Lecture in the frame of the Gastdozentur Roger Boltshauser, D-ARCH ETH Zürich

Architektur und Stadtklima

In what follows, I would like to present to you a multi-part research project on the subject of resettlement. This project is entitled: Resettlement Archives. Politically and economically motivated relocation of population groups from their place of origin, represent a constant and globally present phenomenon in the 20th and 21st centuries. Each year millions of people are resettled; and I am here not referring to refugees or those displaced. “Resettlement” in the sense used here means that the group of people are transferred, on the basis of political and macroeconomic decisions, often against their will, from the place they live to another place within the same country.

Guest lecture at the chair for Architecture Design Innovation, Prof. Rainer Hehl, TU Berlin

Resettlement Archives

Urban territories share specific weather properties, compared to a less dense environment, for example the presence of heat islands, typical for city centers. That is a characteristic of what we call the city climate. It is a complex ecosystem – it is influenced by its environment climate, and it reciprocally changes it in many ways, including by recreating (micro-)climates in its heart using fossil energies and technologies. However, we are definitely not all equal when coping with the consequences of the city climate. In the case of Cairo, characterized by the tremendous inequality between its 20 million inhabitants, what does the city climate mean?

Seminar "Theorizing the Urban Passive House," USI Mendrisio

Climatic Portrait. Cairo, Egypt

The seminar aimed at rethinking climate control – a key concern of the discipline of architecture – through the lens of city climate and climate change phenomena. Architecture’s one-sided obsession with controlling the indoor climate of individual buildings was questioned and the (thermal) dialectics between inside and outside examined instead. Climate has become a multiscalar topic, that requires a new understanding by architects.

Highlighted in particular were the manifold implications of the notion of “urban climate” for architecture and urban design. Due to its man-made character, the city climate differs fundamentally from the natural climate. By looking at the historical emergence of this concept since the beginning of the 20th century (as urban climatology) and the complex adaptation in the field of architecture and urban design, a robust architectural knowledge for today’s discussions on the “climate adaptation and mitigation” was provided.

After an introduction into the history of modern architecture and urban planning striving for new “climate cities,” case studies and methods with particular relevance for today’s architects were addressed. The seminar shed light on the growing capacities of urban societies to provide urban climatic data (via thermal measurements, wind tunnel modelling, simulation techniques), while at the same time highlighting evidence-based design strategies referring to urban climates (such as heliomorphism).

Relying on these theoretical approaches, the city of Vienna served as a main case study for the students. Heating and cooling practices connecting to urban microclimates were explored and climate-related strategies on various scales (considering groups of buildings, green spaces, urban topography etc.) discussed.


Florencia Collo (Atmos Lab, London)
Katja Jug (Artist, Zurich)
Dr. Lorenzo De Chiffre (TU Vienna)
Maria Vassilakou (Former Vice-Mayor of Vienna)
Dr. Michael Hirschbichler (Architect, Zürich)


Virtual field trip to Vienna, broadcasted online to the students

Group A


Gabrielė Dužinskytė
Norman Nager
Léna Carola Reesink
Marie Sieber
Varvara Sulema
Cristian Amadeo Termine

Group C


Rui Chen
Luigi Chierico
Vittorio Alfredo Maria Chiesa
Luca Huttenmoser
Alessandro La Porta
Carlo Valli
Micaela Vergari

Group M


Veronica Irene Bissanti
Maria Bonazzi
Francesca Cazzulani
Ulisse Iacopi
Paola Rapanà
Tahnee Rutter
Maria Trombetta

City, Climate, and Architecture - Rethinking Subtropical Vienna

In this semester’s seminar students documented the current energy landscape of Warsaw and imagined ways for its transition towards a carbon free future. The fragmented quality of the city fabric, its strong infrastructural imprint and its continuing reliance on fossil energy make it an intriguing object of study. Building upon emblematic ethnographic descriptions of urban ecologies by Boyarsky and Banham, student groups of two developed their take on the energy ecologies found in the city of Warsaw.

Building upon an analysis of the status quo during a field trip to Warsaw, students envisioned a transition strategy during the following seminar weeks in Mendrisio. In a shift to a more contemporary medium, students were asked to produce a video essay that develops a new chapter in the conceptual dealings with urban energy. The fieldwork material acquired during the excursion formed the basis for the video essay production in Mendrisio.

Informed by input lectures of filmmakers, theorists, and architects, students had the chance to iteratively work on their video essay along the six seminar days of the semester. As a final outcome, students formulated their unique approach to urban energy theory in the form of a video essay and presented it in front of invited guests.


Dr. Adam Przywara (University of Manchester)
Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Iacobis (CENTRALA)
Monika Konrad (Head of municipal planning Warsaw)
Michał Suchora (BWA Warsaw)
Aleksandra Kedziorek (MSN Warsaw)
Anna Ptak (Warsaw University)
Patrycja Okuljar (Studio Okuljar)
Dr. Rafael Dernbach (USI)
Prof. Milica Topalović (ETH Zürich)
Prof. Kevin B. Lee (USI)

Warsaw: Energy Landscapes and Energy Transitions

Immer mehr Vorschriften zu Isolation und Energieeffizienz führen zu sich immer ähnlicher sehenden Neubauten. Wie sieht ein anderer Ansatz aus um die Energieziele zu erreichen? In Anbetracht der steigenden Temperaturen aufgrund des erhöhten CO2-Ausstosses und der gleichzeitigen Notwendigkeit Energie zu sparen, um fossile Energieträger zu vermeiden, soll eine andere Sicht auf das Wohnen und Arbeiten gestellt werden. Die Fokussierung auf das Einzelgebäude soll durch ein Denken in interdependenten Mikroklimata ersetzt werden. Im Zentrum steht das Stadtklima, die Hybridisierung von Innen und Aussen. Um sich so von der heutigen Klimatisierungspraxis der immer gleichtemperierten Innenräume auf 21 Grad und 60% Luftfeuchtigkeit zu lösen. Es gilt alternative Wohnformen (wieder-) zu entdecken. Dank verschiedenartigen Räumen im Innen- sowie Aussenraum entsteht ein reichhaltiges Mikroklima. Die neugewonnene Diversität an Mikroklimas bietet den Benutzern eine flexible Aneignung des Quartiers. Dank passiven Lüftungsmöglichkeiten und mehrschichtigen Räumen, herrschen unterschiedliche klimatische Bedingungen. Die Benutzer leben symbiotisch mit den Jahreszeiten, ziehen sich zurück und weiten sich aus. Das heutige Kies und Sand-Areal in Horw am See soll in Zukunft umstrukturiert und der Bevölkerung öffentlich zugänglich gemacht werden. Gleichzeitig wird der nahgelegene Hochschulcampus Technik & Architektur der Hochschule Luzern bis zum Jahr 2026 erweitert. Neu werden 5000 Personen studieren und arbeiten. Die Verdoppelung der Personenanzahl benötigt zusätzliche infrastrukturelle Bauten und Dienstleistungen. Das Gebiet am See kann diese Funktion übernehmen.

Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Masterthesis of Nina Röthlin

Wohnen in interdependenten Mikroklimata. Horw, ein stadtklimatisches Quartier entwerfen 

Im FS 2011 widmen wir uns schwerpunktmässig dem traditionellen Hausbau Indonesiens sowie der Frage, wie das zunehmend vom Verlust bedrohte traditionelle Konstruktionswissen in eine zeitgenössische (indonesische) Architektur eingebracht werden kann. Im Mittelpunkt unseres Interesses stehen dabei die komplexen und stark divergierenden Dachformen unterschiedlicher indonesischer Ethnien (z.B. Minangkabau, Toraja oder Batak), die die Rezeptions- und Aneignungsgeschichte der indonesischen Architektur geprägt haben.

Wahlfach "Einführung in die ethnographische Forschung der modernen Architektur", Professur Andrea Deplazes, ETH Zürich

Die Dächer Der Minangkabau, Toraja, Batak Etc.

As natural or technical phenomena, microclimates are thermal zones with site-specific physical characteristics. They are affected by temperatures, moisture, rain, wind, fog, snow, insolation, cloudiness, air quality and more. As man-made artifacts however, microclimates are fabricated “thermal places“ with various cultural, social and political meanings and implications.

Lecture at the Ecole national supérieure d’architecture de versailles, Paris (France), invited by Prof. Philippe Rahm

Microclimate Ethnography

Examining and teachning passive climate control in a cross-culturally comparative way requires that the central conceptual premise of Western Sustainability be abandoned: the complete control of the indoor climate. The concept of "control" represents the centre of gravity in today’s climate-discourse in architecture. "Control" is a paradigm of building services engineering, which dominates meanwhile comprehensively the way in which architecture is thought of in relation to climate. Since the middle of the 20th century, in workplace and housing design the need for control was accompanied by an increasing standardisation of indoor temperature, which in the meantime has grown into a powerful global standard. All over the world we are striving to maintain air at 20°C and with 50 % relative humidity.

 Lecture in the frame of the conference “Teaching Sustainability“, invited by Prof. Muck Petzet, Accademia di architettura,Mendrisio

Against Comfort. Urbanising Passive Climatisation Theory!

In the framework of a seminar called LabZone, this contribution is based on the collaboration between the artist Sonia Kacem and Dalila Ghodbane's work on the thermal environment of ordinary houses in Cairo. The warmth of the ambient air, like the colour of a carpet, appears meaningful only to the interested observer. In that regard, there are many parallels between the experience of climate and that of colour. Sonia and Dalila explored some of those paralells through examples from Cairo, questioning the selectiveness of our attention and its effects on our work.

Geneva University of Arts and Design (HEAD), Master students LabZone, by Sonia Kacem

Your Attention Please. Color in Context

What are the relevant agencies of sustainable design today? This workshop series addressed the complex relationship between theory and practice in the field of sustainable design. Architects are increasingly forced to develop a new attitude toward their practice, questioning the carbon legacy of 20th century modernity. Although “practice” is commonly conceived as the counterpart of “theory,” the notion of a new “theory of practice” exceeds the dichotomy and promotes a specific approach to sustainability in architecture today. First and foremost, sustainable design depends on an awareness for the dialectics between theory and practice: Architects need to inform their ideas on sustainable design through a profound cognition of the construction sector and vice versa.

The workshop series was centered around two main questions: (1) HOW TO OVERCOME THE LEGACY OF CARBON MODERNITY? and (2) HOW TO BUILD IN THE ERA OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS?. Much of what is modern in the city is a “by-product of oil” (Michael Watts). By highlighting the perspectives of different actors (such as architects, anthropologists, and artists), a transdisciplinary understanding of sustainable design and sustainability in general was promoted.

The collective character of sustainable design shaped the workshop series’ framework for challenging the existing strategies in architecture and construction. It combined the topic of sustainable design with broader concerns on “environment-making” (Jason Moore) in times of the Anthropocene. Every workshop formed an autonomous unit, comprising lectures, exercises, and discussions. The workshops highlighted the topics of “bricolage”, “care”, “imagination”, “data”, and “circularity”. At the end of the semester students collaboratively produced a manifesto on sustainable design, incorporating the knowledge gained throughout the semester.


Christina Hemauer (Artist, Zurich)
Prof. Dr. Ena Llorett Fritschi (SNSF Professor, Accademia)
Prof. Dr. Madlen Kobi (Social Anthropologist, University of Fribourg)
Matthias Heinz (pool architekten, Zurich)
Peter Kneidinger (Materialnomaden, Vienna)
Roman Keller (Artist, Zurich)

Group 01


Veronica Irene Bissanti
Valerio Maccabruno
Maria Trombetta
Gabrielė Dužinskytė

Group 2


Gabrielė Dužinskytė
Varvara Sulema
Marie Sieber

Group 3

Sustainable Design - A Dialog Between Theory and Practice

Lecture at ETH Zürich, Professur für Architektur und Entwurf, Prof. Dr. Elli Mosayebi, March 13, 2019

Energie und kollektive Form

Architecture and its theory are increasingly challenged by new types of complex problems, which might be termed, following a notion of Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, as “wicked” ones. Referring to the chair’s current research project, exploring design-based approaches to urban climates, different aspects of wicked problems shall be discussed and some implications for a contemporary architectural theory addressed.

“ITA Introducing”, Institute of Technology in Architecture, ETH Zurich

Lecture: ITA introducing Prof. Dr. Sascha Roesler

Wicked Problems in Architecture – Urban Climate as Case Study

Recognizing the three buildings of Habitat Marocain not as a finished architectural work but as a transformable structure means acknowledging an empirical fact that is valid and visible throughout the world, but especially in the Global South—namely, that buildings are subject to a constant process of appropriation by their users. For about sixty years, Habitat Marocain’s residents have continually adapted the buildings to their changing needs. Recognizing the reciprocal relationship between architect- and user-based building means to grasp the surreal character of this constellation. What makes architecture surreal is not the formal extravagances of architects but the encounter between structure and coincidence. Including the unpredictable aspect of this constellation in aesthetic consideration would mean taking the perfomative character of surreal architecture into account.

Bachelor Talks, invited by Prof. Walter Agonese, Accademia di architettura, Mendrisio

Architecture as Montage-Machine. Habitat Marocain in the Light of Open Building Theory

Coastal megacities face a critical threat from rising sea levels, with projections ranging from 30cm to 1m by 2100. More dire scenarios predict a 2-6m increase if the 1.5-degree Celsius global warming target is missed. These statistics underscore the urgent need for proactive measures and innovative solutions to address imminent challenges in urban environments.

Urban planners and designers grapple with unprecedented challenges due to global warming, demanding a fundamental shift in focus toward "urban futures." Architects play a pivotal role in envisioning and creating sustainable urban landscapes resilient to climate change impacts, especially rising seas.

The research seminar explored architects' multifaceted roles in tackling these challenges, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary design. Inspired by Donna Haraway's idea that "scientific facts and speculative fabulations need each other," the seminar urged students to blend scientific knowledge with imaginative ideas, crucial for adapting architecture, infrastructure, and urban planning to impending sea level rise.

Students' outcomes, presented as research papers and posters, contributed significantly to the ongoing discourse on sustainable urban development amidst climate change. Research in the field of architecture not only illuminates potential strategies for mitigating rising sea impacts but also stresses the imperative for continued inquiry, collaboration, and innovative thinking in architecture and urban planning.


Prof. Dr. Tanhea K. Bacchin
Dr. Cristina Baldacci
Dr. Ludovico Centis
Sofie Yde
Prof. Dr. Johannes Schubert

Urban Futures: Rethinking Architecture and Infrastructure in View of Rising Seas 

Architectural ethnography is an on-site research method that inquires into the forms, technologies and materials for house construction and also engages with the socio-cultural context of architecture. During longterm fieldwork, architectural ethnography includes surveys of buildings, mapping of sites, participant observation, and interviews with the diverse actors involved in building and inhabiting houses as part of material culture. The immersion of the architect-ethnographer into the everyday local life enables to comprehend and sense architectural cultures, political ecologies, and the socio-technical knowledge characterizing the built environment. Expanding beyond the numerous studies on vernacular housing in rural regions, this seminar highlights the relevance of architectural ethnography for investigating urban areas and, in particular, the microclimates of cities. The discussion focuses on different historical and contemporary ethnographic fieldwork approaches from around the world.

Architectural Ethnography 

In the very centre of my presentation today is the concept of the microclimate showing its relevance for ethnographic research conducted by architects. Microclimates—this is my central thesis—condense phenomena which grant us a close look at the material culture, social conditions, and political aspirations of energy-based societies; in other words, microclimates are far more than physical-thermodynamic phenomena. They are cultural and social artifacts.

Lecture in the frame of the seminar “Sustainable Design: Methods and Tools,” by Prof. Muck Petzet, Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio

Case Studies of Microclimate Ethnography

While 20th-century architecture learned to “control” the climate of a building, the architecture of the 21st century needs to learn to “cope” with the climate of cities. There is an imperative for new forms of thermal “governance” (on other scales). In this lecture, important historical pioneers of such new architectural thinking will be highlighted. Urban climatology as science evolved in the early 20th century along with the genesis of new energy landscapes and new modern principles of planning. City climate research raised the novel question of the impact of the city on the local weather conditions; “the manner in which these great concentrations of human beings influence their climate” as climatologist Albert Kratzer stated in 1937.

Lecture in the frame of "Sessions on Territory," invited by Marc Angelil and Milica Topalovic and in conversation with Alice Hertzog , D-ARCH, ETH Zurich

Architecture and Urban Climates

Presentation on Santiago's city climate and its associated energy challenges.
Santiago’s climate is characterized by high fluctuation rates of daily/yearly temperature, and as such possesses opportunities to develop the urban passive house in response to both hot and cold periods. Thus, we think it is relevant in permiting a better understanding and optimization of the complex balance between the demands for heating and cooling. Because of the economical growth of the last decades, the city now faces the "side-effects" of it. In addition to the growing numbers of cars and manufacturing industries, wood-burning heaters and thermal inversion in the winter months worsen the climatic situation of Santiago (smog).

Climatic Portrait. Santiago de Chile

The stake of this doctoral research is to identify knowledge and practices linked to climate in order to rethink passive architecture and thermal control expertise. To do so, I chose to work on Cairo, in Egypt, a city with an extreme climate that became problematic, as urban activities get more and more intense. More specifically, I will focus on old building, often celebrated for their heritage and thermal original qualities, but used as living places and modified by residents through time.

This shows that climatic and energetic performance, which is the basis of sustainable architecture, needs to be balanced with the idea of thermal comfort, which in return depends on many other dimensions of life.

To understand how different forms of practical, technical and scientific thermal knowledge exist in the urban environment and compete with other imperatives in the urban space setting, I developed a methodology that combines fieldwork in a part of Islamic/Medieval Cairo, extensive ethnographic survey using our (architecture) technics (drawing and climate data), and the study of a specific bibliographic corpus, that will be later exposed.

Presentation at the doctoral seminar "Work in Progress", Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio

Reassessing Climate Expertise in the Daily Practices of Residents in the Old Heritage Buildings of Islamic Cairo PhD Project

By focusing on the stabilization of thermal conditions inside of buildings, comfort research in the 20th century neglected to acknowledge the empirical reality of overlapping thermal zones. Cities are full of smooth thermal transitions between the interior and exterior of buildings. This seminar highlights the interdisciplinary concept of the “microclimate“; it provides various insights into howto investigate microclimates by means of ethnographic studies. The methodological considerations on ethnographic description of microclimates will be linked to exercises conducted by the students. The crucial task of a microclimate ethnography consists of comprehending the manmade materiality of a microclimate, even though it appears to be a natural, nonmaterial, and physical phenomenon.

Ian J. Ewart - ENGINEERING ANTHROPOLOGY

Heid Jerstad - WEATHER ETHNOGRAPHY

Microclimate Ethnography 

The Climate Adaptation Lab aims at rethinking climate control – a key concern of the discipline of architecture – through the lens of city climate and climate change phenomena. Architecture’s one-sided obsession with controlling the indoor climate of individual buildings is questioned and the (thermal) dialectics between inside and outside examined instead.

Due to its man-made character, the city climate differs fundamentally from the natural climate. By looking at the historical emergence of this concept since the beginning of the 20th century (as urban climatology) and the complex adaptation in the field of architecture and urban design, a robust architectural knowledge for today’s discussions on the “climate adaptation and mitigation” was provided. After an introduction into the history of modern architecture and urban planning striving for new “climate cities,” case studies and methods with particular relevance for today’s architects were addressed.

Relying on these theoretical approaches, the city of Vienna served as a main case study for the students. The city of Vienna is projected to change its climatic zone from the humid-continental to the humid-subtropical by 2050. This climatic shift of cities can also be described by defining city analogues (Bastin et al.). This method holds interesting implications for architectural research: What (implicit) knowledge can we derive from the study of analogue cities for the climate adaptation of Vienna? The seminar therefore looked closely at the similarities and differences of the public realm in the humid-subtropical city of Milan, analyzing the preconditions that constitute its urban thermal landscape and developed ways of transferring this knowledge to Vienna.


Federico Bertagna (ETH Zürich)
Giulio Bettini (Penzis Bettini Architekten, Zürich)
Giulio Galasso (ETH Zürich)
Dr. Lidia Gasperoni (TU Berlin)
Dr. Lorenzo Stieger (USI)
Natalia Voroshilova (Master Student ETH)
Dr. Noa Levin (USI)
Prof. Dr. Rainer Hehl (TU Berlin)
Sibil Sträuli (Pini & Sträuli architects, Milan)

Group D


Cipolla Emanuele
Contini Massimo
Frigerio Edoardo Gabriele
Monaco Gabriele
Robatto Elena

Group F


Carnal Robin
Heleno Oliveira Monica
Jeannerat Louise
Moser Nadja

Group K


Jacopo Gioanina
Simone Mirabella
Matteo Miretta
Nora Soldati

City, Climate, and Architecture – The Climate Adaptation Lab

The seminar highlights the notion of “urban climate“ and its manyfold implications for architecture and urban planning since the beginning of the 20th century. Due to its man-made character, the city climate differs fundamentally from the natural climate. By looking at the historical emergence of this concept and the complex adaption in the field of architecture and urban planning, a robust architectural knowledge for today’s discussions on the so called “urban heat island effect” shall be provided. After an introduction into the history of urban climatology and climate-related city planning, case studies and methods with particular relevance for architects will be addressed. During an excursion in the city of Milan different aspects of urban microclimates and their architectural interpretations will be highlighted.

Modern Architecture and Urban Climates 

Standards alone do not affect the built environment if they are not carried into built form by architects and builders, themselves taking them from the laboratories and bureaucracies who issued them.As technical, sociocultural and political artefacts, they are never autonomous. However, it can be relevant to adress the issue of energy-efficiency starting from the standards alone, or “through” standards, as they become an actor in the improvement of the buildings and city climate. I will present their effects on the creation and regulation of thermal environment(s) in Santiago de Chile.

"Swiss Doctoral Summer School for Art History", Universität Zürich

Creating & regulating thermal environment through standards - Histories and negotiations on climate control in Santiago de Chile

In urban areas worldwide, contradictions and conflicts around sustainability, economic development and social justice are mounting issues in everyday residential life. This talk discusses aspects of exclusivity and democracy in the consumption of cooled, heated and depolluted urban spaces. Even if such microclimates are thermal zones with site-specific physical and thermodynamic characteristics, they are also part of local social and cultural space-making practices. While indoor microclimates depend increasingly on mechanical cooling or heating systems, the production of public microclimates largely relies on the alignment of houses, the available green spaces or the provision of shadow spaces. The class character is inherent in both indoor and outdoor microclimates because social status still too often decides about available climate mitigation strategies.

In this talk, based on the anthology "The Urban Microclimate as Artifact. Towards an Architectural Theory of Thermal Diversity" (Birkhäuser 2018), we explore how thermal diversity - both outdoors and indoors - is a product of human interaction with the built environment of cities.

Sustainable Consumption Brown Bag Lunch Series, University of Geneva

Comfortable Climates as Class Privilege

Architectural ethnography is an on-site research method that inquires into the forms, technologies and materials for house construction and also engages with the socio-cultural context of architecture. During long-term fieldwork, architectural ethnography includes surveys of buildings, mapping of sites, participant observation, and interviews with the diverse actors involved in building and inhabiting houses as part of material culture. The immersion of the architect-ethnographer into the everyday local life enables to comprehend and sense architectural cultures, political ecologies, and the socio-technical knowledge characterizing the built environment.

Expanding beyond the numerous studies on vernacular housing in rural regions, this seminar highlights the relevance of architectural ethnography for investigating urban areas and, in particular, urban microclimates. Beyond the natural characteristics, the human-built environment, including houses, streets or green areas, shapes local climates with various ecological, social and political implications. Within the frame of the seminar, students conduct microclimate ethnographies in households and selected urban districts. These practical exercises will be combined with theoretical readings and in-class discussions about the relevance and application of ethnographic findings for architectural design.

This paper presentation discusses the most typical housing typologies in Chongqing in order to explore the role of ventilation in urban architecture and as part of people’s thermal-material culture. Creating ventilation is one of the few ways to be comfortable when temperatures are high and you still want to be outside. In garden restaurants or on people’s terraces, ventilators are positioned next to the table creating an artificial breeze (image 1). A breeze is also created through the use of a hand fan or this outdated model of a palm leaf fan (image 2). Not only outdoors, but also indoors, Chongqing people celebrate ventilation as creating a breeze in summer and as a way to combat moulding due to high air humidity in winter.

 "Comparative Studies in Climate Control", Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio

Only if there is wind, it is comfortable - Ventilation Practices in Urban Architecture in Chongqing (China)

China’s rapid urbanization is unprecedented. Meanwhile the cities’ energy consumption reached 75% of the country’s total consumption. Refering to Bruno Latour’s article “To Modernize or to Ecologize?“, the seminar addresses the imperative and the limits of sustainable development under conditions of rapid urbanization. The seminar provides an overview of the various forms of urban architecture and the residential realities of different social classes; this includes, for instance, the housing situation of migrant workers living in the industrialized Pearl River Delta, of old town residents in the capital Beijing or of middle-class condominium residents in the colonially shaped Shanghai. The seminar provides a sense for processes of rapid urbanization in mega-cities and for the accompanying ecological challenges and possible reactions provided by architecture. The seminar will be jointly conducted by Prof. Sascha Roesler and Dr. Madlen Kobi (a sino-anthropologist).

To Modernize or to Ecologize Patterns of Urbanization in China Today

Recognizing the three buildings of Habitat Marocain not as a finished architectural work but as a transformable structure means acknowledging an empirical fact that is valid and visible throughout the world, but especially in the Global South—namely, that buildings are subject to a constant process of appropriation by their users. For about sixty years, Habitat Marocain’s residents have continually adapted the buildings to their changing needs. What fascinates people looking at the Habitat Marocain today is its ability to maintain a visual balance between the (de-)formations and the originally planned form. The modifications made to Habitat Marocain by its residents reveals a surreal aspect which cast a new light on the structuralism of this housing development. The informal adaptations highlight the surrealism of a structuralist architecture that builds on “configurative patterns” and generates dreamlike—bizarre, absurd, and fantastic—effects. Recognizing the reciprocal relationship between architect- and user-based building means to grasp the surreal character of this constellation.

Lecture at the Chair for Architecture and Design, Seminar "Urban Mutations on the Edge", Prof. Marc Angélil, ETH Zurich

Surreal Architecture. Habitat Marocain in the Light of Open Building Theory

The urban passive house which we want to examine in this research seminar is not an isolated building any more but one that is closely interconnected with its urban contexts and embedded in its city quarter. The urban passive house is in a cultural, social, and ecological exchange with its surroundings. Accordingly, the investigations of this research seminar are epistemically located in the transition area between architecture and urban planning. The main focus is on the question of how a specific building X is climatically influenced by adjoining houses, streets, park areas, etc., but also by social norms, political regulations and individual behavior. The urban passive house is conceived as part of a political ecology of the city in which natural and social impact factors are closely interconnected with each other. Contrary to a todays passive house research, which entirely ignores society in its analyses and only considers it again at the very end, in the form of new standards, the seminar aims at those “risky entanglements” (Bruno Latour) between nature and society which characterize passive forms of climatisation in cities worldwide.

The Urban Passive House

Microclimates are a fascinating field of inquiery demonstrating the relevance of a material- and contruction-related definition of architectural anthropology.

“Transferts. La mobilité des personnes, des idées et des architectures,“ at the Haute Ecole d’Ingénierie et d’Architecture de Fribourg (Switzerland), invited by François Esquivié and Isabel Concheiro Guisan

Microclimates and Ethnography

Lecture in the frame of the seminar “Architekturethnologie“, by Dr. Madlen Kobi, University of Zurich

Architectural Construction(s) as Part of Material Culture Research

The Material Transitions Lab series intends to challenge sustainability within architecture pedagogy. Today's paradigm shift in building construction shall be examined by enabling students to develop an ecological perspective through an analytical and critical attitude. The five workshops conceive sustainability in architecture not as a given formula but as an ongoing set of collective sociocultural practices that students will need to actively embrace as future architects and global citizens.

Our entry point will be represented by materials most commonly employed in the construction industry. Drawing from Mark Jarzombek's article "The Quadrivium Industrial Complex" (2019), questioning the most important building materials, concrete, glass, steel, and plastic, we will intentionally shift our attention from the so-called and the often debated operational emissions of the built environment to the embodied emissions – intended as the sum of all the emissions required to produce any goods or services, considered as if that emissions were incorporated or 'embodied' in the products themselves. Mining, production, delivery, and assembly processes [the embodied emissions] of these materials have never been more extensive and cheaper than today, causing an enormous impact on a planetary scale for humans and non-humans and their possible evolution in the context of energy transition policies. Energy transition and material transition are to be understood as one and the same process.

The five workshops (plus a wrap-up session) will elaborate on different thematic threads related to the sustainable transition of the construction industry and its materials, discussing innovation and criticalities. Referring to Gottfried Semper's theory of "Stoffwechsel," material transition is intended as a symbolic and physical transfer of forms and materials to new needs. In particular, Semper's approach highlights the transregional sociocultural exchange of building construction and its materials from one culture and moment in time to the other. With the notion of material transition – translated from German "Stoffwechsel" – the workshops foreground the process of outliving and mixing architectural elements and materials of the past to develop contemporary sustainable new materials for architecture. Semper's intuition sets the stage to convey the complexity behind a holistic transition toward an ethical, sustainable construction industry. All five workshops will be centered on the theoretical and practical understanding of the often invisible consequences determined by the construction industry on an ecological and social level on humans and non-humans alike, thus informing students on the global metabolism of architecture production.

During the workshops, guests will join us to provide practitioners' and scholars' perspectives on a sustainable transition of materials combining theory and practice.


Boeva Yana
Buser Barbara
Ferrer Carla
Hildebrand Thomas
Petersmann Johann

Group 1


Riccardo Avogadro
Océane Alexandrine Brosteaux
Giovanni Campagnola
Lucrezia Casilli
Clara Della Casa
Oscar Victor Larfeuille
Chiara Vicuna Narvaez
Marisa Vocaturi


Sofia Basso
Nathalie Bettoni
Eliot Ferguen
Giulia Ricci
Stefania Archilli
Maria Vittoria Giani
Elisa Acquistapace
Benedetta Assolari
Sveva Bonapace



Sustainable Design – The Material Transition Lab

Überall auf der Welt sind unterdessen grundlegende Veränderungen der traditionellen Bauweisen im Gang. Die dichotomische Entgegensetzung von Tradition und Moderne verfügt über immer weniger Aussagekraft. Im HS 2012 werden wir uns dem Phänomen des Konstruktionswandels auf theoretischer und auf empirischer Ebene annähern: Mit welchen Theorien und Modellen wird konstruktiver Wandel in der Architektur gedacht? Welche ethnografischen Methoden existieren zur Beschreibung von technologischem Wandel in der Architektur? Wo auf der Welt sind aktuell besonders virulente Transformationen zu beobachten? Und verändert sich alles zum besseren? Wie steht es eigentlich um die alte Kategorie "Fortschritt", für deren Entfaltung Konstruktion in der Architektur einst verantwortlich war?

Konstruktionswandel (als Wissensfigur) 

This lecture series promotes the notion of "energy landscape" as a conceptualframework to challenge our current understanding of energy as a cheapand abundant resource for architecture. It presents concepts and methods for designing the energy landscapes of the future.

The City as Energy Landscape 

“Soft Architecture: Designing (with) Microclimates,” invited by Prof. Dr. Karmen Franinović and Dr. Roman Kirschner, Department of “Interaction Design,” Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)

On Microclimatic Walks

The research is to understand physical and socio-economic value of microdistrict, a socialist urban planning strategy for residential development, and see how it can be developed as an urban housing model in Pyongyang by reflecting the emerging micro production era. Since the 1960s, Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, is one of the few socialist cities where the microdistrict is well applied. However recent shifts toward adopting a market economy system has made Pyongyang lose part of its value as a microdistrict. As a model of building sustainable community, microdistrict is a residential complex model that was developed in Soviet Union and was spread out to socialist cities extensively during the postwar period, including North Korean cities after the Korean War. And historically, it was one of the urban structures that allowed Pyongyang to survive from a cycle of famines and sanctions. By providing socio-economic networks amongst neighbors microdistrict was able to remain less dependent on the nation’s economy and create its own self-sustainable co-op economy. These models that operate on co-ops, and co-production through the generation of microproduction movements are disappearing from Pyongyang as the city develops housing models driven by real estate values. And therefore, the research will focus on historic background of microdistrict, with understanding context of mixture between life and work, analyze cases in various socialist cities, and see the potential value of the microdistrict as urban housing model of Pyongyang.

PhD project at the accademia di architettura in Mendrisio, supervised by Prof. Sascha Roesler and Prof. Sonja Hildebrand

Microdistrict. An Urban Housing Model in North Korea

In my current research project, I understand natural ventilation as cultural heritage of Southeast Asia, investigating the thermal structures, thermal practices and thermal regimes that either support or hinder the application of natural forms of ventilation. In this, the governing question is how this cultural heritage might today, under conditions of widespread social change and advancing urbanisation, be renewed and reintroduced into the architecture of Southeast Asia.

Man-made Weather. Natural Ventilation as Cultural Heritage of Southeast Asia

Im FS 2012 widmen wir uns schwerpunktmässig der zwischen 1946 und 1954 gebauten Siedlung New Gourna bei Luxor (Ägypten). Der ägyptische Architekt Hassan Fathy, der diese Siedlung entworfen hat, hat damit ein Schlüsselprojekt einer kulturell sensibilisierten Konstruktion geschaffen. Wir werden uns mittels einer zweifachen Bewegung New Gourna annähern: Zum einen werden wir die von Fathy ethnografisch eruierten Lesarten des kulturellen Umfelds, wie sie sich in der Partizipation der Bewohner im Bauprozess sowie in der Nutzung der natürlich vor-handenen Bau- und Energieressourcen niedergeschlagen haben, rekonstruieren. Zum anderen werden wir aus heutiger Sicht einen kritischen, architekturanthropologisch informierten Blick auf das Nachleben dieser Siedlung werfen. Was ist das Vermächtnis von New Gourna für ein zeitgenössisches konstruktives Denken der Architektur?

New Gourna, Heute 

This presentation engages with empirical fieldwork data on the thermal-material culture in winterly Chongqing.

Paper presentation in the Seminario "Work in Progress", Institute for the History and Theory of Art and Architecture, Mendrisio

Responses to a Fragile Architecture: Thermal-Material Culture in Urbanizing Chongqing (Southwest China)

My lecture today highlights the interdisciplinary concept of the microclimate and shows its relevance for a contemporary ethnographic research of architecture and anthropology. Microclimates are—this is my central thesis—human artifacts which require serious architectural-anthropological research. They condense phenomena which grant us a close look at the everyday culture, social conditions, and political aspirations of energy-based societies; in other words, microclimates are far more than physical-thermodynamic phenomena.

“Architectural Anthropology: 18th to 21st Centuries“, Accademia di architecture, Mendrisio (Switzerland), Prof. Sonja Hildebrand / Elena Chestnova

Microclimate Ethnography. Exploring Thermal Environments

This seminar inquires from a theoretical and cross-cultural perspective into the diverse motives and contexts where building materials are being reused in architecture. Construction materials move between rural and urban, between local and regional as well as between old and new houses. An analysis of these spatial networks provides site-specific insights into the relationships between builders, techniques, materials and objects. In times of resource shortage and environmental crisis, architects have to take seriously their role in minimizing the ecological footprint. At the same time, the social and architectural motivations and objectives why building materials are being reused go beyond ecological considerations. Reusing materials often emerges along with a careful consideration of local building techniques. It further has implications on the design practice where the available materials are the starting point.

After discussing economic, ecological, social and historical values involved in the reuse of materials, the seminar engages with contemporary reuse practices in different geographical contexts such as Switzerland, Austria, China and the US. We will inquire into how the “waste” value of demolition materials transforms into a valuable resource for its users. Among others, the seminar offers diverse perspectives on the reuse of materials based on different case studies, theoretical writings and socio-cultural contexts. Reuse can be framed as

1) An ecological practice to minimize waste;

2) A method to emphasize engagement with local history and preservation of cultural heritage;

3) A revival of old building techniques (such as wa pan in China);

4) A survival strategy for poor populations (such as urban mining on demolition sites or reuse of materials for suburban slum housing);

5) A consumption critique (such as in the construction of earthships);

6) A practice of bricolage (Lévi-Strauss) creating new objects with existing materials rather than an engineering practice that often starts from an end goal and then searches for the necessary materials to achieve it.

The main objective of this cross-cultural engagement with the reuse of building materials is to conceptualize houses not as objects per se, but as assemblages of different materials with their own (hi)stories and values depending on the actors reusing them.

Mobile Objects: Re-using Building Materials from a cross-cultural Perspective

Lecture in the frame of the seminar “Architectural Anthropology: 18th to 21st Centuries“, Accademia di architecture, Mendrisio, Prof. Sonja Hildebrand / Elena Chestnova

In this seminar we will investigate strategies of integrating natural forces in the city by conceiving it as an “energy landscape.” The notion emerged in the 1970s as an attempt of making the goals of urbanism and ecology more compatible. According to landscape architect Michael Hough the concept of energy landscape promotes “an ecological view that encompasses the total urban landscape.” Energy was addressed not only as a problem of infrastructure and supply, but, moreover, as a question of permanent exchange within the existing and future urban landscape. In this seminar we will address natural forces in close connection to the built fabric and how this interplay might shape the environmental conditions of cities. We will discuss theoretical approaches addressing nature in the city, and we will refer to the greater region of Geneva (Switzerland) as a contemporary testing ground for ecological urban theories of the late 20th century.

To Modernize or to Ecologize? The City as Energy Landscape 

The seminar highlights the notion of “urban climate“ and its manyfold implications for architecture and urban design since the beginning of the 20th century. Due to its man-made character, the city climate differs fundamentally from the natural climate. By looking at the historical emergence of this concept and the complex adaptation in the field of architecture and urban design, a robust architectural knowledge for today’s discussions on the so called “urban heat island effect” shall be provided. After an introduction into the history of urban climatology and climate-related urban architecture, case studies and methods with particular relevance for architects will be addressed. In the centre of the seminar’s second part are the cities of Geneva (Switzerland) and Santiago (de Chile). The seminar includes small exercises and reading sessions.

Obschon die Entwicklung der Architektur seit je durch Austauschprozesse zwischen unterschiedlichen Regionen und Kulturen geprägt wurde, wird in einer der Nation oder Region verpflichteten Architekturgeschichtsschreibung besonders das Eigene betont. Die Bedeutung fremder Einflüsse für eine lokale Bauweise oder Typologie wird dabei oftmals nicht gebührend berücksichtigt. Nur unter Ausblendung der von außen kommenden Einflüsse ist die Idee von der Architektur einer Nation – etwa als "Schweizer Architektur", "Indonesische Architektur" oder "Brasilianische Architektur" – aufrechtzuerhalten; auch der so genannte "Internationale Stil", der von einer globalisierten modernen Architektur ausgegangen war, hat an dieser Fokussierung auf homogene Baukulturen nichts geändert. Ausgehend von Gottfried Sempers "Stoffwechsel"-Prinzip sollen im Vortrag Denkmodelle zur Sprache kommen, mittels derer architektonische Austauschprozesse über regionale und kulturelle Grenzen hinweg (besser) erfasst werden können.

Im Rahmen des Februarprogramms der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste, München, eingeladen von Prof. Dr. Winfried Nerdinger

2023

Urban Futures: Rethinking Architecture and Infrastructure in View of Rising Seas AS23

2022

Warsaw: Energy Landscapes and Energy Transitions AS22

2020

Architectural Ethnography AS20

Modern Architecture and Urban Climates SS20

2019

Wohnen in interdependenten Mikroklimata. Horw, ein stadtklimatisches Quartier entwerfen SS19

Architectural Ethnography AS19

To Modernize or to Ecologize? The City as Energy Landscape SS19

2018

Modern Architecture and Urban Climates AS18

To Modernize or to Ecologize Patterns of Urbanization in China Today SS18

Mobile Objects: Re-using Building Materials from a cross-cultural Perspective AS18

2016

Microclimate Ethnography AS16

The Urban Passive House SS16

2012

Konstruktionswandel (als Wissensfigur) AS12

New Gourna, Heute AS12

2011

Die Dächer Der Minangkabau, Toraja, Batak Etc. SS11