Professor of architecture Tom Avermaete is researching how cities are designed and how they have evolved over time – and what we can learn from this for the urban planning of the future. In his ERC project, he is investigating how cooperatives, housing associations, and other collective institutions More
A series of Research Studios at the Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design investigates the role of resources in the history of urban design. How are resources relied upon, managed, and produced by cities? How can historical experiences inform the challenges of today? How do More
Zurich is growing – but does the city need new high-rise buildings to accommodate that growth? Not necessarily, says ETH Zurich urban history professor Tom Avermaete. His joint research project with professor of architecture Jonathan Sergison (USI) shows that mid-rise buildings and targeted densification can absorb the city’s More
What would a non-sexist city look like? That was the question urban historian Dolores Hayden posed in 1980, during the transitional period between the second and third waves of feminism in the United States— a question that, more than forty years later, feels increasingly urgent across different parts More
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
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
This 4-year project uniquely combines historical and design-led research to explore urban strategies for housing the anticipated 25% population increase that Zurich is facing in the next 20 years. A ‘retroactive analysis’ of the historical evolution of building codes, as well as of the specific urban types and More
The city of Zurich is a testament to the incredible power of urban codes and their influence on urban form. From the mid-nineteenth onwards, these codes, such as building laws, norms, standards, or even municipal constitutions, shaped and reshaped the city into what it is today. The research More
Much of what architecture students learn in the studio is «tacit knowledge.» They develop the skills and sensibilities of architectural and urban design with practice, often under the supervision of instructors and peers, not by studying textbooks. Yet, despite its importance, we know relatively little about how this More
This research project seeks to develop a new method of writing the history of post-WWII architecture, reflecting the complexities of globalisation and its influence on the built environment. The project investigates an alternative historiographic approach by organising history around cross-cultural «contact zones». This term was first used by More
This research project sets out to develop a new methodology of crossing disciplinary perspectives with the goal of unlocking a multidisciplinary historiography of architecture. It is based on the conviction that something fundamentally new can be learned from the exchanges that architects have had with other disciplines.