Angaben zur Professur

Lehrstuhl 

Professur E. Christ / C. Gantenbein

Typ 

Professur für Architektur und Entwurf

Standort 

HIL

Webseite 

www.christ-gantenbein.arch.ethz.ch

Assistierende 

Mona Fögler, Mariapaola Michelotto, Federico Taverna

Kontakt E-Mail 

michelotto@arch.ethz.ch

Angaben zur Entwurfsklasse

Typ 

Entwurf V-IX

Thema 

ARCHIPELAGO – An urban planning experiment for Switzerland

Beschreibung
des Entwurfs-programmes 

Where is our country headed? On the one hand, climate change is shaping the picture: the landscape and its ecosystems are changing rapidly. And on the other hand, immigration is leading to strong population growth: 18 million residents is a very realistic prospect! What will Switzerland look like when, in the not-too-distant future, twice as many people live here, yet there will be less—rather than more—space available for them? Will cities and the countryside in many places eventually become inseparable? Or are there alternative strategies for continuing to fill the remaining land reserves at a steady pace? What form of urbanity, what relationship with nature do we envision for the future? How do we, as a society—but also as planners—deal with the changes and transformations already taking place in our environment, the momentum and scale of which can hardly be overestimated? We may perceive these questions about the future as threatening and turn away, feeling intimidated or indignant—and, out of fatalism, do nothing. Or we can see in them a commitment to actively engage with them, and even an opportunity and an exciting challenge. And a task that extends far beyond our country’s borders. For, as representative of many European regions, Switzerland is a prime example of a dense, diverse, and rapidly growing urban landscape whose future must be actively shaped amid changing conditions. That is to be our studio’s mission! We develop ideas and visions for an urban Switzerland of the future. Specifically, we need new and innovative densification scenarios and strategies. Drawing on various examples of urban architecture and case studies on new forms of density, urbanity, and landscape design, we develop experimental designs for the contemporary city and its architecture. Morphological and typological principles form the theoretical and methodological framework for this work. And a few hypotheses outline the starting point: We already view all of Switzerland today as a continuously urbanized territory—as a highly diverse urbanized landscape consisting of different types of cities and rural areas—an urban archipelago. And we assume that the population will have doubled in 50 years. We further set the following guidelines for the design: there will be no new building zones, while at the same time we must assume that certain Alpine regions will become uninhabitable. This means that, in addition to the core cities, we will focus primarily on the areas within the metropolitan regions, the so called Agglomeration. And this semester’s case study is Venice. Venice has one of the densest urban layouts in the world, and its insular location—which sets it in stark contrast to the natural environment—makes it of particular interest, especially when viewed in relation to Switzerland. Furthermore, it is the cradle of “Analisi Urbana,” the field of morphological and typological studies. After all, it was here that Saverio Muratori conducted his famous “Studi per una operante storia urbana di Venezia.” Today, we’ll take a fresh, contemporary look at this urban ecosystem shaped by the landscape and water. Specifically, as part of an excursion to Venice, we will examine and document the morphologies, structures, forms, and typologies of a wide variety of neighborhoods in the lagoon, and then reinterpret them in the context of Switzerland through a process of creative transfer. The exciting question here is to what extent we will succeed in developing a completely new, radical form of the contemporary city! We envision concrete projects on a scale ranging from 1:10,000 to 1:10. Our primary working tools will be photography, drawing, and urban planning models. Our semester will also be guided by artists and experts from various fields. And by reading *Achtung: die Schweiz*, we’ll take a curious and critical look back at the 1950s, when certain Swiss people still had big plans...

Thematische und methodische Schwerpunkte 

Entwurf, Staedtebau, Handwerk, Visualisierungen

Lernziele 

The studio aims to develop the ability to design a contemporary urban structure based on the critical study of a historical source, in this case Venice, and its transfer to the Swiss context. Students will learn to read urban territories through morphological and typological analysis, identifying relationships between landscape, infrastructure, urban form, and architecture across multiple scales, bridging from 1:10.000 to 1:10. Through drawing, photography, axonometry, collage, and physical models, they will transform analytical observations into strategies for a radical yet sensitive urban project in Switzerland. Particular emphasis will be placed on the critical transfer of existing morphologies and typologies into a new context, questioning how the form of urbanity and the relationship between city and landscape can react to the contemporary conditions as the necessity of density or the climate change. The studio will strengthen the ability to move coherently between territorial strategy, urban structure, architectural typology, materiality, and construction, while developing a precise visual and conceptual language to communicate the design proposals.

LV-Nr. des Entwurfs 

052-1109-26

Unterrichts-sprache 

English

Arbeitsweise 

Group work only

Daten Zwischenkritiken 

Datum Schlusskritik 

15.12.2026

Einführungs-veranstaltung 

15 September 2026, 10.00 am, HIL F15b

Zusätzliche Kosten 

CHF 200 (Schätzung, ohne allfällige Kosten für Modellbau und Seminarwoche)

Verfügbare Plätze 

42

Plakat des Entwurfs-programmes 

Plakat ansehen (PDF Datei)