Since their agency was founded in 1995, Kalhöfer-Korschildgen, who are currently based in Cologne, have focused on an "optional architecture", capable of changing in relation to given situations and changing lifestyles, etc. Their projects are "transformable" and moveable, and can be taken from one place to another, or take on a new appearance. Architecture is an assemblage of modulable objects, whose elements the user can combine as he/she wishes. For Kalhöfer and Korschildgen the involvement of the user in the thinking about the space in question lends a certain sensuality to the use of it, which, over and above any functional character, is a source of pleasure. The "optional architecture" concept is not based just on function--which lay at the heart of theories developed in the 1960s--but also on phenomenology and the interplay on the atmosphere, resulting from transformation and new dispositions of space and the application of new materials. This aptitude for metamorphosis lends the architecture a natural lightness and brings it close to its user.	(D)
	Kalhöfer-Korschildgen Kalhöfer (Gerhard) (1962), Korschildgen (Stefan) (1962)
	• tourne…sol 2001