The assignment reimagines the vacant former Kinderspital Zürich (KISPI), a complex of ten diverse buildings in Hottingen. Responding to uncertain demolition and the housing crisis, students propose housing and public uses. Each group develops one building as an autonomous protagonist within a collective, experimental vision beyond a conventional masterplan.

For us Living together means rethinking housing and investigating how architecture could host not only human needs, but also the presence and agency of plants, animals, microorganisms, water etc. Moving beyond an anthropocentric approach, we require new spatial typologies, porous structures, generous thresholds, systems for managing water and enhancing biodiversity.

Every building is the result of a competitive system. This semester we are embracing Mutual Aid! It will offer students the chance to deepen their storytelling and visual production skills while gaining a comprehensive understanding of the systemic preconditions of architecture.

The Gauss-Stierli-Areal is on the eve of major transformation. If we want to retain this existing industrial heritage for future generations, could we write the script for its fringes to unburden the original structures from the pressures of development? What if the key to bringing more life and space into the city is not systematic but irregular, specific and opportunistic?

During the spring semester 2026, the Architecture and Care design studio will address public care infrastructures through the lens of what is considered to be private, domestic, reproductive space. The studio aims to subvert the dichotomy between public and private, productive and reproductive spheres, and imagine what a “public domestic” could be.

Architecture is not produced in isolation. It emerges from the long-term interaction between territory, material availability, construction cultures, and socio-economic change. In alpine regions, these relationships become particularly legible: resources are limited, landscapes are fragile, and architectural decisions tend to have lasting territorial consequences..

We engage with sandstone, its extraction and processing methods, and its role as a load-bearing material within structural and constructive systems. In the cities of Fribourg and St. Gallen, we develop residential floor plans and explore the architectural qualities and aesthetic potentials that emerge from an examination of material processes and temporal cycles.

How can urban and architectural prototypes inform design codes?How can we invent urban rules that address climate and environmental qualities?

We will work with reused building elements to design adaptable collective housing in Zurich. Projects grow from a catalogue of found components, testing new ideas of performance, expression, and making.

Nach unserem Semester in Arni (AG), in welchem wir die systemischen Grundgesetze des Schweizer Dorfes untersucht haben, legen wir dieses Semester den Fokus auf die spezifischen Eigentümlichkeiten, die den liebenswerten Charakter von Hüttikon als Dorf ausmachen.

Architecture is an act of world-building. This semester, we will become prophets of new worlds yet to come. We will learn from existing world-building practices, from science-fiction literature to architecture and game design, that is, radical imagination practices that venture into the utopian. From our newly created perspective, we will design alternative futures for the RIA Halle in Oerlikon.

This semester, we would like to invite you to explore the environmental and social impact of the Swiss data cloud. How can we study securitized spaces of minimal human presence? Who controls the use of data? Can data centres serve as public assets. How can data centres be designed to contribute better to a just transition and to urban life?

In the studio’ Design for Climate: Earth and Sun’, we will investigate earthen and bio-based materials and the sun as a provider of abundant energy for creating place and space.

This semester we will work in the village of Ennenda, a place with a long history and a diverse legacy of buildings. While agriculture is very present in the village and its surroundings, factories that are part of supply chains within the Glarus valley, employ almost one thousand people.

In the design studio EVERYTHING YOU NEED, will work on new cooperative apartment buildings along the train tracks between Zurich and Olten.

RETHINKING LANDSCAPE STRUCTURESThe semester explores new ways of dealing with infrastructure projects and explores exemplary climate adaptations of the Swiss cultural landscape.