Building with Air: Students Present the Results of the Master’s Workshop with Hans-Walter Müller

As part of a workshop at Finstral Studio Friedberg, master's students in architecture are exploring a radically different approach to building.
Moritzplatz, Augsburg
10/10/2026
10:00

From October 5 to 10, 2026, Finstral Studio Friedberg will focus on a radically different form of construction: spaces supported solely by air. Together with Hans-Walter Müller, master’s students in architecture at the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences are constructing a walk-in space made of air and a plastic membrane. The students will present the result on Saturday, October 10, 2026, at 10 a.m. on Moritzplatz in Augsburg. 

Hans-Walter Müller – Space Becomes Experience, Volume, Bolzano, 2023. In collaboration with the Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Design, Nitzan Cohen, and Kids Culture Club with Kathrin Oberrauch and Nina Maccariello. Photo: Marta Tonelli.

Hans-Walter Müller: Pioneer of Inflatable Architecture

Since the 1960s, Hans-Walter Müller has been exploring how to create surprisingly large, airy spaces using a minimal amount of material. A slight overpressure of air is sufficient to give his structures form and stability. In contrast to traditional architecture, which is governed by gravity, this approach creates light spaces that can appear, change, and then disappear again.

For decades, Müller has been passing on his knowledge to students in workshops. In more than 50 workshops at architecture and art schools, he has developed and realized pneumatic spaces. The focus is less on the finished result than on the experimental learning process: the immediate, physical experience of space, material, air, and construction.

Image: Hans-Walter Müller – Architecture, Supported by Air; Volume Bolzano, 2023. Photo by Marta Tonelli. 

A walk-in space for Moritzplatz

In Friedberg, this approach will continue with master’s students from the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences. The workshop will take place right in the exhibition space of Finstral Studio Friedberg. Designing, experimenting, cutting, and assembling will thus become part of the exhibition itself. Visitors can follow the creative process—from the plastic sheeting laid out flat to the walk-in space.

The starting point for the design is Moritzplatz and its relationship to St. Moritz Church. For this site, the students are collaborating with Hans-Walter Müller to develop a structure that, for a brief moment, contrasts the existing architecture with a different form of construction: light, temporary, and supported by air. This is not merely about the contrast between stone and air, permanence and transience, but also about the question of what gives a space its sacred quality.

This is what the workshop with students at the THA might look like: Hans-Walter Müller – Building with Air: From Material to Space, Volume, Bolzano, 2023. In collaboration with the Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Design, Nitzan Cohen, and Kids Culture Club with Kathrin Oberrauch and Nina Maccariello. Photo: Marta Tonelli.
This is what the workshop with students at the THA might look like: Hans-Walter Müller – Building with Air: From Material to Space, Volume, Bolzano, 2023. In collaboration with the Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Design, Nitzan Cohen, and Kids Culture Club with Kathrin Oberrauch and Nina Maccariello. Photo: Marta Tonelli.

The encounter between ephemeral space and sacred architecture also ties in with a particular moment in Müller’s work. In 1969, he built a pneumatic church in Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, near Paris, for a congregation that did not have its own church building. Weighing less than 40 kilograms, the structure could be inflated in a matter of minutes, providing the congregation with a dedicated space for their gatherings and bringing Hans-Walter Müller national recognition for the first time.

“I want to create a sacred space and show that the sacred does not necessarily have to be made of stone. Even a space filled with air can evoke a sense of solemnity and tranquility that invites one to pause and pray—and thus enter into a dialogue with St. Moritz Church.”

— Hans-Walter Müller

Hans-Walter Müller in his living and working space on the grounds of La Ferté-Alais, 2019, © Film still by Lukas Schaller

Insights for the Public

On Thursday, October 8, starting at 2:00 p.m., an architecture salon at Finstral Studio Friedberg will offer insight into Hans-Walter Müller’s work and the ongoing creative process. Those interested can register by October 6, 2026, by emailing friedberg@finstral.com. Please include your name. More information is available here. 

On Saturday, October 10, at 10:00 a.m., the jointly developed installation “Volumen” will be publicly presented at Moritzplatz in Augsburg. For this event, it will leave the exhibition space and be set up in the city center—in direct dialogue with Moritzplatz and Moritzkirche. It will then return to the Finstral Studio in Friedberg, where it will remain on view as part of the exhibition on Hans-Walter Müller until April 2, 2027. In this way, “Building with Air” combines teaching, experimentation, and exhibition: from design and collaborative production, through the intervention in urban space, to the return to the exhibition space. In this way, Müller’s radical “Building with Air” at the Finstral Studio also serves as a starting point for exploring how we will conceive of spaces in the future and what new possibilities for building may emerge from this.

Participants: Hans-Walter Müller, architect, engineer, and artist; Kathrin Oberrauch, Artistic Director of the Finstral Art Collection; Prof. Katinka Temme, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences; as well as master’s students in architecture at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and architectural photographer Andreas Meichsner