Environment can be described as the ambience that has a direct impact on someone. In the first year of architecture studies at Graz University of Technology, students and lecturers with a wide variety of backgrounds and histories come together. At the KOEN Institute, emphasis is placed on forming groups that are as diverse as possible in order to strengthen the learning process. Teaching takes place not only from the top down - from the lecturers to the students - but also among each other. This is possible through learning and experimenting in a shared space that the students acquire within the first year the so called Kronesgasse with all its rooms such as the studios, the hall, the corridors, the architectural model workshop, the terrace and the courtyard.