Stone quarry in Vals. Photographer: Arturo Lopez Ayala

Diploma Studio. This spring we team up for the diploma studio with the Chair of Anne Holtrop, focussing on the manifold aspects of materials: geology, material sourcing, physical properties, craftmanship, technology, cultural and political histories. The studio is understood as a laboratory for material research, aiming to critically examine the contexts, histories, and futures of specific materials, deploying their full potential, and expand applications and possibilities in architecture, creating specific spatial and urban conditions.

Fachsemester 'Swiss Coloniality and Its Industrial Architectures'

From Autumn Semester 2023 onwards, our Fachsemester will delve into the topic of Swiss Coloniality. It focuses on the entanglements of the architectural and urban histories of Switzerland and the history of global colonialism. In Autumn Semester 2023 we will focus specifically on industry. How was Swiss industry historically connected to global colonialism, and how did this connection impact the built environment and the aesthetic, material and craft cultures of Swiss cities?

Das Neue Frankfurt

In Autumn Semester 2023, our seminar week revisits one of the ‘classics’ in the history and theory of urban design: Das Neue Frankfurt. By visiting several of Das Neue Frankfurt Siedlungen, such as the Zickzackhausen (1926-1928), Siedlung Römerstadt (1927-1928), and Erwerbslosensiedlung Goldstein (1931-1935), we will investigate the entwined roles of architects, urban planners, municipal authorities and industry in addressing the housing question. While Frankfurt and its appointed city planning councilor Ernst May launched their ambitious program of Das Neue Frankfurt almost 100 years ago, the housing question is still today a central point of discussion in contemporary debate. With Frankfurt and May as our main guides, but also passing through Stuttgart and its Weissenhofsiedlung (1927), the DAM’s exhibition on protest architecture, and Stirling’s Neue Staatsgalerie (1983), we will explore the housing question and the role of urban design via the entwinement of various actors, the role of societal debate, and ideas of rationality and self-sufficiency in a changing society.

Research Studio Zürich's Land Commons

In the Autumn Semester 2022, our Research Studio focuses on Zurich's 'Land Commons'. These collective forms of land use are associated with a variety of participatory practices and have served numerous aims, from food production to housing, commerce and recreation. Relying on the tools and knowledge of the architect, this studio will investigate their role in the city and will attempt to answer the following questions: what are Zurich's land commons? How does the history of Zurich's land use help to understand the social, political and ecological challenges of contemporary urban design? What scope do we see for architects and other city makers to (re)activate Zurich's land commons for the common good?

Global History of Urban Design

The City Represented

The City in Theory

Zurich Lexicon of Street Corners

The Commons and the Modern Afropolis: Casablanca and Agadir

São Paulo: The Common Production of City Life

The Viral Balcony

Communities of Tacit Knowledge

Agadir: The Commons and the Modern Afropolis

The Global Turn

Faith in the City

Building the Commons

Between Macro and Micro

The Architecture Competition as 'Contact Zone'

A New Approach of Urban History in Conflict Zones

The Traveling Architect's Eye

Exploring Urban Models

The Traditional Irrigation Systems of Canton Valais

Transmitting Tacit Knowledge in Architectural Pedagogy