ACUE Winter School 2005 : 15-22 January 2005 : at the Fire Rock!

Learn more about ArchiCAD! Ski/Snowboard with ArchiCAD users

Take part in a Charrette to look at the future of Feuerkogel!
The ACUE Winter School on the Feuerkogel mountain is an established part of the ACUE calendar and gets better every year! This year the emphasis is much more on successful design with ArchiCAD and we propose a challenging design exercise alongside our usual pattern of plenary lectures and workshops.

The pattern for Winter School is that we are out and about during daylight hours, making use of all the skilifts and cablecar from 10 till 4pm. The early evening is for sauna, drinking, sleep, email or games, finishing with dinner. During the evening, from 8pm to midnight, we enjoy presentations and practical workshops about ArchiCAD and its practice and related software. Plenaries are in English, but workshops and groupwork are mostly in English and for some, in German. The delegates are a mixture of ArchiCAD users from Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Norway, USA, Sweden, Germany and Austria!

 Scenery - isn't it good to be alive in such a place!

The Winter School runs from Saturday to Saturday, there is good rail access to Salzburg and Ebensee (at the foot of Feuerkogel), and for air travellers, we recommend FlyBE Birmingham-Salzburg, with an ACUE Bus from Salzburg airport and railway station to Ebensee and the Feuerkogel Cablecar.

We are in the Edelweiss Hotel 1600m high high above the snowline, and only 20metres walk from the front door to the nearest lift and pistes. A terrace in front of the hotel allows for lunchtimes in bright winter sunshine.

There are many lifts in various directions, plenty of choice for the day. Ski tuition is available during the week for beginners, 2-3 days tuition is all you need to use the slopes with some confidence for the rest of the week. There is an excellent ski school at Feuerkogel for beginners. We would expect good skiers to spend some of their day time helping intermediates, just as they get help with ArchiCAD in the evening. Sometimes we can night-ski under floodlights. From midnight, on alternate nights, the keller bar is open until about 2am.

Bring a laptop for best learning results! Teaching and learning takes place in the Dining room and Bar, liquid refreshment is on tap throughout the day! There's a kellerbar for those who want to talk till later, and broadband internet access for email junkies or those who just want to keep in touch. Mobile phones work on the mountain.

"You only live once - so just DO IT!" Bring the Family!

FEEDBACK and REPORT from 2004

REPORT from 2003
WS Project Info Page

People - the best friends you could wish to spend a week with!
ACUE Winter School is organised by ArchiCAD University Secretariat and the 'ArchiCAD User Association Austria'. If you are interested, please email for further information to: ArchiCAD University Secretariat

Programme of events for the week:

This will be different to last year. We have a plan to emphasise the use of ArchiCAD in design and presentation. We propose a challenging mixture of lectures and teaching with a 5 evening design 'Charrette' to develop our skills. We shall have the British architect Peter Martin (of PMA and of the Architecture course in the School of Civil Engineering at Leeds University) as a course mentor for the Charrette, and we shall have a selection of the most skilled trainers in the ArchiCAD world to provide tuition.

Peter graduated from Oxford Polytechnic in 1975, but has spent almost his entire career practising in Swizerland - he still lives in Zurich and commutes to Leeds. He is a committed modernist and has huge experience of designing in the alpine environment. The idea of having someone like Peter is to have an experienced teacher/designer who can keep us focused on the main task, instead of getting too geeky about ArchiCAD. We shall also have Lubomir Kulichev, David Nicholson-Cole, Adrian Harms, Andreas Lettner as tutors, but the wealth of talent and experience in the people in the teams means that there will be great 'learning transfer' between everybody.

The isolated and high altitude location of the Feuerkogel lends a special sort of intensity to our one-week happening! The choice of Feuerkogel as the site provides 100% immediacy!
Peter Martin - invited to the Winter School - he loves Austrian skiing

What is a Charrette?
The word 'Charrette' comes from the 19th century days of architectural education where architectural students would still be finishing off their drawings while being transported back in the little cart (charrette) to the Ecole des Beaux Arts for the final crit.
(Has anything changed? Now it's rebooting laptops and installing of new cartridges in your inkjet at 4am, and pulling jammed paper out of printers just in time!)
In modern parlance, a Charrette implies 3 or 4 days of intensive collaborative effort between groups of users, consultants, designers, teachers to produce a result. See the very useful article by Bill Lennertz which explains the idea in more detail.

The Charrette design challenge : a major rethink of the whole Feuerkogel mountain resort
The subject for the Charrette is nothing less than a major rethink of the whole Feuerkogel mountain resort. Feuerkogel has declined from its glory days in the early years of wintersport. Some of the hotels are now closed, the cablecar itself is at risk. If it cannot plan for expansion in the future, who can guarantee the maintenance of the cablecar? - if that closes, the whole resort closes. The hotels cannot invest in enlargements if they are not sure of the future of the cablecar. The cablecar and lift system is not assured of a future if there is only one working hotel and not enough parking space at the base, and not enough visitors. The vicious circle needs breaking. Winter is the major regeneration opportunity, but Summer time is important too. A major rethink is essential. Many opportunities and funds are available if a direction can be found. A Charrette is not only about getting a design, it's about arousing people's interest in the whole issue and providing enough of an answer to catalyse a flow of funds and public willingness to solve the problem.
Project Info Page - Useful things will be added to this over time.

The Tasks for the Teams
The Cable car may need reconstruction or rerouting further down the valley to a new development around the Station.... or round to the Steinkogel. The BergHotel has been a rotting ruin for decades and urgently needs redevelopment. The Edelweiss hotel is due for a substantial extension during the summer of 2005. Feuerkogel contains a number of older hotels that only operate at mealtimes, or are almost closed. Many of the lifts are old T-bar systems. In the area, under the snow, there are abandoned concrete bases and rusting metal remains of older, now closed lifts. The local authorities need a vision of the future to wake them up to the tourism and sporting potential of the region in summer and in winter.

The Working Pattern
The evening pattern is: a Plenary lecture/presentation for one hour for all 8-9 pm, in English. Then after a beer break we move to the charrette. We start by reviewing the the previous night's work (with Powerpoint or Moviemaker), then work in teams till 11pm or midnight in groups with different tasks and responsibilities. Teams will form subteams who will interact to agree on linkages and overlaps. Participation is voluntary and delegates are welcome to operate as fully focused team members, or as instructors, consultants or observers. Once you have started as a working member, you cannot suddenly decide to become an observer. The reverse is possible - Observers too nervous to join in at the start are welcome to join in as participants.

Will it work?
The mixture of daytime winter sport and group work and study in the evening is quite intoxicating! Life is lived to the full! Look at the Report of last year for ideas and pictures. Everyone is encouraged to bring a laptop and dongle, so they can fully participate with ArchiCAD friends polishing up their skills. This is a VERY relaxed and good way to learn. You will have the experience of using ArchiCAD in an intensive, focused program with some of the best people in the business; including organizing and coordinating the project, developing and presenting the designs, and creating and using the parts needed to accomplish this ambitious undertaking.

Who can take part?
As usual, we have had bookings from the usual mixture of architects, designers and trainers from the ArchiCAD community. But for the first time, we also hope to get a number of Students. And we have signs that more people will bring spouses, and children if termtimes permit, thus making use of the Chalets next to the hotel.

Finishing off
All the presentations will be Powerpoint (or displayable on projector) so that work can continue to the last moment, but will be stored to CD, and printed to colour printer in the weeks following and copies in book form will be available to the hotel, municipality, participants etc.

Outline Timetable

Saturday: Arrive by air, car or train, in the early evening. Cable car is half hourly during the day, last normal Cablecar is 6pm. Air travellers get to cable car for 2030.
10pm: Welcome to the Winter School, with Encounter session to get to know the participants.

Sunday: Hire ski equipment, first day out and about on slopes, with ski school for beginners.
8-9pm: ArchiCAD 9.0 Catch up session, incl recap of 9.0 features, including Teamwork and Project organisation, Hotlinked Modules, for ArchiCAD teams.
9.30pm-midnight: Briefing for Charrette with Peter Martin and David Nicholson-Cole. Formation of teams and task definitions, formations of briefs for groups.

Monday: Skiing etc all day, including 2nd day of ski school for beginners.
4.00-5.00pm: Meeting with local mayor, planners, Feuerkogel residents, chamber of commerce etc. (who get last cablecar down)
8-830pm: Peter Martin.
8.30-9.00pm : Questions and answers, Images of Feuerkogel, Team Identities
9.00pm-midnight: Charrette second evening

Tuesday: Skiing etc all day. Optional 3rd day of ski school for keen beginners, or just join other informal groups on the slopes.
8-9pm: Better 3D modelling - oriented to the charrette - terrain forming, object making.
9.30pm-midnight: Charrette third evening
Midnight: Kellerbar

   

Wednesday: Skiing etc all day. Ski in friendly groups. Learn from some of the better skiers.
8-9pm: Rendering and visualisation evening. Animation, VR. Navis Piranesi/ Lightworks, Add-ons - oriented to the charrette.
9.30pm-midnight: Charrette fourth evening

Thursday: Skiing etc all day. Ski in friendly groups.
8-9pm: Night Skiing by floodlights, and Igloo pub (if weather permits)
9.30pm-midnight: Charrette, complete the work. Presentations, with Powerpoint.
Midnight: Kellerbar

Friday: Skiing etc all day. Ski in friendly groups.
4.30pm-5.30pm: Present summary of ideas to local mayor, planners, Feuerkogel residents, chamber of commerce etc. (who get last cablecar down)
8-8.30pm: De briefing by Peter Martin and tutors, reflections on the Charrette and thoughts for the future.
9pm-midnight: Delegates Night. Every year we have 10-12 interesting short special presentations from tutors and delegates.

Saturday: Going home day - visit to Salzburg. Return the skis to the hire shop in the morning. Cablecar down to Ebensee and bus to Salzburg for some touring. Open air Music Festival..... Mozart's houses in Salzburg; the Castle and Cablecar, a Cathedral and lovely City centre, Museums and Art galleries, all within walking distance. Bus/Taxi to airport. Air travellers have an evening flight home.


Some of the personalities: From Bottom left, clockwise:
Adrian Harms, Ildiko Szabo, Alfred Hagenauer, Reinhard Brandstetter, David Nicholson-Cole, Simon Gilbert, Gerald Faustenhammer, Herbert Peter