Enabling transformation: Linking design and land system science to foster place-making in peri-urban landscapes under increasing globalization. Unprecedented urbanization is threatening landscape diversity, bringing along new social and environmental problems. Standardized business centers, single family residential areas and shopping malls displace highly productive agricultural land, while the culture More
Nature and biodiversity are not only essential for the existence of human societies, but are also threatened by the expansion of cities and transport infrastructure. As much as human societies depend on networks of settlements that are well connected by roads and rail (i.e. settlement networks), animal species More
Until recently, urban planners and designers gave little consideration to the multifunctional design of green spaces. This was partly because quantitative information about the extent of ecosystem benefits was not readily accessible to landscape professionals. Future Cities Laboratory (FCL), Singapore-ETH Centre has developed an ‘Ecosystem Services-Design Loop’ that More
What is the future of the manifold agricultural territories across the world that support contemporary cities? While discussions on urban sustainability have focused on cities and urban regions, many agricultural territories are equally exposed to rapid and far-reaching urban transformation processes with massive social and environmental implications, opening More
FCL Global addresses the globally significant challenges of expanding urbanisation and aims to create a better understanding of the relationship between the city and its surrounding region, so as to make city-regions more sustainable. Following FCL Global’s Launch Event on 2 March 2021, FCL Global Co-Director Professor Sacha More
The capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo, is a high-altitude city. Traditionally, the Merina culture settled on hills dominating rice cultivation in the plains. However, urban growth is changing this landscape fast as city dwellers are more and more settling in the rice plain. This growth also raises the More
Mountain forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and protection from natural hazards. Forest cover in the European Alps has increased over the last century, but in recent years, these forests have experienced an increasing rate of natural disturbances by agents such as windthrow, More
Die Herausforderungen der europäischen Raumentwicklung sind nur in transdisziplinärer Kooperation zu bewältigen. In einem sich dynamisch verändernden Europa mit seinen komplexen Wandlungsprozessen sind neue, integrierende Planungs- und Entwurfsansätze gefragt, um den Zusammenhalt zwischen den Ländern und Regionen zu stärken.
Call for Papers by 29 January 2021. This is a call for papers for the panel Urban policy analysis: Theoretical and empirical developments that David Kaufmann (ETH Zürich) and Mara Sidney (Rutgers University) organize at the 5th International Conference on Public Policy in Barcelona from 6-8 July 2021.
Inward development calls for open modes of governance After fifty years of spatial development not sustainable with regard to land use, energy consumption, or infrastructure costs, the only alternative to overcome this development is to transform and advance existing spatial structures. Historically, Switzerland has evolved from a landscape More
The Spatial Transformation and Design unit explores processes and potentials of spatial transformation and its consequences from neighbourhoods to transnational scales. Its research focuses on mechanics of change and methods for collaborative processes of spatial transformation using design as a key element dealing with complex problem situations.
Raum+ schafft sachliche Grundlagen zur Übersicht von freien Baulandreserven. Im Kanton Obwalden wurde 2016 eine Ersterhebung durchgeführt. Im Sommer 2020 wurde der gesamte Perimeter aktualisiert. Dabei sind die Gespräche mit den Gemeindevertreter*innen ein zentraler Ansatz der Methode. Die aktualisierten Daten sind auf der Raum+-Plattform aufgeschaltet und stehen den More
In many cities around the world, urban ecosystem services (UES) are under pressure. With a growing urban population, the pressure on UES in the remaining open spaces increases. The planning of new residential areas to accommodate urban dwellers increasingly requires the consideration of UES, especially when taking into More
In a cooperation between the Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation (IKG) and the Chair of Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS) a 3D Decision Support System (3D DSS) has been developed as a communication tool to support the planning of power lines. Now the 3D DSS has More
Formalised knowledge systems are important but arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future More
The content of the film is only available in German, French and Italian. The Gotthard has been the site of several major tunnel projects: the construction of the Gotthard railway tunnel, the Gotthard road tunnel, and the NEAT presented engineers with major challenges. Each of the tunnels shortened More
The content of the film is only available in German, French and Italian. The rising prosperity emerging in the course of the economic miracle lasted until the oil shock of 1973: rising consumption as well as increasing space and energy consumption were changing the landscape. Link to the More
The content of the film is only available in German, French and Italian. The Grosses Moos area had been intensively cultivated ever since the Jura water corrections. Grosses Moos is one of the largest plains in Switzerland and, thus, had become the locale of several projects requiring large More
The A2 motorway connecting Switzerland to Germany was routed through the northern neighbourhoods of Basel – houses had to be demolished to make room for the motorway. Meanwhile, the motorway has been placed underground and this upvalues the urban neighbourhoods. Link to the archives of Memobase
The content of the film is only available in German, French and Italian. In the 1960s, there was a housing shortage. People increasingly moved from the countryside to the cities, and the increase of ever smaller households and the influx of foreign workers outnumbered the newly created housing. More
The content of the film is only available in German. In Switzerland, floods regularly destroyed settlements, industrial plants, and agricultural lands. Whole plains were threatened by flooding. To remedy the situation, water corrections were made and flood-control structures erected. Link to the archives of Memobase
The content of the film is only available in German and French. The Linth Plains have repeatedly been plagued by severe flooding – most recently in 2005. In order to avert the constant danger of flooding, intensive work has been carried out on the Linth Canal ever since More
The content of the film is only available in German and French. Power-plant projects came into conflict with landscape conservation early on. In the 1940s, the villages of Splügen, Medels, and Nufenen were scheduled to be flooded to allow for the construction of the Rheinwald Dam. However, the More
The content of the film is only available in German and French. Interventions in the landscape and townscape caused people to resist early on. In 1905, the Swiss Heritage Society was founded. Raising the awareness for the wealth of the country as to peasant arts & crafts and More
The content of the film is only available in German and French. In the last three decades previously, a lot of industrial sites had become available in Switzerland, some of them in central locations. As the example of BBC shows, these sites were only accessible to employees. By More
The content of the film is only available in German and French. During the Second World War, the so-called Wahlen Plan provided for the expansion of agricultural land to 500,000 hectares to secure the food supply. The minimum area of crop-rotation land established in 1992 in accordance with More
Green city areas are under pressure. Compact cities aim to reduce land consumption outside cities, but densification puts pressure on urban green areas. Will the existing green areas suffice for the increased demand during pandemics such as COVID-19? Using recent mobility data before and during the pandemic, we More
The potential large-scale transition from working in the office to working at home, is a massive uncertainty related to the future needs of office space in our cities. It is in the face of this uncertainty, that real estate developers must manage their portfolios. The use of the More
Paulownia (Paulowniaceae) is one of the world’s fastest growing trees, originally introduced from Asia to Europe in the 17th century. Its wood is one of the lightest, while keeping high flexibility and stability, making it an ideal wood for regenerative composite constructions (a wood core sandwiched by fiber More
10. November 2020, 9:00–17:00 | Tagung Landmanagement 2020 | ETH Zürich (Zentrum), Auditorium Maximum HG F30. Mit der Nutzung der multifunktionalen Landschaft gehen Anforderungen für Planung und Management der Verkehrsinfrastruktur einher: Nutzungen müssen verknüpft und die Verkehrsverbindungen den Ansprüchen der Nutzenden angepasst werden.
MAS in Raumplanung 2019/21 | Öffentliche Schlusspräsentation Studienprojekt 1. 11. September, 13:00–18:00 | Viscose Eventhalle, Emmenweidstrasse 20, 6020 Emmenbrücke. Das Studienprojekt 1 des MAS in Raumplanung 2019 /21 befasst sich mit der Stadt Luzern und ihren umliegenden Gemeinden.
incolab bringt Innovationen in Technik und Prozessdesign der Gruppe Planung von Landschaft und Urbanen Systemen (PLUS) in die Praxis. Das ETH Spin-off denkt die integrierte Landschaftsentwicklung weiter und bewirkt damit einen nachhaltigen Wandel im Umgang mit der Landschaft. Hierzu verbindet incolab bspw. das Assessment von Ökosystemleistungen, Visualisierungstechniken und More
Wie definiert man schöne Landschaft, wenn die Schönheit im Auge der Betrachterin und des Betrachters liegt? Was viele gar nicht wissen: Die Schweiz hat sich dazu verpflichtet, Landschaften und ihre Qualitäten zu erfassen, zu beschreiben und zu bewerten. Machine Learning Algorithmen können hierbei hilfreich sein. Interview im Zukunftsblog More
How do we plan the adaptation of mountain territories for the challenges of the future? In particular, how do we maintain key ecosystem services to guarantee their capacity for adaptation? We engaged with stakeholders about these challenges through participatory research, building their vision for the future of their More
Citizen participation in planning and politics was a central promise of the first democratic government in South Africa. However, despite efforts for engaging civil society in local governance, planning remains state-driven and problems of implementation prevail. We explore participatory practices in South Africa from the perspective of the More
3–4 June 2020 | online | Registration until 29 May. Due to the current situation, the Digital Landscape Architecture Conference DLA 2020 will take place online from June 3-4 2020. Furthermore, the registration for the conference is for free. If you are interested in recent developments in 3D landscape More
Degradation of ecosystems and the related loss of ecosystem services have called for new policies to achieve no net loss (NNL) of or even net gain between detrimental environmental impacts and restoration or preservation measures. While biodiversity offsetting has a long tradition, soils have rarely been considered in the More
Wie nehmen wir unseren Lebensraum wahr? Wie erleben wir die Atmosphäre eines Ortes, wo fühlen wir uns sicher, wo fühlen wir uns gut? Diese Fragen werden umso wichtiger, je mehr Menschen in städtischen Gebieten leben. Ziel von Streetwise ist es, das Wissen und die Betroffenheit der Bevölkerung für More