Professur Nachhaltiges Bauen / Sustainable Construction

Public lecture by Alireza Javadian, PhD researcher in the Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, on November 26^th at  ENAC | School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering at EPFL in Lausanne titled “ Bamboo, The Green Reinforcement “. This talk introduced the research on new bamboo composite materials carried out at Advanced Fiber Composite Laboratory in Singapore and Zürich, featuring high tensile capacity composites with applications for building and construction sector.

Selected exhibition pieces of the architektur0.15 Werkschau are on display at the Bauarena Volketswil from November 2015 until 15th January 2016, including the New York Waste Vault by the Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel and the Block Research Group. A public tour will be held on December 8th at 6:30 pm where the project authors will be present and explain their designs to interested visitors.

For further information, please visit www.bauarena.ch

Public Lecture by Felix Heisel as part of this years ETH Treffpunkt Science City “Rohstoff Erde” on 15th November 2015. Titled “Die Stadt der Zukunft”, the lecture will address waste as a resource for resilient future cities in the hope for a paradigm shift where we stop to distinguish between waste and supply.

The full program of the ETH Treffpunkt Science City can be found here.

World Architecture Festival 2015: bamboo could “revolutionise the building industry” and replace steel as the dominant reinforcing material, according to a professor who is working on new applications for the grass. Speaking at WAF in Singapore today, Dirk Hebel said that bamboo fibre could be used as a more sustainable and far cheaper alternative to steel on construction sites. “This has the potential to revolutionise our building industry and finally provide an alternative to the monopoly of reinforced concrete,” Hebel said.

Read the full article here.

The Assistant Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel and the Block Research Group Prof. Philippe Block are exhibiting the New York Waste Material Pavilion which was designed for the 2015 IDEAS CITY FESTIVAL in NYC at the architektur_0.15 exhibition in Zürich from 31. October to 03. November.

From the curator:
“Are Swiss architects only capable of designing boring buildings?” asked Felix E. Müller, editor-in-chief of the NZZ AM SONNTAG newspaper in his lead article, and went on: “The building boom is plowing up our towns. Unfortunately, the new buildings all look the same. There is no spark of originality, sensuality or experimentation.” Is that really true? We don’t think so. And so in 2014 we staged our third “architektur” exhibition in the 3,500m² Maag EventHall in Zürich, in part to prove that Felix E. Müller really had got it wrong.

The aim of the “architektur” exhibition is to provide a representative image of the many different facets of Swiss national architectural work. The “architektur” exhibition offers the largest platform for networking and exchange between architects, customers, suppliers and the general public.”

Detailed information here or on Facebook.

Public lecture of Asst. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel at the Institut für Leichtbau Entwerfen und Konstruieren ILEK in Stuttgart on October 12, 2015 at 17:30pm.

Aliriza Javadian, PhD student in the Hebel Research Group at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, wins top distinguished award in the 2015 Singapore Challenge: The Science of Future Cities for his research on Advanced Fiber Composite Materials. The Singapore Scientific Challenge 2015 is jointly organised by A*STAR, NUS, NTU, SMU and SUTD as part of A*STAR’s Science@50 initiative to mark a half-century of excellent science in Singapore on her 50th birthday. It seeks to promote engagements and collaborations amongst the wider scientific community and to raise the level of scientific thought leadership in Singapore.

Two public lectures by Asst. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel at the occasion of the World Architecture Festival in Singapore on November 04 and November 05 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. From the organizers: “World Architecture Festival is the world’s largest international architectural event. It includes the biggest architectural awards programme in the world, dedicated to celebrating excellence via live presentations to delegates and international juries. This year’s programme 50:50 will examine how architecture and urbanism have changed during the last 50 years, how predictions have been fulfilled or denied, and how we think will change in the next 50 years.”

Public lecture by Asst. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel at the occasion of the exhibition “Wie Sand am Meer”, ERES-Stiftung München, on October 08, 2015. “Der Rohstoff Sand scheint unerschöpflich. Doch verschlingen heute vor allem Stahlbetonbauten der Megacities, Straßenbau und Landgewinnung solche Mengen, dass Bausand zur knappen Ressource wird. Durch die wachsende Nachfrage lohnt es sich inzwischen, Sand zu stehlen und zu schmuggeln. Insbesondere in Entwicklungsländern wird unkontrolliert abgebaut, Strände werden abgetragen, Flüsse geschürft und Meeresböden ausgebaggert. Engagiert und kenntnisreich geht die Münchner Künstlerin Stefanie Zoche verschiedensten Facetten dieses Themas nach. In eindringlichen Bildern und überraschender Formensprache formuliert sie die Gedankenlosigkeit und Widersprüchlichkeit unseres Umgangs mit der kostbaren Ressource Sand. Ein Großteil der gezeigten Skulpturen, Installationen und Videoarbeiten sind im Auftrag der ERES-Stiftung entstanden. Mit dem Projekt setzt die Stiftung ihren Ausstellungszyklus zum Thema Anthropozän fort und lenkt den Blick auf einen bislang wenig beachteten Aspekt des menschlichen Eingriffs in Geo- und Biosphäre.” (Bild und Text: Stephanie Zoche)

Public lecture by Asst. Professor Dirk E. Hebel, September 23, 2015, 6pm. “Mineralische Rohstoffe bilden die Grundlage unseres täglichen Lebens. Ihre Verfügbarkeit ist für uns selbstverständlich, und der weltweite Verbrauch nimmt stetig zu. Was sind die langfristigen Folgen unserer zunehmenden Nutzung nicht erneuerbarer Rohstoffe? Welche Herausforderungen kommen auf uns zu?”

Keynote speech by Asst. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel at the World Bamboo Congress in South Korea on September 20th, 2015. From the organizers: “In the last 20 years, the WBC as a series of Sessions & Demonstrations has grown to attract participants from more than 30 countries around the world, including world-renowned experts in bamboo design, construction, and architecture. For any professional that works with this amazing natural resource — whether a botanist, biologist, horticulturist, architect, artist, designer, businessperson, government representative, non-profit organization, or economist, the WBC has been an ideal opportunity to meet and develop collaborations in research and development, project or business development, while at the same time, advancing the social and environmental goals derived from the various applications of bamboo.”

Public lecture by Asst. Prof Dirk E. Hebel at the fifth World Sustainability Forum in Basel, Switzerland on September 7th, 2015. From the organizers: “The 5th World Sustainability Forum aims to be a platform for researchers to present and engage with research-relevant stakeholders on issues relating to sustainability. We seek to contribute to policy-relevant, change-oriented, and transdisciplinary research and collaboration from science and technology, the life sciences, and the social sciences.”

The E4D winter school 2016 aims to develop an integrated vision to a global challenge of today’s construction industry. The programme revolves around the so-far untapped resource desert sand and the question of how to activate its potential as an alternative building material for future cities. Invited experts from around the world will share their knowledge and give insights in their field of research. Participants will not only learn the theoretic background of this resource but experiment with current and future technologies to transform desert sand. Through three workshops (i) bio-cementation, (ii) sintering and (iii) 3D printing, the acquired knowledge will be tested and applied.

The E4D Winter School 2016 is organised in collaboration with ETH Global and the TU Berlin Campus in El Gouna, Egypt.

Further information and detailed program can be found here. Applicants please follow this link.

On August 24, focusTerra opened its new exhibition entitled “BodenSchätzeWerte” or Earth’s Treasures at the ETH Zurich NO Building. Focusing on the past and future’s use of our earth’s resources, the exhibition also features several research topics of the Assistant Professorship for Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel.

From the curator:
Mineral resources play a fundamental role in our daily lives. We take their availability for granted and their worldwide consumption is steadily on the rise. What are the long-term consequences of our increasing use of non-renewable resources? What challenges lie ahead for us?

This exhibition is about the formation, mining and use of mineral resources, and how we deal with products we no longer need. What can we do to ensure that resources are extracted in an economical, environmentally friendly and socially responsible way and that they are used and reused for as long and as efficiently as possible?

The exhibition will be on display from 25th August 2015 until 28th February 2016.
More information can be found here.

In the Fall Semester 2015, the design studio of Asst. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel will be planning a school in rural Cambodia within an existing village structure, about two hours north of the capital Phnom Penh. The school consists of several classrooms, a cafeteria, an auditorium as well as medical and infrastructural buildings.

For further information please visit here.
To inscribe into the design studio, please click here (ETH intranet).

Studio

Studio

Final Presentations

Final Presentations

Final Presentations

Final Presentations

Final Presentations

Berta, Schirmer

Leuzinger, Schmid

Huber, Sauser

Hofer, Huwyler

Hartwig, Niffeler

Huber, Sauser

Berta, Schirmer

Fritz, Mermod

Birchler, Rutishauser

 
On 26th May 2015 the Final Presentations took place in the Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel’s Design Studio. Guest critiques, including Bijoy Jain, Jürgen Mayer H, Steven Spier, Stefan Hörner and Philippe Block joined for the full day event and shared their valuable expertise.

In the Spring Semester 2015 the students were introduced to a broad number of Swiss resources. In collaboration with professional craftsmen they investigated the architectonic potential of specific building materials. Context, material and constructive principles followed a clear causality and ended in the design of an atelier or a different spatial arrangement of a similar scale, for the respective craftsman. On the basis of a built 1:1 extract we finally test the validity of the project.

It is the declared aim of the course to teach responsibility in the use of material resources and for the hereof deviated principles of construction. Decisions of design should not only result from aesthetic points of view, but bring up questions regarding availability of materials, skills, talents, responsibility for sustainable resources, functionality and respect for social and cultural settings and the traditional comprehension of handicraft, joining principles and production technologies.

Photo credits: Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel/ Wojciech Zawarski

Watch the ETH Zurich Pavilion being built.

The Assistant Professorship Dirk E. Hebel welcomes its new team members for the Fall Semester 2015: Philippe Jorisch is joining the teaching team at the ETH Zürich in Switzerland, Davide Fracasso and Simon Lee will be researching at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore.

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.

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.

In April 2015 swissnex San Francisco together with Chair of Architecture and Construction at ETH Zurich organized a one week event called ‘Building From Waste’. During this time everyone interested in the issues of rethinking the use of waste could participate in a series of presentations, a panel discussion, a hands-on workshop and an exhibition.

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!

Public lecture by Dirk E. Hebel at the architect@work event in Zürich, Switzerland. This international exhibition and symposium event takes place in ten different European countrys every year. The 2015 event in Zürich is the third of its kind in Switzerland. Special desigened exhibition layouts allow to place innovative ideas in architecture, construction and design at the forefront of discussion and exchange. Dirk E. Hebel will speak about the latest research outcomes of the team`s material and construction laboratories in Zürich and Singapore.

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.

On Tuesday, April 28, 2015, a stakeholders forum in Butajira city to place to present and discuss further steps of the Rural Housing research project, a combined research project of EiABC and ETH Professorship Dirk E. Hebel, with representatives of Guraghe Zone Administration, City Government, Bete Guraghe Cultural Center, colleagues from Wolkite University and Wolkite Polytechnic College and other stakeholder.

swissnex-constructingwaste

swissnex-constructingwaste

swissnex-constructingwaste

swissnex-constructingwaste

swissnex-constructingwaste

swissnex-constructingwaste

swissnex-constructingwaste

Can design reduce waste production? How can small adjustments in the typical life cycle of everyday products drastically minimize waste flow? The search for the answers to those and other refuse-related questions were the goals of this year’s ‘Constructing from Waste’ workshop in San Francisco led by Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel. Participants with different background and experience, including students, school teachers, architects and product designers, worked on eight different proposals. Andreas Müller of Birkhäuser, publisher of the Building from Waste book, awarded the best three proposals with recent publications.

The Constructing Waste: Upcycling and Rethinking Trash workshop was organized in cooperation with Mary Ellyn Johnson of swissnex SF in the frame of a one week long event at swissnex San Francisco promoting the Building from Waste book, which has just entered the US market.

For more information click here.

Photo credits: swissnex SF/ Mayleen Hollero

Building from Waste

Building from Waste

Building from Waste_NewspaperWood

Building from Waste_RecyBlock

Building from Waste_Mycoworks

Building from Waste

The exhibition Building from Waste: Material Showcase accompanied the Building from Waste book promotion week, which took place at swissnex San Francisco between April 20 – 25, 2015

The Asst. Professorship of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel brought the Building from Waste: Material Showcase to swissnex San Francisco, items of loan from the Baubibliothek of the ETH-Bibliothek. Visitors had a chance to experience over 20 alternative construction materials produced from waste. The exhibited materials cover a wide range of building elements made from straw or PET bottles, fibers extracted from old newspapers, juice and milk containers, denim jeans, and many more. Additionally the exhibition included an extended display of mycelium lightweight products in different moments of growth produced by local artist and inventor Phill Ross of Mycoworks.

For more information click here.

Photo credits: swissnex SF/ Mayleen Hollero

Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel at swissnex SF

Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel at swissnex SF

Phil Ross- Mycoworks

Thom Faulders- Studio Faulders

Peter Ratto- Recology SF

Panel discussion at swissnex SF

Felix Heisel and Marta H. Wisniewska at swissnex SF

Waste Not Panel Discussion at swissnex San Francisco on April 21, 2015 started a week-long event organized by Mary Ellyn Johnson and the swissnex SF team around the launch of the Building from Waste book for the US market.

Future resilient cities will be constructed out of their own refuse. This hypothesis was the spark for the book, Building from Waste: Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction by Dirk E. Hebel, Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel from ETH Zurich and the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore.

Felix Heisel and Marta H. Wisniewska gave a conceptual and practical look at materials and products that use waste as a renewable resource during their presentation and panel discussion at swissnex San Francisco. From the local experts, Philip Ross (Mycoworks), Thom Foulders (Foulders Studio) and Peter Ratto (Recology), the guests could hear how mushrooms can be a viable building material, how experiments in architecture are incorporating unique products focused on sustainability and renewal, and how San Francisco’s Recology is working towards zero waste for the city by 2020.

For more information click here.

Photo credits: swissnex SF/ Mayleen Hollero

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

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