Baerbel Mueller

Baerbel Mueller is an architect and researcher based in Austria and Ghana, whose spatial practice is strongly informed by contextual approaches, with an interest in translating these into new typologies and contemporary responses. She is founder of nav_s baerbel mueller [navigations in the field of architecture and urban research within diverse cultural contexts], focusing on projects located on the African continent since 2000. She is also the dean of and associate professor at the Institute of Architecture (I oA) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and founder and head of [Applied] Foreign Affairs.

[A]FA is a transdisciplinary lab that investigates spatial, infrastructural, environmental, and cultural phenomena in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa. Each lab project centers on a distinct question or (com)mission and culminates in field trips and residencies through which applied research, mappings, rural and urban growth patterns, urban prototypes, imaginary (art) spaces, and relational physical interventions are produced. Participants are introduced to the spatial diversity and cultural vibrancy of the contemporary condition of the respective project context, followed by “intensives” that focus on the status and potential of a specific region and interest. This process of relating and making is conceptualized in a reactive and slowed-down manner. Conditions of uncertainty and fragility are embraced. The outcome of each lab is shared and presented in different formats and contexts.