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Urban Ecology
Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:14:31
Abstract
Green cities and nature-based solutions have become central themes of architecture and territorial planning. The course enables students to apply ecological thinking to urban design.
Objective
• Students get introduced to the thinking of ecologists and the basic concepts of ecology and evolution to be able to approach design and planning questions from an ecological perspective and to interact with ecologists. • The city is introduced as an ecological system and the key elements of urban ecology are discussed. • The relevance of ecological and evolutionary processes and patterns for urban design and planning are discussed based on contemporary real-world examples. • The intersections between ecological science and new philosophical concepts of relevance to urban design are explored, e.g. Anthropocene, biophilic design, species coexistence, or animal-aided design.
Content
We will extensively discuss applications of ecological principles in urban planning and design projects, and highlight timely topics such as Anthropocene, biophilia, rhizomatous networks of plant roots and fungi hyphen, or wilderness vs. ecological design. Based on the fundamentals from ecological science and evolutionary biology we aim to understand the ecological characteristics of urban systems from city centres to metropolitan areas and across different land uses (agriculture, forestry, recreational, infrastructures, buildings, urban greenspaces). The module is structured along five levels of biological organisation: genes and populations (evolution), physiology and adaptations, species interactions and communities (biodiversity), ecosystem ecology, and landscape ecology.
Resources
Learning Materials (Links)
- Main link
- Information
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- MSC , NDS
- Frequency
- Yearly recurring
Examination
- Type
- ungraded semester performance
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture with exercise |
Urban Ecology
No course on19.3.2026 (seminar week) and in the last two semester weeks (final critiques).
Final review day (obligatory): date and details will follow.
|
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45 h semesterly |
Offered In
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Specialized Courses (The specialized courses are freely selectable and offer students the opportunity to acquire in-depth knowledge in certain areas of landscape architecture. The details for the performance assessments are regulated in Art. 27.)
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MAS in Urban and Territorial Design (The MAS in Urban and Territorial Design requires one year of full-time postgraduate study for a 60 ECTS joint degree, the “MAS ETH EPF UTD”. It is taught in English and held at the two Swiss schools, EPFL (Autumn) and ETH Zurich (Spring).)