25/02/2026
Lobby is a transition area, a space where private and public find themselves no longer strictly one or the other. It is a space of encounter, solace and negotiation. The word comes from cloister, covered walks in monasteries, and German Louba (Laubengang), meaning a threshold, a soft transition. These spaces are also waiting rooms where conspiratorial political talks and decisions took place, most famously in the House of Commons, giving rise to the term „lobbying.“ The hotel lobby is the most representative instance of this spatial invention, elevating the lobby to the core, and often – spectacle. Its elements – the (revolving) doors, the reception desk, the stairs, the hall, the elevators – define the stage for who one becomes upon entering. How can we transport the logics and elements of the hotel lobby, the spectacle or lack of it, to a slightly different form of lobby? How does one steer or create encounters? We want to subvert its seclusive character and invert its bourgeois nature into another utopia of today – a youth centre. We will be searching for current and former grand and inspiring spaces in Austria and Bosnia and work within the existing building fabric by applying different strategies, -such as designing new spaces through extraction and transformation. We will create lobbies for youth, around which this old-new typology will emerge. A waiting room for another form of lobbying: a space for transition into adulthood.
excursion: Bosnia & Herzegovina | language: english
Petra Petersson, Ajna Babahmetović, Barbara Gruber
163.666 Entwerfen | SoSe 26 | KOEN
