64 | Dezember 2024: Gesellschaftliche Prozesse / Societal Systems - NSL

Sehr geehrte Lesende

Unter dem Begriff «gesellschaftliche Prozesse» machen wir die biokulturelle Bedeutung der indigenen Bevölkerung sichtbar, die Landschaft mittels App hörbar, Infrastruktur für die Transportplanung «responsive» (reaktionsschnell), globale Produktionsstätten transparenter und die Disziplin Städtebau weniger europa- und amerikazentriert. Zudem werden Sie erfahren, wie sich nach dem Abstimmungswochenende am 24.11. der Schweizer Verkehr weiterentwickeln sollte.

Wir wünschen viel informatives Lesevergnügen!

Close-up of the Awaska Alpa maquette made of materials from the Andean Amazon. Image: Santiago del Hierro © ETH Zürich

Nature conservation and Indigenous territories – Transitioning from the biological to the biocultural

Santiago del Hierro | Architecture of Territory, Prof. Milica Topalović

The 16th Conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) took place in Colombia during the last two weeks of October 2024. The city of Cali became the main stage for intergovernmental efforts to protect nature. A key outcome of the summit was recognising the critical role of Indigenous peoples in conserving global biodiversity. (Leer artículo en español)

Arnór Elvarsson (l) and Bryan Adey (r) talk, sitting at a table, with a Swiss map on the wall behind them © ETH Zürich

Why the Rejection of the 2023 Expansion Step for the National Roads? Idea for a National Overall Mobility Concept

Arnór B. Elvarsson, Bryan T. Adey | Infrastructure Management

On November 24, the Federal Expansion Step 2023 for Road was put up for a public vote. The Expansion Step 2023 is a project programme for national roads consisting of six major projects, including the widening of the A1 highway between Bern and Nyon, as well as three new tunnels in Basel, Schaffhausen, and St. Gallen. Professor of Infrastructure Management, Bryan Adey and researcher Arnór Elvarsson have studied the Swiss infrastructure planning process from early stages until the project completion.

Nadine Schütz working in the AudioVisual Room at ETH Zurich. Capture from the documentary Refugia (2024) © One Planet One Future.

Developing a Unity-based Tool to Integrate Sound into Landscape Design and Evaluation

Ulrike Wissen Hayek, Fabian Gutscher, Daniel Borges, Nadine Schütz | Large-scale Virtualization and Modeling Lab (LVML)

The acoustic quality of outdoor spaces is receiving increasing attention in planning and design disciplines. Yet, it is very difficult for non-experts in acoustics to include the effects of landscape changes on the so-called soundscape in their daily work. In the Innovedum project «Unity App for Soundscape Design and Evaluation», we are developing a tool to help students build basic skills.

People walking on grass in front of a factory building. Biodiversity mapping of Kuklen Industrial Park with Municipality of Kuklen in the framework of the scientific exchange project New Ruralities Photo: Sandro Arabyan

Creating a Situated and Multilayered Understanding of Global Production Space Through Collective Interventions

Ina Valkanova | Newrope, Architecture and Urban Transformation, Prof. Freek Persyn

Rooted in the tension between concrete locations and global networks, between movement and stillness, space and place, and between clusters and dispersed zones, global production landscapes are challenging to understand. Where do these production spaces originate? Who owns, designs, and manages them? Due to the opaque nature of corporate ownership and confidentiality within the venture capital industry, answering these questions is nearly impossible.

A simplified national roads planning process in Switzerland, with the letters in the tasks’ upper right corner referring to the stakeholder feedback required © ETH Zürich, chair Bryan Adey

Responsiveness of Transport Infrastructure Planning Processes

Arnór B. Elvarsson, Bryan T. Adey | Infrastructure Management

Responsiveness of planning processes is the ability to meet changing societal transport needs quickly in ways that are acceptable to all stakeholders. In Switzerland, considerable traffic jams and overfilled trains indicate that planning processes could be made more responsive. As delays for travelers persist, their needs are not being met, which is like an additional cost experienced by society.

Women protest in downtown Amman, Jordan, 1968. Wikicommons, Photographer: Unknown

History and Theory of Architecture VIII: Seen from the South

Dr Cathelijne Nuijsink | History and Theory of Urban Design, Prof. Dr Tom Avermaete

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 in Europe and America.

Book cover of the publication Researching Otherwise

DAM Book Award 2024 for «Researching Otherwise»

Dr. Nitin Bathla | Sociology, Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid

Multi-disciplinarity is on the agenda for the contemporary architectural debate, and Researching Otherwise – edited by ETH-based scholar Nitin Bathla – takes a broad look at the topic. Divided into three chapters dedicated to transdisciplinary, sensory, and restitutive methods, the book presents pluriversal research projects, which range from artistic and perceptual approaches via post-colonial cartography through to promenadology with the intention of developing a new methodological repertoire for the development of realms of knowledge in landscape and urban research.

In July 2024, the NERU consortium met in Zürich, hosted by the ETHZ (NEWROPE Chair) in the Design in Dialogue Lab. Photo: Simon Oberhofer © ETH Zürich. Image: listeners sit on chairs around a table. On the table there is information material, next to it a woman explaining.

New Ruralities (NERU)

Sophia Garner | Newrope, Architecture and Urban Transformation, Prof. Freek Persyn

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 a kind of knowledge that would be true to the diversity and dynamism of rural areas, and beyond the association of the rural and farming, or beyond outmoded rural–urban dualisms. The project will culminate in an international symposium in the summer of 2025. Contact

Hybride Bauelemente aus den wiederverwendbaren Materialien Holz und Lehm sollen als Deckenplatten sowie Innen- und Aussenwände zum Einsatz kommen und Beton und Stahl vermeiden. (Bild: Pallavi Keshri and Linus Schmitz / ETH Zürich)

Holz, Lehm und ein digitales Ökosystem für eine zukunftsfähige Bauwirtschaft

Michael Keller | ETH Hochschulkommunikation

Die gängigen Materialien und Praktiken in der Schweizer Bauwirtschaft sind klimaschädlich, ressourcenintensiv und erzeugen viel Abfall. An der ETH Zürich sind zwei Flagship-Projekte von Innosuisse gestartet, um das Schweizer Bauwesen nachhaltig zu transformieren: Während «Swircular» das Fundament für eine zirkuläre Bauwirtschaft legt, ermöglicht «Think Earth» regeneratives Bauen mit Holz und Lehm. Mit diesen Projekten fördert Innosuisse systemische Innovationen für den Umbau der Wirtschaft hin zu Netto-Null Treibhausgasen.

Publikationen

This is a selection. Find a complete list in the ETH Zürich Research Collection.

disP 60/2, June 2024

disP – The Planning Review, Volume 60, Issue 2, June 2024 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online.
More

A visual summary of the challenges and opportunities related to the infrastructure planning process. They are further elaborated in the report. © ETH Zürich, chair Bryan Adey

Arnor B. Elvarsson, Bryan T. Adey

The transport infrastructure planning process in Canton Zürich. With examples of planning infrastructure in Dübendorf-Hinwil corridor

This report investigates how transport infrastructure, like roads and railways, is planned in the canton of Zurich from the perspective of the stakeholders responsible for shaping the planning outcomes, e.g., Federal offices of Road and Transport.

An Zihao, Caroline Mullen, Xiaodong Guan, Dick Ettema, Eva Heinen

Shared micromobility, perceived accessibility, and social capital

While the impacts of shared micromobility (SMM) on the environment and transport systems are being extensively researched, its societal implications and the influence of the social environment on the use of SMM remain largely unexplored.

DELUS Issue 1

DELUS Issue 1 adopts a water-centric lens through the notion of Chasing Water and presents a collection of writings forming an anthology.

Cover of the publication Amazonia gta Papers

Santiago del Hierro, Johanna Just, Ciro Miguel (eds.)

Amazônía

The Amazon’s ecology and history of inhabitation are deeply intertwined with the natural world. In this issue of gta papers, researchers from diverse backgrounds lend their voices to challenge conventional narratives of colonization and modernization.

Ina Valkanova

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.

Image text: inhabing material incompletion. A photograph of Megan's dhung squatting a ruderal fallow along Dwarka Expressway in Delhi region @ Nitin Bathla, ETH Zürich

Nitin Bathla

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.

Miriam Meuth, Julia von Mende, Antonia Krahl, Eveline Althaus (Hg.)

Wohnen erforschen. Qualitative Methoden und forschungspraktische Reflexionen

Wie kann Wohnen wissenschaftlich erforscht werden? Die Beiträger:innen bündeln erstmals im deutschsprachigen Raum eine Vielfalt an Zugängen der qualitativen Wohn(ungs)forschung.

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Tagung Landmanagement 2025, Symbolbild: Feld wird bewässert, Wasserbüffel

Tagung Landmanagement 2025: Klimaresilientes Wassermanagement im ländlichen Raum

23. Januar 2025 | ETH Zürich, Audimax, HG F 30, Rämistrasse 101.

Plakat Jubiläum und Vernissage ETH RAUM. Text auf dem Poster steht im Fliesstext.

Jubiläumsfeier ETH RAUM & Vernissage

7. Februar 2025, 17:00 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HIL D 57.1.

NSL Colloquium: Beyond Maintenance: Responsive Practices for Changing Landscapes

26. – 28. February 2025, ETH Zürich Hönggerberg and Zentrum.

The colloquium will investigate the relationship between the design and maintenance of living systems, seeking to cultivate practices, terminology, and theoretical insights into approaches that attempt to maintain otherwise.

Redaktionsteam

Silvia Converso, Institut für Landschaft und Urbane Studien (LUS), Landschaftsarchitektur
Claudia Gebert und Noelle Paulson, Koordinationsstelle NSL, Chefredaktion
Michiel van Iersel, Institut für Landschaft und Urbane Studien (LUS), Städtebau
Viera Klasovitá, Institut für Verkehrsplanung und Transportsysteme (IVT)
Klearjos Papanicolaou, Institut für Landschaft und Urbane Studien (LUS), Städtebau
Maarten Van Strien, Institut für Raum- und Landschaftsentwicklung (IRL)

64 | Dezember 2024: Gesellschaftliche Prozesse / Societal Systems

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