This cooperative project is funded by an ETH research grant and includes ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE (lead Monika Kurath), Michael Hagner, Science Studies, and Philip Ursprung, gta. It analyses the epistemic basis, form and content of design research in architecture at eight leading Western architecture schools in More
Investigate Spatial Structure and Project Theoretical Pictures of Dynamic Planning Opportunities Background: Metropolitan areas are systems of organized complexity, highly adaptable to changing circumstances or emerging usage requirements. Aggravating to envisaged future qualitative growth seems the current regulatory maze of normative planning law of static zoning, construction and More
This research vessel combines practical and theoretical efforts to investigate metropolitan regions and their constituent parts using analytical and design methods to analyse strategies and planning instruments of urban regions and to present a synopsis of the knowledge gained. The focus is first on research into the available More
Everything shaped by humans is culture. This includes the territory. Cultural landscapes are created by the constant interaction of humans with nature. Their regional characteristics are due to natural conditions and increase with the growing technological development of the society inhabiting them. Cities are also part of the More
SeDUT, a Swiss-Cuban cooperative research project on urban development in Havana, was conducted from 2004 – 2007. The Chair of Sociology at the Department of Architecture from the ETH Zurich joined forces with the design offices of Metron AG to head up Switzerland’s contributions to the project, while More
Urban landscapes of metropolitan regions are subjected to permanent change. This does not take place homogeneously throughout the entire territory but rather captures entire quarters in cycles. Through structural, economic, social or cultural transformation processes, zones formerly regarded as very stable can change within a few years to More
Airports and Cities is a research platform that brings together projects investigating the complex and multi-faceted reciprocity of urban and airport development to better understand the contemporary city and its mechanisms of urbanisation. Urban development is strongly determined by transport infrastructures. Many railway stations were initially positioned outside of More
The Nile Valley covers merely 5% of Egypt’s territory, while providing a living environment for 95% of the country’s population. This thousand kilometer long and fertile strip of land embedded in smooth valley topography bordering the desert allowed the genesis of civilizations dating back as far as 3000 More
Continuously inhabited since the Neolithic age, Belgrade is one of the oldest cities in Europe, but its development is based on frequent ruptures and breaks instead of continuity and cumulative growth. The identity of Belgrade is historically linked to the Orient (Byzantium, Ottoman Empire) and the Occident (Austro-Hungarian More
Since June 2006, a project team of ETH Studio Basel has been elaborating concrete projects for the “quiet zones” in the Canton of Thurgau on behalf of the Thurgau Think Tank, a foundation with private and public participation. This research is a continuation of a study on Switzerland More
Similar to Hong Kong, because of its strategic situation on the coast of the Atlantic, Casablanca is one of the oldest Global Cities. From the beginning of the last century, first under the French protectorate and then, from 1956 onward, as the economic center of Morocco, the city More
The Asian city of Hong Kong is a place of extraordinary economic and demographic dynamics. Formerly under British rule, it has undergone a radical change in orientation since the 1997 handover. The creation of the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) as a city-state implies an ambiguous and More
This semester Central Florida was investigated, a territory that has changed radically in the last century; in a relatively short period, a multi-layered urban topography has covered the near-tropical wilderness. The area’s complexity results from an interaction of different processes: the forces driving urban growth such as the More
Our first steps on the Canary Islands were accompanied by prejudices and doubts as to whether there would be anything interesting to see there apart from the usual phenomena accompanying the distasteful development of mass tourism. We were trying to establish whether anything could be found that would More
Nairobi is shaped by strong contrasts in wealth and quality of infrastructure. While some of the most affluent neighborhoods can be found in the west of the city, along with beautiful gardens and vast golf courses, Nairobi is home to one of the biggest slum of the continent, More
We can observe the cities in the Middle East at a crucial moment in time. Rich in architectural and urbanistic heritage and finding themselves at a turning point of political transformation and undergoing extensive (re-) construction, these cities grapple with questions of identity, globalization and a reconsideration of More
Strategically located at the mouth of the Nile Delta, the region around Cairo has been continuously inhabited for the last five millennia. With Memphis, capital of the Old Kingdom approximately 3000 BC located a few kilometers to the south, the pyramids of Giza, constructed approximately 2500 BC to More
In Hoograven Invites You, project presented last year with the Utrecht Manifest, urban Morocco and urban Holland were compared to extend the frontiers of knowledge regarding the quality of urban environments and human experience with respect to social design. The informal is embraced, its elements and processes defined, More
Lecuna Avenue Revitalization project is a master plan linked to the Metro Cable San Agustin; it aims to recover abandoned sites leftover from the construction of Caracas Metro’s Line 4, in order to create new low-income, residential buildings and community services. By proposing a series of interventions that More
Previous experience has shown that the residents of the barrios in Caracas are well-informed and knowledgeable, and possess a firm understanding of what their communities need most, even if untutored in the principles of planning and development. In this vein, the expertise of residents, community leaders, government officials, More
This project is a prefabricated construction system that explores a modular, structural and vertical arrangement of a series of track and field sports (volleyball, martial arts, running track, weight lifting area, basketball, etc.). Three have been built in Caracas, while versions will soon be constructed in Amman and More
The city of Portland has initiated a series of planning measures to improve the quality of its urban core and metropolitan area by introducing limits to territorial growth, densification strategies, and networks of public transportation. Comprised of a system of street cars, bus lines, and light rail trains, More
Located at the east end of the San Fernando Valley, Hansen Dam is one of five flood control basins within the larger Los Angeles area. Hansen Dam is administered by the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, making it an infrastructural landscape overlaid with athletic facilities and hiking More
This research project investigates forms of formal and informal urbanization processes against the background of both high-end development projects promoted by foreign and local actors and a context marked by prevalent urban poverty. Using Addis Ababa as a case, the goal was to devise tools and strategies for More
At the request of the Chur Lake Association and in cooperation with representatives of the city of Chur and the Canton of Graubünden, a rough concept for a water landscape on the Chur Rossboden is being developed. The questions of landscape architectural design, subsequent city development potential, ecology, More
The Zürich-born garden architect Gustav Ammann was a key figure during the first half of the 20th century in garden and landscape architecture in Switzerland. Nationwide, his work includes over 1700 projects and around 230 publications. He is regarded as a gifted designer and a critical leader of More
The dissertation presents the first comprehensive critique of the work of Dieter Kienast and covers the period from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. It intends to show to what extent Kienast developed a new aesthetics for designing with nature in the city through his investigation in methods of More
Representation of Urban Landscapes in Berlin Through Film This transdisciplinary study discusses the construction of urban landscapes in feature films and their implications for design practice. It defines the urban landscape as a changing cultural construct comprising the spatio-physical facts of manmade landscape in the broadest sense, along More
Alp Transit is creating a major tunnel to link the Lombardy region & Lugano to the north of Switzerland. In the forage process, 3.7 millions cubic meters of inert stone material will be removed from the Sotto Ceneri mountain range and be amassed at the Depot site. Facing More
The design of a changing landscape for the island of Dordrecht in the Rhine Meuse Delta of Holland This Landscape Architecture Studio investigated future adaptations of the urbanized low-land region of Dordrecht in Holland. Whenever water management and land use are challenged by growing climate change, landscape architecture More
Test sites: Village of St. Moritz & UNESCO World Heritage Convent St. John Mustair The observation of landscape development over time is one of the crucial factors for the research, analysis and the associated interventions in the field of landscape architecture and spatial planning. In the proposed project More
Living with flood risk is still the common condition of most European cities, from Alpine valleys to coastal deltas. However, how we conceive of disaster and the means to protect ourselves have both evolved radically, through centuries of extensive reclamation and channeling that have made floods less likely More
Theodor (1810–1893) and Otto (1844–1906) Froebel are two of the most important personalities of Swiss garden design of the 19th century. With their multifaceted œuvre, they made a significant contribution to the emergence of Swiss landscape architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Above all, Theodor and Otto More
This dissertation investigates the aesthetic experience of nature, following debates in German Philosophical Aesthetics from the 18th up to the 20th century. It argues that in modern conditions the landscape constitutes an aesthetic counterworld to the ‘reifying’ sphere of the technical. More specifically, the work will claim that More
Within the design process, what methods are needed to identify relevant information from the abundance of data sets available? How can the data be visualized in order to derive subsequent meaningful decisions for the design? We explore these questions experimentally in the MAS LA Module: Programming Landscapes. While More
The doctoral thesis «Cultural Laboratory Seoul» aims to decode culturally-rooted design concepts in parks and open spaces in Seoul. It seeks to examine the perception and meaning of these historical concepts, and proposes a translation into contemporary landscape design. In the second half of the 20th century a More
The dissertation «From Rarity to Everyday Culture» shows how the Zurich Botanical Garden succeeded, in a country without seaports or colonies and far from large horticultural centres, in introducing new plants through trade and exchange, in spreading them in garden culture and in acting as an active mediator More
Auditory impressions have a significant impact on how people perceive and evaluate their environment. The rustling of the leaves, the tapping of the rain, or the children’s voices as they escape from the schoolyard play an important role in the aesthetic and spatial experience of what we call More
The street has always been one of the most significant public spaces. Particularly in Asian cities, the street – not the square – remains even today the most important location for the activities of daily life. In Tokyo, the street is not merely an area for traffic, but More
Book project: Reports on plant production Based on reports, the background and sphere of influence of tree nurseries will be told and depicted. The relationship between people and environment will be examined from the perspective of plant production. In the foreground is the story of the various continents, More
The theme of paradise is presented in eight illustrated essays that are based on individual and collective activities: community gardens in Berlin, war gardens in Iraq, the prayers rugs of Muslims and eruvs, which are fences that enclose a Jewish residential area and allow the circumvention of the More
The streets have always represented the arteries of the life of a city. A city without streets is unimaginable. Compared to plazas and parks, street space is often seen as secondary and treated as such. There is no discipline that takes responsibility for them. However, the streets are More
As part of the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice entitled ‘Common Ground,’ the contribution of the Chair of Günther Vogt took the city itself and its public spaces, in the sense of an Allmende (common land), as its starting point. To determine the subjective perception of this More
Man is a ‘Geomorphic Agent’. As the most important factor in the shaping processes of the earth, nowadays we move all together far more material than all natural geological processes combined. The removal, transportation and deposition of raw and waste materials have already reached unprecedented proportions in the More
The abandonment of agricultural land and the general withdrawal from inhabited, cultivated and farmed areas is a growing global phenomenon that the Chair is exploring in greater depth as part of its research. Triggered by complex processes and various factors, the current extent of abandoned land has reached More
As part of the research project NFP 65: Urban Potential and Strategies in Metropolitan Territories, the Chair of Günther Vogt examined the existing and relevant standards of urbanised and urban landscapes and open spaces in the Metropolitan Area of Zurich in the module Urban Space. On the level More
Landscape architecture has become increasingly important with the advance of urbanisation. Architecture students increasingly need more landscape architectural expertise for their designs and interdisciplinary cooperation. The project responds to this fact and develops a web platform that provides quick access to design-relevant knowledge for architecture students. Resulting from More
Laying claim to and reinterpreting large swathes of landscapes lying close to residential areas for urban recreational use is a contemporary phenomenon that can be observed in many metropolitan regions of Europe. This change in the use of landscape as an economic resource to its use as a More
Architecture of Territory—the ETH Zurich Chair of Architecture and Territorial Planning – dedicates its work to forms and processes of territorial urbanisation, arguing for the necessity of architect engagement at territorial scales. Since 2011 Milica Topalović has been attached to the ETH Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, studying More