Professur Nachhaltiges Bauen / Sustainable Construction

Gould, Hannah (2015). Three Ways We Will Build the Cities of the Future from Waste, The Guardian (online).

As the global population grows, it is also becoming more city-based with 70% expected to live in urban areas by 2050. It is a trend that has not escaped sci-fi in Hollywood, which reimagines the city of the future again and again, but there are those trying to bring sustainable cities to life in reality. Truly sustainable cities of the future will not differentiate between waste and resource. Rather, they will understand waste as the starting point for something new.

Read the full article here.

Senthilingam, Meera (2015). 5 ideas every city should steal from Singapore, CNN.com

Singapore is small, hot and heavily populated but also among the most liveable and economically successful cities in the word. How have they done it?
Hebel’s team recently exhibited the possibilities of waste recycling during the 2015 New York City Ideas Festival. They built an arched canopy pavilion comprised of waterproof panels made from discarded beverage containers. “There are things surrounding us that can be used in a secondary life as a building structure.”

Read the whole article here.

Full House on May 30th at the ETH Zurich Pavilion in New York, as it hosted a public panel discussion with Asst. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, Prof. Philippe Block, Asst. Prof. David Benjamin and Asst. Prof. Mark Wasiuta. The panel, hosted by the AIA Center for Architecture New York Chapter, brought an overwhelming response to the pavilion.

The IDEAS CITY Festival theme for 2015, The Invisible City, borrows from Italo Calvino’s classic novel exploring the invisible constructs that holds a city together. Two panels pursued this theme further by asking “What cultural practices define the future smart city, and where can we chart the boundaries between design methodology and ethical practice?” The first panel explored how material cycles and waste management can be further integrated into design practice. The second panel asked “How invisible ecologies can be represented and made visible and urgent?”

On May 30th, Felix Heisel gave a public guided tour through the ETH Zurich Pavilion, and the connected exhibit of 25 building materials produced from waste.

Pestalozzi, Manuel (2015). Müll schafft Möglichkeiten, Bau & Architektur: 14–15.

Based on their research at the ETH Zürich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, authors Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel offer in their recent publication ‘Building from Waste’ a conceptual and practical view on the possibilities of construction with a so far untapped resource.

Daniel E. Schaufelberger, Werner Kaufmann, Lorenzo Pagnamenta, Anna Torriani, Ray Schaeffer, Felix Heisel, and Jürg Brunnschweiler

Entitled The invisible Feedback Loop: Architects, Infrastructure, and Public Space, the ETH Zurich Alumni invited its New York members to a panel discussion on Thursday 28th May at the ETH Zurich Pavilion. Architects, and Urban Planners are in constant dialogue with the evolving  needs and expectations of public space. Moderated by Dr. Werner Kaufmann, Co-Chair ETHZ Alumni New York Chapter, the speakers Felix Heisel, Anna Torriani, Lorenzo Pagnamenta, and Ray Schaeffer briefly described their contribution to the civic realm, their investigations, their ideas, the results and/or proposed solutions. The event was opened by Dr. Jürg Brunnschweiler, Director ETH Global, Zürich.

ETH Zurich Pavilion: New York NY, Image (c) Albert Vecerka/Esto

On May 27th, the ETH Zurich Pavilion was officially opened by Ambassador André Schaller, Consul General of Switzerland in New York, Juerg Brunnschweiler, Director of ETH Global, and Felix Heisel, project architect of the ETH Zurich Pavilion. The Pavilion will now be open to the public from May 28-30, 11am to 10pm daily. Please come by and join us for the exciting program.

On the eve of Construction Day 3, the first shell of the ETH Zurich Pavilion is closed and lighting experiments are taking advantage of the dusk.

Construction Day 2 of the ETH Zurich Pavilion concluded with the first few ReWall arches go up and span over the First Street Green. Stay tuned!

On May 22nd, construction of the ETH Zurich Pavilion started at the First Street Green in New York City. The stacking of the recycled pallets was concluded with the installation of the parametric triangular footings for arches made from reused beverage cartons. Within the next 3 days, the team from the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel and the Block Research Group will conclude a 90 m2 pavilion in time for the IDEAS CITY Festival starting on Thursday 28th May 2015.

ETH Zurich brings a cutting-edge artifact of the future to the East Village: a pavilion created from waste materials. Recasting “trash” as a valuable asset, ETH Zurich Future Garden and Pavilion will redefine the notion of waste, acknowledging its value as a resource from which new cities can rise. Read more about the events of next week here.

May 30th, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
First Street Garden, Houston Street and 2nd Avenue, ETH Zurich Pavilion, New York City

The American Institute of Architects NY engage ETH Zurich’s Dirk E. Hebel and Philippe Block in a conversation with NY architects David Benjamin and Mark Wasiuta, Columbia University on cultural practices that define smart cities. The panel discussion will be held underneath the ETH Zurich pavilion and is part of the IDEAS CITY Festival program.

Register free here

At the ETH PopUp Workshop in New York, our team is advancing quickly with the prefabrication of parts for the ETH Zurich Pavilion across the street. If you would like to take a look at the current status, we have installed a life feed, allowing you a view of the workshop and the park. Please click here.

ETH Popup Workshop + Gallery
34 E 1st Street

During the month of May, ETH Zurich’s Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel and the Block Research Group together with miLES will transform the storefront at 34 E. 1st Street into a pop-up workshop and gallery for the prefabrication of the ETH Zurich Pavilion across the street at First Street Green Park. The storefront will become a workshop, showcase, and resting stop to visualize the working process behind the construction of a temporary structure by the ETH Department of Architecture. Peek into it, you may find surprises!

Commissioned by ETH Global, the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel and the Professorship of Architecture and Structure Philippe Block will be building a pavilion at New York City’s First Street Garden as part of the New Museum’s IDEAS CITY festival, May 28 – 30th, 2015.

Using waste products as construction material, the structure aims to redefine our perception of refuse, acknowledging its capacity as a substance from which to construct new cities. Waste was seen for centuries as something specific which neither belonged to the family of natural resources nor to the one of finished products. Waste was a by-product, an (ideally) invisible part in the making and existing of our cities.

But waste could also be understood as an integral part of what we define as a resource. This metabolic thinking understands our built environment as an interim stage of material storage. The ETH Pavilion will be an example of this approach using a common waste product: beverage cartons as its construction material. The expressive pavilion is designed to allow the use of a non-standard, weak material in construction.To keep the stresses in the material low, the shape follows the flow of forces, resulting in a vaulted structure in compression. Thanks to its overall double curvature and the triangular sections of the arches, which give the structure a deeper section for the same thickness and weight, the shell is stable and safe.

As part of the ongoing spring semester “Ressource Schweiz”, the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel organised a seminar week touring Switzerland with 50 participants. Visiting architects and their buildings using local available building materials such as loam, wood, or stone, the group also went to the original resource sites in clay pits or quarries and visited companies and craftsmen working with the substances.

Photo by Marta H. Wisniewska

There are no open positions available momentarily.

Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel will be leading several events from 21st – 25th of April at Swissnex San Fransisco in order to promote the recent publication “Building from Waste” in the United States. For detailed information on the events please see here and register your attendance through the swissnex website:

21.04.2015  – 6:30 pm: Lecture Series “Waste Not”
with Philip Ross, Thom Faulders, Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel

21.04. – 25.04.2015: “Building from Waste” Exhibit with 25 construction products made from refuse

25.04.2015 – 9:00 am: Constructing Waste: Upcycling and Rethinking Trash
Workshop with Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel

Moderated by Dr. Barbara Becker and hosted by ETH Global on March 23rd 2015, Sarah Springman, Samih Sawiris and Dirk E. Hebel discussed the challenges and opportunities of Engineering for Development (E4D), a program of the Sawiris foundation and the ETH Zürich to promote the development of products and methods which are directly relevant for improving the livelihoods of people in developing territories.

Hebel, Dirk E., Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel (2015). ‘Müll als Rohstoffmine der Zukunft: Möglichkeiten des Bauens mit der Ressource Müll’, COVISS: 01/2015. Februar/März 12.Jahrgang, Seite 12-17, Luzern, Schweiz.

Müll ist in unserer Gesellschaft seit Jahrhunderten ein Material, das weder als natürlicher Rohstoff noch als Produkt gesehen wird, sondern als etwas, das wir schnellstmöglich verbrennen oder vergraben möchten. Müll ist sozusagen ein Nebenprodukt, das wir nicht in unser dialektisches Verständnis von ‘roh’ oder ‘verarbeitet’ kategorisieren können. Auf der anderen Seite kann man Müll jedoch auch als einen integralen Bestandteil unserer Ressourcen betrachten und auf diese Weise das Potential dieses Wertstoffs als Grundlage für die Herstellung von neuen Produkten erkennen.

Doctoral Researcher Alireza Javadian of the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel spoke on February 13th 2015 as part of the “Friday Talks” at the Urban Redevelopment Authority Singapore (URA) on “Bamboo: The Green Reinforcement”. His talk introduced the audience to the research of new bamboo composite materials, featuring high tensile capacity with a variety of different application possibilities.

More on the Friday Talk Series can be found here.

All Lectures in HIQ C11, ETH Hönggerberg
Everyone welcome.

Ethiopian Guest Critics Yonas Ayalew, Mathewos Asfaw and Bisrat Kifle

Defense Site Model (Group Project)

Neighborhood Plan (Wöhner/Höing)

Semi-Private Spaces (Sari/Berger)

Urban Density (Sari/Berger)

Courtyard Visualization (Disler/Rolvering)

Model Shot Semi-Private Spaces (Disler, Rolvering)

Axonometric View (Tran/Stadelmann)

Prefabricated ceiling elements (Leder/Joller)

Prefabricated ceiling casts (Bachmann/Zürcher)

Material studies in the first weeks of the semester

Material combinations (Tran/Stadelmann)

In the fall 2014, the design studio of the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel focused on the development of 5.000 social housing units in Ethiopia`s capital Addis Ababa. The professorship partnered up with the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC), which was commissioned by the Addis Ababa City Administration with this task. Units for no- and low-income families, which are being displaced due to on-going redevelopment strategies, shall be constructed within the inner-city context based on the students’ design proposals. The typologies have to take the existing social and cultural conditions into consideration and, where possible, utilize local materials. Additionally, they need to remain within a given budget set by the city administration. Next to important urban questions adressing densities and the construction of neighborhoods, the studio concentrated on locally available construction methods and materials and aimed to develop architecture and construction strategies down to the scale of the detail.

The Ministry of Education in Singapore has awarded  the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel together with the Republic Polytechnic Singapore 320.000 Singapore Dollars within the framework of the “Translational R&D and Innovation Fund Grant” for the jointly submitted project: “Maximize bonding between Sustainable Bamboo Composite Reinforcement and Concrete”. The project is set for two years and lead by Dr. Leong Wen Shing in collaboration with the group of Prof. Hebel in Singapore. The award acknowledges the successful collaboration between the Republic Polytechnic and the Future Cities Laboratory which started in 2013.

The bamboo composite research collaboration between the Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel in Singapore and the Republic Polytechnic Singapore (Dr Wen Shing) was highlighted again this year from Jan 8^th to Jan 10^th at the Republic Polytechnic Open House 2015 Event.

Swiss daily newspaper Tagesanzeiger recently published a report in the research activities of the Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel at the ETH Zürich and the FCL Singapore. You can read the full article here in German.

A selection of twenty alternative construction materials produced from waste will be on display at the Baumuster Centrale Zürich until January 15th 2015, to be experienced hands-on. The material samples are part of the recent publication “Building from Waste – Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction” by Dirk E. Hebel, Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel.

Public lecture “Building from Waste” by Felix Heisel and Marta H. Wisniewska on Thursday November 27, 2014 at the Baumuster Centrale in Zürich, Switzerland. The event, combining a talk and a small exhibition of selected waste materials, explains the approach of the Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel to understand waste as a possible resource for the construction of future cities. “The city of the future does not distiguinsh any more between waste and resource”. Quote by Mitchell Joachim

The Chair of Architecture and Construction is exhibiting its bamboo composite material in the exhibition “Magie des Einfachen” (The Magic of the Simple) at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur from 16th November 2014 to 29th March 2015. Featuring the Brazilian Alvaro Abreu and the German Hans Hansen, the exhibition shows a variety of bamboo applications in the fields of art and construction. More information directly from the museum here and below:

Magie des Einfachen
Der Brasilianer Alvaro Abreu schnitzt Löffel aus Bambus, Hunderte, Tausende, seit vielen Jahren. Erst in einer späten Lebensphase hat er damit angefangen. Jeden Tag einen Löffel, immer aus einem einzigen Stück Bambus, keiner ist wie der andere. Der renommierte deutsche Fotograf Hans Hansen hat sich in seiner fotografischen Arbeit eingehend mit dem Werk von Alvaro Abreu beschäftigt und hat unzählige Bambuslöffel sortiert, geordnet und in einen Rhythmus gebracht, mal in strenger Balance, dann wieder in chaotischer Zufälligkeit. Das Gewerbemuseum Winterthur holt Alvaro Abreus Reich der Bambuslöffel gemeinsam mit den fotografischen Arbeiten von Hans Hansen als Schweizer Premiere nach Winterthur.

The Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel and the BLOCK Research group have built a Latex Concrete Roof Prototype in Addis Ababa at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development as part of an ETH Zürich Seminar Week in October 2014. The video shows a time lapse of the construction within 2 afternoons, utilizing a bamboo frame sub-structure, local fabrics and latex concrete.

In collaboration with Haute Innovation, the Chair of Architecture and Construction exhibited its bamboo composite material at two recent international material fairs: from 21st to 23rd October at the Orgatec 2014 in Cologne, Germany as part of the Smart Office Materials exhibition, and between 11th and 14th November at the Subcontractor 2014 in Jönköping, Sweden.

On October 20th 2014, Bisrat Kifle, Fasil Giorghis and Dirk E. Hebel presented alternative housing concepts to the Addis Ababa Housing and Construction Development Board as part of the ongoing research project ADDIS 2050 The aim of the project is the construction of 5`000 low cost housing units to shelter relocated citizens within the inner city of Ethiopia’s capital, preserving existing social and economic networks. The presented typologies resulted in an overwhelming feedback for EiABC and the ETH, featured in the national evening news on the Ethiopian Broadcasting Network EBC. The short clip can be seen below in Amharic.

EBC Evening News from Architecture and Construction on Vimeo.

At this years World Sustainable Building Conference, the Chair of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel presented two papers. In Session 48, Felix Heisel talked about “Bamboo Reinforcement – a Sustainable Alternative to Steel”, while Marta H. Wisniewska presented “Waste – a Resource for Sustainable and Resilient Future Cities” in Session 90.

Building from Waste has been successfully launched and is now available online and in book stores. Together with the book vernissage, also the exhibition Building from Waste was opened on October 8th 2014 at the Baubibliothek at ETH Hönggerberg.

Can a social housing program only provide a structural frame? Will inhabitants start to activate their own skills and financial means to fill this structure according to their needs and desires? And how could this look like? The experimental research project Simulating Incremental Housing is following these questions by implementing a proto-typology of such a structure in a developing settlement in the heart of Addis Ababa’s no-income zones. The simulation tool allows to speculate on different materials and construction methods how such a structure could be populated and used by its inhabitants.

Exhibition Dates: Thursday 9 October to Monday 8 December, 10:00 – 18:00

About the Exhibition
Although long under way, the hybridization of art and science presents itself as the most significant challenge for society today. The boundaries between the sciences are poorly delineated and those between art and science are as well. However, these poorly delineated boundaries form commonly shared areas where the stull unknown can be explored and where points of suture between disciplines can be made. It is here that artistic and scientific forms of knowledge begin to merge and are allowed to develop into hybrid formations which bear new knowledge and offer unique experience. And if hybridity is the landmark of artistic and scientific practice, the exhibition “Hybrid Highlights” is indicative of such hybridized territory that goes beyond art and science while exploring and expanding through the possibilities offered from the still “unknown” of the poorly delineated

“I weary of writing more about these buildings, because it seems to me that I shall not be believed if I write more … I swear by God, in Whose power I am, that all I have written is the truth.”
Francisco Alvarez`s description of his first sight of Lalibela, in: The Prester John of the Indies translated by C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society 1961), p. 226.

In the fall semester 2014, the Chair of Architecture and Construction offers a seminar week trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The week will concentrate on the development of new, resilient and alternative housing strategies for one of the fastest growing cities in the Global South. Here, a link is given to the design studio which investigates new typologies for 5000 new housing units to be built in 2015, a comission given by the city administration. Next to visits in different existing housing typologies and neighborhoods, the group will also investigate and experience how local available materials need to change our design strategies. In the second half of the week, trips either to the rural area south of Addis Ababa or Lalibela will be organized (fo the Lalibela trip, extra costs will apply).

Dates: Saturday, October 18, till Sunday, October 26

Cost Category: E

For students: Please use the ETH Einschreibung to register and for more details.

Hebel, Dirk E., Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel (2014). Building from Waste, Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction. 200 pages, Berlin, Basel: Birkhäuser.

”Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover“ is the sustainable guideline that has replaced the ”Take, Make, Waste“ attitude of the industrial age. Based on their background at the ETH Zurich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, the authors provide both a conceptual and practical look into materials and products which use waste as a renewable resource.

The research community at FCL would like to invite you to an Exhibition and Symposium to engage in their most recent work. The Exhibition and Symposium – entitled Research, Outcomes, and Prospects – will showcase the context, findings, products, and methods of the diverse research projects undertaken in FCL.

The Exhibition and Symposium programme will begin with the Exhibition opening in the ETH Zurich’s Hauptgebaude on the evening of Wednesday 24 September. The Symposium will be held on Thursday 25 September, and will feature short summary presentations of each research project within FCL in the morning session, and a series of thematic discussions on the challenges of contemporary urbanisation, sustainability, and future cities in the afternoon. The thematic discussions will continue on Friday 26 September, and will offer representatives of local agencies, industry partners and peers an opportunity to discuss specific research themes, insights and applications in greater detail.

The Future Cities Laboratory Exhibition ‘Research, Outcomes and Prospects’ is curated by the Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel stay on display until 9th November 2014.
For a detailed program, please visit the FCL Homepage directly.

Dirk E. Hebel  / Marta H. Wisniewska / Felix Heisel
Building from Waste
Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction

The book provides a conceptual and practical look into materials and products which use waste as a renewable resource for architectural, interior, and industrial design. The inventory ranges from marketed products to advanced research and development, organized along the manufacturing processes: densified, reconfigured, transformed, designed and cultivated materials. A product directory presents all materials and projects according to their functional uses.

Take a look inside the book here.