Walter Unterrainer

Walter Unterrainer is professor in Architecture and Resources with focus on Economy at Chalmers University of Technology form September 2019. He has been professor with special focus on sustainability at Aarhus School of Architecture and the coordinator of research Lab ´Emerging Architectures´. Before, he was professor in Sustainable Architecture at Umea University and director of the master program ´Laboratory of Sustainable Architectural Production´. He had built up a post graduate and inter-cultural master program in sustainable architecture as a cooperation between Aarhus School of Architecture and Tsinghua University Beijing.

Walter Unterrainer became an educator, lecturer, researcher and writer after a 30 years career as practicing architect in Vorarlberg / Austria, where he established his ´controlled experimental practice´ (http://www.architekt-unterrainer.com). In seven European countries, he realized a large number of highly experimental and innovative buildings and he worked on all scales. His primary focus was on architecture in wood, cost-efficient architecture and furthermore the development of specific methods of design participation, user integration and self-building.

His research over the last years was focused on the dilemma between growing social and environmental challenges related to space and architecture on one hand and the decline of impact, self-esteem and economy of the profession of the architect on the other. Presently he works on a book ´Architectures without Clients´ investigating different forms of proactive procurement.