideas can develop beyond the conformities of the ordinary. Such a situation was generated by the student architectural competition OF.F.LINES.

The organisers, the O.I.T.A.F and the Institute for e[x]perimental construction at the University of Innsbruck, received massive response from students from 18 countries. Each project and each piece of work, be it from Russia or Australia, shows the liberty generated in the mind of the students by the task: inventions and visions for transportation by rope.

It gives hope for the future built environment to see students from different architectural schools, mastering both complex technical as well as social aspects of architectural innovation. It also gives hope to see the span and quality of ideas within the students‘ different cultural backgrounds, unfolding in truly poetic animations, imaginative renderings, drawings and inspired texts. We should be glad that they are the ones to shape the future. Architects could really learn something from these students!

Even the most visionary approaches showed the jury that utopian conditions are closer to real life than one might expect. Each step towards a more imaginative utilisation of known technologies lifts the possibilities of human transportation into new spaces, landscapes and urban situations, one of the most relevant future possibilities. From the largest wire spans carrying over miles and miles with breathtaking landscapes, into the element of water, over the rooftops of urban landscapes landing quietly within tall skyscrapers, onto rolling sidewalks on the ground and even along magnetic mesh structures and rails, people would enhance their perception of moving.  Known structures, such as cabins and stations are developed into new spatial structures with new functions and content, enhancing our understanding of their potential.

The richness of these designs has lead to the success of the competition. Wishfully some of them will lead to solid knowledge based developments, putting both their authors, the Client and the Institute on the architectural world map.

It is not so difficult to be daring, when someone shows you how to dare. We sincerely hope that communities, institutions and businesses will look to the unutilised potential of a whole generation of students diving into the diverse challenges of architecture.

More competitions, please!

Architect Kjetil T  Thorsen

Professor at Institute for e[x]perimental construction

University of Innsbruck