NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft ETH Zürich
  • Projects
      • Projects of the Chairs
        • Prof. Dr. Bryan T. Adey | Infrastructure Management
        • Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete | History and Theory of Urban Design
        • Prof. Dr. Kay W. Axhausen | Traffic and Transport Planning
        • Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman | Transport Systems
        • Prof. Teresa Galí-Izard | Chair of Being Alive
        • Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey | Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS)
        • Prof. Dr. Eva Heinen | Transportation and Mobility Planning
        • Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann | Spatial Development and Urban Policy
        • Prof. Hubert Klumpner | Architecture and Urban Design
        • Dr. Anastasios Kouvelas | Traffic Engineering and Control
        • Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid | Sociology
        • Prof. Milica Topalovic | Architecture and Territorial Planning
        • Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein | ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE
        • NSL-Archiv
      • Former Chairs
      • NSL Colloquia – The NSL Colloquia are a bi-annual presentation of exceptional work under a rotating theme determined by the inviting professor.
      • NSL Projects
          • E-Bike City
          • Future Cities Lab Global
          • Urban Potential and Strategies in Metropolitan Territories
 – The Zurich Metropolitan Region as an Example (NFP65)
          • Large-scale Virtualization and Modeling Lab (LVML)
      • NSL Forum
        • NSL Forum & Cycling Research Board
        • NSL Forum: Pandemie? Mitten im Klimawandel. Was bedeutet das für die räumliche Entwicklung der Schweiz? Ein Dialog.
    Close
  • Teaching
    • Teaching
      • Bachelor and Master Degree Programmes, Department ARCH
      • Bachelor and Master Degree Programmes, Department BAUG
      • MSc in Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems
      • MAS/CAS in Regenerative Materials
      • CAS in Regenerative Systems: Sustainability to Regeneration
      • MAS/CAS Spatial Development
      • MAS Urban and Territorial Design
      • MAS in Housing
      • Doctoral Programme in Landscape and Urban Studies
      • The teaching component of the NSL seeks to impart the knowledge and skills needed to develop the standard strengths of spatial planning and their interaction as well as the ability to develop strategies for the solution of spatial problems. These are central prerequisites for a responsible and successful exercise of planning functions in the service of the public commonwealth and of private companies. Especially important in fufilling these prerequisites is the quality of university-level education: graduate and post-graduate work as well as professional development in spatial, urban and landscape planning. The ETH Zurich has offered programmes such as continuing education courses and post-graduate programmes (NDS, now MAS) since 1965. The NSL (Network City and Landscape) is responsible for these courses and programmes.
    Close
  • Publications
    • Cover NL 65NSL Newsletter – The NSL brings the experts at ETH Zurich together and also maintains a dialogue with other groups that deal with or are interested in issues relating to cities and landscapes.
    • A map describing the different phases of India’s neoliberal highway programme. Source: The author.Publications of NSL Chairs – A complete list of publications can be reached via the following link, which also includes advanced search capabilities:
      • ETH Zürich Research Collection
    • disP – The Planning Review – The interdisciplinary scientific journal covers the topics of spatial development, urban planning, landscape and environmental planning, landscape architecture, traffic planning, and regional and environmental economics, as well as special issues on specific themes.
      • Instructions for Authors
      • Types of Articles
      • Publisher
      • Book Review Guidelines
      • Editorial Staff
      • Latest Issue
      • facebook
    • DELUS Cover Issue 1DELUS – Journal for Landscape and Urban Studies – DELUS is an annual publication by the Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies at ETH Zürich.
    Close
  • News
  • Contact
      • en
        • de
        • fr
        • it
      • Search

    • Close
      • en
        • de
        • fr
        • it

Resource Territories

Cities never develop without a hinterland – to nourish any form of urban concentration, large volumes of material resources need to be mobilized in territories beyond the limits of the city. The territorial impact of contemporary cities extends across vast geographic scales, forming planetary hinterlands. Our research project on Singapore’s hinterlands has asked how one could analyze the «metabolic» dimensions of urbanization processes in qualitative terms: How could one describe the practices, landscapes, and agencies of resource extraction, trade, and accumulation? How could one reverse the city-centric perspective of our regular approaches? How could one explore hinterland territories as lived spaces in the vortex of urbanization also exposed to political, ecological, and class struggle?

Until recently, the study of urban resource consumption generally focused on the functions of an urban center, expressed mainly through quantities of material «stocks and flows.» Within this mainstream city-centric view and a quantitative approach to urban metabolic processes, socio-political and ecological dimensions of resource use were often missing from research agendas.

As part of the study Hinterland – Singapore Beyond the Border at the ETH Architecture of Territory since 2011, we reversed the mainstream perspective on urban metabolic research by formulating a qualitative, socio-metabolic approach. We studied the wide territories of Singapore’s contiguous and dispersed hinterlands through the lenses of five resources vital for the city: sand, food, water, human labor, and energy. We sought to describe how and where materials are extracted, how and by whom they are traded, and how they are eventually accumulated in the form of urban space, urbanity, and capital.

Singapore is the World’s Largest Importer of Sand

The study, for example, showed that Singapore has imported water since the beginning of the 20th century: around 40% of its water supply still arrives from Malaysia, while the rest comes from local, intensively engineered sources including desalination, water recycling, and rain catchment. Sand has been imported since the 1980s, when local quarries ceased to provide suitable material for large-scale land reclamation projects. Recent statistics have revealed Singapore as the world’s largest importer of sand. These and other examples have also provided insight into resource (geo)politics over time, showing that rules or regulations under which resources «flow» between countries are often nontransparent or completely missing – at grave social and ecological cost.

The hinterland investigation led us to questions of the actual and appropriate scales of urban governance. Without doubt, new forms of large-scale action and governance that apply to the transnational dimensions of urbanization processes are necessary. Thinking of the sustainability of cities only as a function of the center seems to be an almost trivial, misconstrued problem. Large-scale metabolic flows are mobilized and remote areas of the planet are industrialized and urbanized in order to support cities. They need to be brought into the discussion of governance beyond the limits of the city.

The hinterland research also resonates with important recent developments in the field of urban theory, particularly the theory of planetary urbanization. They highlight the necessity to understand resource hinterlands as so far neglected and understudied territories of urbanization. They also call for a complete change of perspective on urbanization and on cities – moving beyond the idea of cities as bounded settlements and embracing their simultaneous extension over the territory.

Milica Topalovic is Assistant Professor of Architecture and Territorial Planning at the ETH Department of Architecture. From 2011-15 she held a research professorship at the ETH Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, studying the relationship between a city and its hinterland.

 

 

Share this...
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • Whatsapp
  • Email
This article has been published in the following newsletter edition:

35 | September 2017: Ressourcen

  • Resource Territories
  • Building Capacity. Towards a resource-oriented framework for sustainable urban development and design
  • Die Alpen als «Common Ground»
  • Big Data in Railway Operation: an Opportunity for Enhancing Energy Efficiency
  • Siedlungsmuster als Schlüssel zum Schutz fruchtbarer Böden
  • «Switzerland is like a paradise for a transport enthusiast.»
Kurzmeldungen
  • NSL Kolloquium: Common Water – The Future of an Alpine Resource
  • Development Visions for two Mountain Regions
  • Future of Swiss Outdoor Recreation Under Global Change
  • Das unvollständige Haus: Mies van der Rohe und die Landschaft der Moderne
  • Joint Effort to Mitigate Urban Heat Island Effect
  • Benefit of Trees in Tropical Cities
Publikationen
  • Analysis of one-way and two-way street configurations on urban grid networks
  • Fleet control algorithms for automated mobility: A simulation assessment for Zurich
  • Future Cities Laboratory Indicia 01
  • Backflip – New Oerlikon Zurich
Aktuell
  • Architecture and Light
  • Stadtentwicklung Offenbach: Vom Industriehafen zum urbanen Stadtquartier
  • Davos erfindet sich neu. Vom Lungenkurort zum Kongressstandort
  • 5th International Conference on Technologies for Development (Tech4Dev 2018): Voices of the Global South
  • «Das Cern der Stadtplanung werden»
  • 75 Jahre Raumplanung an der ETH Zürich

Chairs

Prof. Dr. Bryan T. Adey
Prof. Dr. Kay W. Axhausen
Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete
Prof. Maria Conen
Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman
Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein
Prof. Teresa Galí-Izard
Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey
Prof. Dr. Guillaume Habert
Prof. Dr. Eva Heinen
Prof. Damian Jerjen
Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann
Prof. Hubert Klumpner
Dr. Anastasios Kouvelas
Prof. Freek Persyn
Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid
Prof. Milica Topalovic
Prof. Martina Voser

Contact

Address
ETH Zürich
NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
HIL H 44.2
8093 Zürich

NSL Director
Director: Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann
Deputy Director: Prof. Milica Topalovic

NSL Coordination
Claudia Gebert
Telephone: +41 (0)44 633 36 33

 

Register for the NSL Newsletter

disP Publication Office

Editor-in-Chief
Dr. sc. techn. Martina Koll-Schretzenmayr, Spatial planner ETH/NDS,
Telephone +41 (0)44 633 29 47

Mailing address
ETH Zürich
Redaktion disP
NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
HIL H 33.3
8093 Zürich
Fax +41 (0)44 633 12 15
E-Mail

 

NSL Archive (gta)

Research and Bequest Archive for
Swiss Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning

Consultation Requests

Mailing address
ETH Zürich
NSL Archive (gta)
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
HIL C 65.2
CH-8093 Zurich

 

 
Privacy Policy