Swiss agricultural commons have overseen the management of pastures, forests, and water in the Alps for centuries. In Canton Valais, the historic irrigation systems have shaped the cultural landscape of the region as a whole. The resilience of these channels rests in part on their ability to mitigate More
The effects of climate change are leading to an increase in extreme natural events and danger in Alpine landscapes in Switzerland. Today, the Swiss territory is already being hit more often by floods, debris flows, and landslides. This increase in natural risks tells us about the fragile balance More
The Gauteng City-Region (GCR) in South Africa is a paradigmatic example of extended urbanization, in which the legacy of mining and apartheid continue to impact spatial practices and the experience of everyday life. The dynamics between urban centralities such as Johannesburg and regional-scale peripheries established by this legacy More
upZ (urban publics Zürich) fördert den Dialog zwischen Stadtforschung, Stadtgesellschaft und Stadtpolitik. Sie verfolgen zwei Ziele: Erstens wollen sie international ausgerichtete urbane Forschung und Praktiken in Zürich verankern und weiterentwickeln. Zweitens wollen sie Verbindungen zwischen städtischen Akteuren in Forschung, Politik, Aktivismus, Hochschulen und Zivilgesellschaft stärken, um den öffentlichen More
Starting 27, September on Mondays, 10:00–12:00 | Elective Course | ETH Zurich, Oerlikon, ONA E16, Neunbrunnenstr. 50 + Online. Lecturers: Prof. Hubert Klumpner, Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou, Michael Walczak. In the turf war between quantitative and qualitative methods, we appear as mediators bridging the two sides. How can quantitative More
Starting 24 September on Fridays, 16:00–18:00 | Elective Course | A Research Seminar | ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HCP E47.4. Lecturers: Alice Hertzog-Fraser, Nitin Bathla, Christian Schmid. Africa is an increasingly urban continent. How is this urbanity being produced? What form is it taking? And how is it being More
Social housing estates are often problematised as places of segregation and disintegration in European cities, yet they are also potentially a prime locus of integration between people of different cultural origins and social backgrounds. The research project PuSH (Public Space in European Social Housing) investigates social housing, including More
With the spatial development concept REK, the city of Baden committed itself to an active urban development in 2019. With the consensual approval of the residents’ council, this process starts with the project «Oberstadt4D» – a cooperation between science, administration, practice and social players. The Oberstadt4D project supports More
4 October – 2 December 2021 | Lecture series | ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIT H 22.1. The MAS ETH in Housing Global Housing Challenges open lecture series seeks to critically address the struggles to ensure adequate and affordable housing for all in an increasingly complex and urbanized world and More
Der Klimawandel beschleunigt die Veränderung der Alpen. Dabei entstehen «neue Landschaften», die zahlreiche Potentiale bergen, zumal die Alpen keinen abgeschotteten Raum darstellen, sondern eng mit dem westeuropäischen Kontinent verwoben sind. Die aktuelle Debatte ist indes geprägt von Einzelinteressen, was ein koordiniertes Handeln verunmöglicht. Ein übergeordnetes Bild der Alpen, More
The Alpine region is characterized by a great diversity in all spatial dimensions and qualities. This circumstance is not to be read primarily as the result of adfirst of all as an expression of the alpine topography, determined ministrative drawing of borders, but at the same time by More
Während ihres Architekturstudiums an der ETH Zürich entdeckte Martina Voser ihre Leidenschaft für Landschaftsarchitektur und Städtebau. Heute ist sie Inhaberin von mavo Landschaften in Zürich. Im Rahmen von Lehrtätigkeiten (Gastprofessuren FH Lausitz und EPFL, Dozentur AA Mendrisio) und internationalen Kommissionen und Jurien setzt sie sich für eine zukunftsfähige More
The project «Peacebuilding through housing cooperatives in Colombia» aims to contribute to the peace process in Colombia and supports the foundation process of the first housing cooperative of «ECOMUN – Economías Sociales del Común». Access to adequate and affordable housing plays a key role in post-conflict peace building More
The Alps are not a static assemblage but a dynamic and sensitive living space. Geological and geomorphological processes formed their characteristic topography over millions of years and in so doing established the fundamental conditions for the development of Alpine culture. This is characterised by the continuous creation of More
5.+26.10., 16.11., 1.+14.12.2021 | Online via Zoom. Die Wohnforum Talks (ehem. BBL) eröffnen eingeladenen Gästen und Mitarbeitenden des ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE die Möglichkeit, aktuelle Bereiche ihrer Forschung zu teilen und Ideen, Konzepte und Ergebnisse zu diskutieren. 5.10.21: «Daylight in Sustainable Urban Design» mit Victoria Eugenia Soto More
The current postdoctoral research project focuses on the relation between cities and urban housing estates, understood as ensembles of two or more, medium-density to high-density, primarily residential buildings, conceived at the same time and with a level of common administration. The earliest housing estates were conceived as islands More
Architectural and urban design are activities embedded in a socio-spatial and political context. Harvard Professor of Urban Planning Susan Fainstein, therefore, challenges theories of planning—and, with that, architectural and urban design—to address these relations: how does the intervention and implementation impact the (urban) context, the (city) users, and More
This research project aims to investigate the status of the photographs that architects take during their travels by car. It is based on the hypothesis that the view from the car has established a new epistemology of the urban landscape and the territory at large. Focusing on the More
Alternative principles of pooling common resources are attracting increased attention in political circles and society at large. Labelled as “commons”, some of these issues have, in the last decades, received growing academic attention in critical urban studies, urban geography, and the social sciences. Indeed, the examination of the More
The tacit dimension of architectural pedagogy—which students deploy when designing, but have trouble explaining—remains understudied, beset by methodological difficulties. Existing accounts emphasize isolated studio exercises or cognitive processes, often neglecting cultural, historical, and disciplinary contexts. Meanwhile, the notion of tacit knowledge is not even entirely adequate for architectural More
Little research exists on urban-scale models. In existing scholarship, they are often lumped together with architectural models. Although urban-scale models certainly possess characteristics that are similar to those of architectural models, they also differ. The key difference, this research project hypothesizes, is that in urban-scale models the performative More
Land use regulations in Switzerland do not meet the requirements of the spatial planning act (SPA) in their guidance for parsimonious land use. If parsimonious land use is to be achieved, urban economic theories and price-based regulations must be leveraged to determine the intensity and balance of land More
Video jetzt online! In einem Dialog für Praxis und Hochschulen nahm das Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft (NSL) der ETH Zürich am 11. November im Volkshaus Zürich eine Standortbestimmung für die räumliche Entwicklung in der Schweiz vor. Ausgangspunkt bildeten Erkenntnisse aus der Pandemiesituation, Hintergrund der Klimawandel. Die Tagung war More
On a joint trip entitled «Transitions» in autumn 2019, students from the Kyoto Institute of Technology and the ETH Zürich investigated a series of houses and their relationship to the (urban) landscape in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo, using sound recordings and laser scanning. The Symposium was an opportunity to More
ETH Zurich has recently launched a new center for augmented computational design in architecture, civil engineering and construction. 24 professorships, including the NSL chair of Christophe Girot, are joining forces under the name Design++ to develop digitally enhanced design methods which support rational and intuitive decisions during the design More
The reconstruction of the Moroccan city of Agadir in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 1960 earthquake is an exemplary yet much overlooked cross-cultural «contact zone» between local and international rescuers, experts, citizens, organizations, and governments. Studying why the development aid Morocco received was not unconditionally accepted, but More