Riga Technical University Faculty of Architecture Graduation Yearbook 2020

Architectural education has accumulated 150 years of experience in Latvia, and this year the graduates of Faculty of Architecture of Riga Technical University have defended their Architectural Master’s Thesis and Professional Qualification Project, highlighting the outlines of the next hundred-and-fifty years. The boundary line for the transition to the next decades is characterised by both past achievements and errors and the latest theoretical lessons and guidelines related to their re-evaluation, the modern keywords of which are the Davos Declaration or the High-Quality Baukultur, UNESCO recommendations on Historical Urban Landscape, concept of the Smart City and others. They describe the public responsibility of all the involved parties in the urban development process, not only in terms of the sustainability of local solutions, by matching conservation of the historical cultural space and development planning with the latest scientific findings and technological achievements, but also in terms of their overall impact on global processes and challenges.

This year graduates address twenty professional stories about twenty environmental development issues, both based on graphic and spatial modelling techniques tested by the experience of the previous generations, and on the basis of the intensive use of new approaches and digital tools in design practice. The first attempts to find new roads are, as usual, hampered by the first stumbling stones, but it is the only possible way to subvert the path and turn it into a safe road. The young colleagues have not avoided addressing topics where it is necessary to assess and balance diverse, even conflicting environmental factors, prospects for the development of the recognized and dissonant historical heritage, the revitalization of the living environment and urban public space, or to highlight the spatial outlines of the theoretical possibilities of future development of civilisation – up to extending the urbanization beyond the borders of our planet.

UĢIS BRATUŠKINS, Professor Dr. arch.
Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Riga Technical University