68 | December 2025: People and Politics - NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft

In this NSL Newsletter, we explore how People and Politics intersect in shaping cities and landscapes. From the cultural journey of the Araucaria araucana to data-driven strategies for sustainable urban mobility, the articles highlight how choices and power dynamics influence our environments. We address the political dimensions of climate adaptation in housing, revisit the still-urgent question of what a non-sexist city could look like, and examine the housing struggles of displaced people in Bogotá and Beirut. The issue also presents NEWROPE’s recent efforts to document and share pedagogical experiments that expand architectural practice. Together, these contributions reveal how deeply political our built environments are—and how people continue to shape and challenge them.

We hope you enjoy reading this informative newsletter.

01. Araucaria araucana at Kew Gardens, London, by Felipe Vieira (November, 2024)

Someone Moved the Araucaria araucana

Camila Medina Novoa | Chair of Being Alive, Landscape Architecture

A single species can tell us much about taste, power, and the cultural choices behind how we shape landscapes. Connected to the doctoral project Making Ornamental Trees, this article reflects on the Araucaria araucana, a conifer, and the stories carried by its long journey from the Andes in South America to European gardens.

Symbol image: three green Bolt scooters in a city, ready to be used.

6 Months of the SUT Lab – Understanding Shared Micromobility use and Improving its Integration with the Transport System

Orlando Roman | Infrastructure Management, Prof. Dr. Bryan T. Adey

The Sustainable Urban Transitions (SUT) Lab was launched in April 2025 as a partnership of ETH Zurich and the Bolt Urban Fund, with the aim of supporting cities in accelerating their shift towards low-carbon, multimodal mobility systems. The SUT Lab aims to bring innovative, data-driven research into practical solutions for city planning teams, to accelerate and optimise their sustainable urban mobility and infrastructure planning.

Landschaftsfläche und Häuser in Altstetten, Zürich © ETH Zürich, Luisa Gehriger

Green Gentrification in Zürich – ein Bericht aus der Werkstatt

Dr. Hannah Widmer | ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE

Der Klimawandel erfordert tiefgreifende Massnahmen in allen Lebens- und Wirtschaftsbereichen. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt auf dem Wohnungswesen und dem Städtebau, die eine grosse Hebelwirkung für mehr Energieeffizienz und weniger CO2-Emissionen, aber auch für Anpassungsmassnahmen wie Hitzeminderung durch Begrünung oder Entsiegelung aufweisen. Doch welche Wechselwirkungen entstehen zwischen grünen Massnahmen und dem Wohnungsmarkt?

Women with children and prams, queuing to enter a train. Photograph by Barbara Krobath included in the exhibition ‘Who Owns Public Spaces? Women’s Everyday Lives in the City’ organized in Vienna, in 1991.

1990s Feminist Theories that Inspired Architecture and Urban Design

María Novas Ferradás | History and Theory of Urban Design, Prof. Tom Avermaete

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 of the world.

Informal neighborhood on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, hosting many displaced persons from Venezuela. © ETH Zürich, Authors

Housing in Urban Humanitarian Crises

Prof. David Kaufmann, Dr. David Kostenwein, Bruna Rohling | Spatial Development and Urban Policy

Displaced people often struggle to find affordable and dignified housing in cities, relying on the informal market. This is also true in Bogotá and Beirut, which host large numbers of displaced persons. This project explores and compares the housing challenges faced by displaced persons in the two cities to improve their housing situation and the overall humanitarian housing response.

People in movement in a room, taking each other by the hand. Re-enacting pedagogical experiments as models for practice © NEWROPE, ETH Zürich

Working on Transformation

Lukas Fink, Charlotte Schaeben, Prof. Freek Persyn | Architecture and Urban Transformation, NEWROPE

During the last year, members of the Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation (also known as NEWROPE) have documented and systematised the chair’s teaching experiments – to set examples and to invite others to explore and perform “Working on Transformation” themselves. The examples revolve around pedagogical experiments, with the aim to expand the practice of architecture – to transform the scripts and re-imagine the spaces that shape our reality.

Kurzmeldungen | Short Messages

Goldene-Eule Plakat Christian Schmid

Christian Schmid gewinnt die Goldene Eule

Wir gratulieren Prof. em. Dr. Christian Schmid herzlich zur goldenen Eule. Die Goldene Eule zeichnet besonders engagierte Lehrpersonen aus, die ihren Studierenden eine exzellente Lehre bieten. Verliehen wird der Preis vom Verband der Studierenden an der ETH Zürich (VSETH).

Martina Voser gewinnt den goldenen Hasen

Hochparterre hat die besten Projekte in den Disziplinen Architektur, Design und Landschaftsarchitektur gekürt. Wir gratulieren Prof. Martina Voser zum goldenen Hasen für Landschaftsarchitektur. Das Projekt: Schutzbauten Bondo II, Bondo GR | Mavo, Zürich, und Müller Illien, Zürich | Bauherrschaft: Gemeinde Bergell.

I like Event Posters!

If you agree and would like to have a printed poster to hang on your wall – accompanying you for half a year with events in the fields of urban design, spatial planning, landscape architecture, infrastructure, and mobility – just let us know. We will be happy to send you the NSL event poster twice a year. The next edition will be released in February 2026.

Publikationen | Publications

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

Cover of the Publication "Working on Transformation"

Freek Persyn, Lukas Fink, Charlotte Schaeben, Rory McGrath (editors)

Working on Transformation

The publication Working on Transformation documents and systematises the teaching experiments, undertaken by NEWROPE over the past six years.

Ökosystemleistungen (materielle: gelb, regulierende: grün, immaterielle: türkis). Planungstools (in rot) können helfen, die komplexen Zusammenhänge besser abzubilden und gegeneinander abzuwägen. (Illustration: Noëlle Klein)

Noëlle Klein, Alina Suter, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

Planungstools zur besseren Integration von Ökosystemleistungen in Raumplanung: Schlussbericht und Tool-Website

Im Rahmen des Aktionsplans Biodiversität wurden neue Erkenntnisse zum aktuellen Stand, zur Nachfrage und zu Hindernissen der Berücksichtigung von Ökosystemleistungen (ÖSL) in raumrelevanten Entscheidungen veröffentlicht. Der Schlussbericht eines vom BAFU beauftragten Projekts sowie eine neue Website der ETH unterstützen Fachpersonen dabei, geeignete Planungstools zu finden.

View of a 2023 fire near the Jardín del Siglo XXI research project and Huertos Familiares. © ETH Zürich

Cara Turett, Carolina Acevedo

Temporalities of fire management: Gardening with extractivist droughts in Huertos Familiares, Chile

This article examines the intersection of wildfire, drought and extractivism through the case study of the Jardín del Siglo XXI (JSXXI, the Garden of the Twenty-first Century), a garden-based research project in Huertos Familiares, a community in Tiltil, Chile, increasingly affected by fire.

Cover disP 61, March 2025

disP 61/2, June 2025

disP – The Planning Review, Volume 61, Issue 2, June 2025 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online.

disP Cover, Ausgabe 61/2, September 2025

disP 61/3, September 2025

disP – The Planning Review, Volume 61, Issue 3, September 2025 is now available online.
Gender Perspectives on Climate Change: Transforming Spatial Planning.

Weiterbildung | Studiengänge | Further Education

MScLA Admissions poster_2026. All information on the poster is given in the text below.

Master of Science in Landscape Architecture

Apply now for Autumn 2026!

CAS 2 beyond systems thinking banner

MAS ETH in Regenerative Systems: CAS#2 Beyond Systems Thinking

Application: 15 December 2025 – 14 March 2026 | Duration: May – September 2026.

cas_Raumentwicklung_Prozessdesign

CAS ETH Raumentwicklung und Prozessdesign

Bewerbung: 1 Oktober – 15 Dezember (laufende Zulassung) | Studiendauer: Februar – Juli 2026.

EPFL ETH Master of Advanced Studies in Urban and Territorial Design

Application: 1 January – 31 March 2026 | Duration: September 2026 – June 2027.

PhD Positions

The LUS Doctoral Programme – Call for applications

100%, Zurich, fixed-term.

The Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies (LUS) at the ETH Zurich Department of Architecture invites applications for two doctoral fellowship positions. The fellowship will start on 1 October 2026, with a 100% workload, based in Zurich, and is fixed-term for three-and-a-half years. Job description

Doctoral Fellowship in History and Theory of Architecture

100%, Zurich, fixed-term.

The doctoral programme at the Institute of History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich, offers two fellowship positions to start on 1 October 2026.
This programme focuses on the history and theory of architecture and urbanism in a wider context of cultural history, including the history and theory of art, science and technology. Job description

Aktuell | Current

This is a selection. Head over to our News-Page for more.

Symbol image of the exhibition Exhibition Opening Event | Jerusalem Divan Urbanism: 100 Ideas for Dialogue

Jerusalem Divan Urbanism: 100 Ideas for Dialogue

10 December 2025 (exhibition opening) – 31 January 2026 | in two key locations in Jerusalem.

15 Years Singapore-ETH Centre International Research Hub

15 Years Singapore – ETH Centre International Research Hub

11 – 12 December 2025 | Exhibition | ETH Zürich, Zentrum, main hall, Rämistr. 101.

Tagung Landmanagement und Alpwirtschaft

21 Januar 2026, 9∶00 | ETH Zürich, Zentrum, Audimax (HG F 30).

Portrait photos in black and white of the four lecturers.

CAS Regenerative Materials Public Lectures and Exhibition

27 January – 19 May 2026 | Public Lectures and Exhibition

2 + 2 + 1 Eine Debatte über zeitgenössische Landschaftsarchitektur

28. Januar 2026, 18:30 | L200, Langstr. 200, Zürich.

Book covers: Zurich Atlas. An Archaeology of Urban Codes and Forms AND
Zurich Primer. A Propositional Planning Vision for the City.

Zurich Atlas. An Archaeology of Urban Codes and Forms | Zurich Primer. A Propositional Planning Vision for the City.

26 February 2026, 19:00 | Book Launch | ZAZ BELLERIVE Zentrum Architektur Zürich.

Stylised aerial view of Zurich

Zürich. Dialoge zur Dichte / Dialogues on Densification

27.2.2026 – 25.6.2026 | Exhibition Opening, Events | ZAZ BELLERIVE Zentrum Architektur Zürich .

NEWROPE, “A Room of Entanglements”, designing moments of exchange between students and the Zurich urban planning administration, Zurich, 2022. Foto: Philip Frowein © ETH Zürich

NSL Colloquium: Working on Transformation – An International Forum on Urban Planning as Learning

12 & 13 March 2026 | ETH Zürich, ONA, Neunbrunnenstrasse 50, Zürich Oerlikon.

The Spring 2026 NSL Colloquium Designing Moments of Learning: International Forum on Pedagogies for Urban Transformation will bring together specialists from various disciplines to reconceptualise urban planning as a process of collective learning.

NSL Kolloquium: Dynamic Landscapes | Gestalten mit Unsicherheiten

10. & 11. September 2026 | Architekturforum, Zürich.

Wie lässt sich Landschaft in einer Zukunft zunehmender Dynamik und Ungewissheit gestalten? Angesichts steigender hydrologischer Amplituden und klimatischer Herausforderungen geraten etablierte Methoden der planenden Disziplinen an ihre Grenzen.

Redaktionsteam | Editorial Board

Silvia Converso, Institut für Landschaft und Urbane Studien (LUS), Landschaftsarchitektur
Claudia Gebert, Koordinationsstelle NSL, Chefredaktion
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)
Hannah Widmer, Institut für Landschaft und Urbane Studien (LUS), Städtebau

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