Department / Institute: Institute for Landscape and Urban Studies (LUS)
Beyond Maintenance: Responsive Practices for Changing Landscapes
In February 2025, over 40 practitioners, researchers, and educators came together at ETH Zürich for this colloquium, to discuss the evolving relationship between the design and maintenance of living systems. In response to accelerating climate uncertainty, shrinking municipal budgets, and precarious labour conditions, the colloquium posed a simple More
Care, Cooperation, and Commoning: Revisiting «The System Nobody Knows»
Switzerland’s cultural landscapes – green pastures and flowering hay meadows – have been deeply shaped by resources (forests, pastures, and irrigation water) governed as commons (Allmende). In spite of radical changes to their institutional and infrastructural framework, the irrigation systems of Canton Valais remain grounded in an enduring More
Wiederbelebung marginaler Räume: Eine Praxis der imaginativen Aktivierung
Abraumhalden sind ein charakteristisches Landschaftselement ehemaliger Kohlebergbaugebiete. In Flandern und im französischen Norden werden sie Terrils genannt. Lange Zeit galten sie als Randzonen, wurden häufig abgetragen und als Erholungsflächen umgenutzt oder in Grün-Blau-Netzwerke integriert. In Einzelfällen bleiben sie als Zeugnisse des industriellen Erbes erhalten.
Digital Pedagogy for Data-driven Unsolicited Urban Design
As urban environments evolve with increasing complexity, urban planning must adapt by often responding to unsolicited demands rather than to commissioned, structured work. This paper explores the integration of digital tools – including Digital Twins – into the architectural curriculum at ETH Zurich, aiming to bridge the gap More
Hybrides Entwerfen für multikodierte Wasserlandschaften
Die Landschaftsarchitektur sieht sich im Kontext des Klimawandels mit vielfältigen Herausforderungen konfrontiert. Beim Umgang mit Wasserlandschaften treffen zunehmend intensivere hydrologische Dynamiken auf überwiegend statisch gestaltete Landschaften. Diese Entwicklung bedingt ein Umdenken und ein dynamischeres Verständnis der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Wasser und Land. Um zukunftsfähige und robuste Landschaften gestalten zu More
Agrarian Urbanism and the Politics of Food and Land
Urban farming and agrarian struggles are reshaping cities and urbanising landscapes. In Zurich and beyond, agroecological initiatives, political food movements, and global urbanisation projects reveal how urban and agrarian worlds are entangled and enmeshed – offering new ways to rethink planning, property, urban ecology, and the future of More
Experimental Planting: Garden of the 21st Century New Orleans
New Orleans is a landscape paradox – a city largely below sea level, which continues to sink as the sea rises outside the levee walls that protect it. Despite its capacity to produce a tremendous amount of biomass and ecological diversity, the city’s urban forest has been in More
Venice Biennale: Designs of Resilient Landscapes for Flood-Prone Areas of Antananarivo
Symposium – Stories from Naturecultural Places
10-Minuten-Nachbarschaften
DELUS Chasing Water at Microscope
Book Chapter: ‘Case Study – AI-powered Digital Twin for Sarajevo Urban Plan’
International Cooperation Forum 2025 at ETH Zürich
At this year’s International Cooperation Forum, the Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo – including the first Urban Digital Twin for the Canton of Sarajevo was presented. The presentation took place during Session 4: Swiss Solutions for Smart Cities, in the presence of Swiss Federal Councilors Ignazio Cassis and Guy More
Housing and Reincorporation Strategies in post-Conflict Colombia. Mismatch of micro-level visions and macro-scale approaches
There is a consensus among scholars and policy makers that durable peace after violent conflicts is contingent upon addressing affected communities’ livelihood needs and, in particular, housing. Post-conflict reconstruction is challenging, but at the same time an opportunity to address pre-existing housing deficits. In this Update, we present More
Exploring the conditions for the emergence and sustainability of housing cooperatives in Latin America
Housing cooperatives are being reconsidered in many countries worldwide as potentially relevant actors in the provision of affordable housing. This is also the case in Latin America, characterised by neo-liberal housing policies that have led to an increasing financialization of housing and marginalisation of the poor. Uruguay is More
RESH – Regional effects of housing shortage in urban areas (ESPON Project)
Housing shortages in urban areas have become a pressing issue across Europe, driven by growing population numbers and the continued attractiveness of cities as economic, cultural and social hubs. The supply of housing in urban areas has not been able to keep up with demand. This research project More
NSL Veranstaltungsplakat Frühjahrssemester 2025
Producing New India. Periodising India’s Infrastructure-led Extended Urbanisation
New highway corridors are being implanted at various scales – local, metropolitan, regional, and interregional – often bypassing existing routes and opening new speculative frontiers for urban land markets. This article periodises the different stages of highway construction in India during the neo-liberal era.
Authoritarian Urbanism Beyond the City: Infrastructure-led Extended Urbanisation and India’s More-than-neoliberal Configurations
In the context of the prevailing global rightward and populist shift, there exists a largely unexplored yet profound nexus between authoritarian neoliberalism and infrastructure-led extended urbanisation beyond the city. Drawing on insights from extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted along India’s highway corridors, this paper examines the authoritarianism and social More
Kigali Unplanned Neighbourhood Upgrading Tool (KUNUT)
Kigali, Rwanda, has emerged as a pioneer in urban and digital transformation. Kigali sets a new inversed model of city development that expands from its hilltops downwards to the vital wetlands. The Kigali Unplanned Neighbourhood Upgrading Tool (KUNUT) provides a research platform that integrates digital technology with ecological More
At the Ends of Autobahn Urbanism
For a century, highways have shaped cities, economies, and national identities. But in November 2024, Swiss voters rejected a CHF 5 billion highway expansion, signaling a shift away from infrastructure-led urbanisation. As nations worldwide double down on highway-driven growth, Switzerland’s moratorium invites us to rethink mobility, territorial organisation, More
Negotiating Space for Housing Cooperatives in Latin America: The Case of Post Conflict Colombia and El Salvador
Can housing cooperatives contribute to reintegrating former combatants into civil society? Can they evolve into a broader housing strategy for marginalised communities? What conditions are necessary for their sustainable growth within national housing systems? This research project examines the emergence of bottom-up housing cooperative initiatives by former combatants More
Regionale Effekte von Wohnungsknappheit in urbanen Gebieten
Durch die anhaltende Attraktivität von Städten als wirtschaftliche, kulturelle und soziale Zentren ist Wohnungsknappheit in Metropolitanräumen in ganz Europa zu einem akuten Problem geworden. Das Angebot an Wohnraum in Kernstädten konnte mit der Nachfrage nicht Schritt halten, weshalb dieses Forschungsprojekt die Auswirkungen der Wohnungsknappheit auf die umliegenden Regionen More
Architekturen der Familie. Tagung zu den Dynamiken des Zusammenlebens und Anforderungen an den Wohnungsmarkt
Während sich Familienstrukturen in der Schweiz rasant verändern, hält der Wohnungsmarkt weitestgehend an traditionellen Modellen fest. Das ETH Forum Wohnungsbau «ARCHITEKTUREN DER FAMILIE» beleuchtet aktuelle Dynamiken des Zusammenlebens und innovative Wohnformen. Expert:innen aus Forschung, Architektur und Immobilienwirtschaft diskutieren Lösungen für die Herausforderungen des sozialen Wandels.
Negotiating Space for Cooperative Housing in Latin America. The Case of Post-Conflict Colombia and El Salvador
Housing cooperatives emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Europe and played a key role in peacebuilding, reconciliation, and reconstruction in the aftermath of World War I and World War II. In recent years, following the global financial crisis, the governmental withdrawal from the housing sector and the inability More
FamyCH (SNSF SINERGIA Project). Family Custody Arrangements and Child Well-Being in Switzerland
The four-year SNSF Sinergia project “Family Custody Arrangements and Child Well-Being in Switzerland” (FamyCH) examines custody regulations following parental separation and their effects on children. Designed as an interdisciplinary initiative, the project aims to identify risk and resilience factors affecting children’s well-being. The ETH Wohnforum focuses with Prof. More
Informationsveranstaltung: MAS ETH EPFL in Urban and Territorial Design
EPFL ETH Master of Advanced Studies in Urban and Territorial Design
LUS Doctoral Crits Spring 2025
ARCHITEKTUREN DER FAMILIE – Dynamiken des Zusammenlebens und Anforderungen an den Wohnungsmarkt
Rebuilding Everyday Life: Housing Practices in Urban China
2 + 2 + 1 Eine Debatte über zeitgenössische Landschaftsarchitektur
Three doctoral theses from D-ARCH honoured with ETH Medal
During the doctoral awards ceremony on 24 January 2025, Matthew Critchley, Rune Frandsen and Kam-Ming Mark Tam received a Silver Medal for outstanding doctoral theses. Rune Frandsen, who is currently working as Scientific Collaborator at Bundesamt für Kultur BAK, receives an ETH Medal for his doctorate, that he More
Planetary Urbanisation and the 21st Century Agrarian Question
Sessions on Territory – Agency: Architecture in the Civil Service
100 Ideas for the Western Balkans: Belgrade Underground Opening
InternationaI Cooperation Forum Switzerland
Review of DELUS Journal for Landscape and Urban Studies: Chasing Water
The Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies is young and evolving. While it builds on a rich research history across various chairs, its identity still continues to take shape through its doctoral community, lecture series, and biannual research colloquia. In this context, it is particularly noteworthy that the More
Master of Science in Landscape Architecture
Wohnen erforschen. Qualitative Methoden und forschungspraktische Reflexionen
Final Reviews Voser, Landscape Architecture: transizioni
LUS Doctoral Crits HS24
Transhumance Urbanism as an Urban Otherwise: Inhabiting Agrarian Incompletion at the Intersections of Extended Urbanisation-Extended Ruralisation
Amid the ongoing transformation of agrarian territories in peripheral geographies across the world through extended urbanisation, this paper delves into the persistence of peasant and pastoral strategies amidst the closing down effects of land enclosure and fragmentation.
New Ruralities (NERU)
New Ruralities (NERU) is an Erasmus+ Cooperation partnerships programme, which brings together six design units within the universities of ULB (Brussels), POLITO (Torino), UDC (La Coruña), UMinho (Braga), UACEG (Sofia) and ETH (Zürich). The Newrope chair is participating on behalf of ETH. The partnership’s aim is to generate More
History and Theory of Architecture VIII: Seen from the South
A new core theory course for master’s students taught for the third time in spring 2025 argues that the list of ‘great’ cities needs to be rethought. Given the diversity of urbanisms around the world, it would be a disservice to limit one’s perspective to theoretical notions originating More
Behind Closed Doors
Spaces of global production are formed by a diverse set of spatial figures that result from and support a global division of labor. Spaces of global production include multinational manufacturing networks, industrial agglomerations, plantations, logistics corridors, and special economic zones.
Amazônía
Awaska Alpa_Woven Territory
14.10.2023–14.01.2024 | Exhibition | Akademie der Künste, Berlin. Awaska Alpa is a research project that critically explores the representation of Inga territory in the Andean Amazon of Colombia. During colonial times, the Spanish crown established the Indigenous resguardo (reserve) as a form of collective land tenure to “protect,” More