Students design alternative plans for the Campus Hönggerberg of ETH Zurich
The Chair of Affective Architectures of Professor An Fonteyne has collaborated during several semesters with ETH Real Estate. The design studio is rethinking the use of the existing buildings on the campuses.
With nearly 200 buildings in Zurich alone, accounting for five billion Swiss Francs, ETH Zurich’s real estate portfolio has a huge impact on the city. Usually, ETH Real Estate Management works together with external experts to assess, plan and realize buildings. Three semesters ago however, it embarked on a collaboration that harnesses the knowledge and the ideas of the students at the Department of Architecture. Professor An Fonteyne and her team have led design studios together with ETH Real Estate that looked closely at the real estate strategy of the institution, took stock of its buildings, public spaces and landscapes, and proposed alternative approaches for the future.
In the autumn of 2023, the Competence Centre for ETH Spatial Politics ETH-SP was founded to rethink how the Department of Architecture can contribute to the spacial development of ETH Zurich. The ETH-SP investigated buildings, masterplans, finances, occupancy and vacancy rates, energy consumption, competition strategies and decision-making processes. In the first semester of the collaboration, the students developed a catalogue of all ETH Zurich buildings, analyzed the portfolio and wrote five reports from different research angles, testing their conclusions through 15 case studies.
In the spring semester 2024, the students focused on ETH Zentrum and proposed 15 architectural projects. In the autumn semester 2024 they took a new look at the Campus Hönggerberg, the site that ETH Zurich is prioritizing for its future expansion. By 2040, the university wants to increase the total volume of its buildings by 50 percent. "We wonder whether it is always necessary to increase the mass of buildings in order to create more space", Professor An Fonteyne says. "Rather than building more, we will pause to reflect on the campus as it stands and engage with the users who occupy it." The role of the design studio was to question and to critically reflect on ETH Zurich's real estate masterplan. The motto of the semester: "The next big thing will be a lot of small things”.
The semester was an opportunity for all to get to know the built environment they work in better. "Curiosity brought us to many places we have never seen on the campus", An Fonteyne says. A masterplan by EM2N architects from 2016 is the basis for the expansion of the Campus Hönggerberg. "The masterplan looks at the campus from above, we tried to look from below and within", An Fonteyne says. Students investigated the built structures and the comfort they offer, and asked people how they use the space. They engaged with the history and former visions behind the architectures. And they looked at what could be improved – with small or bigger interventions.
Student projects
Feedback during the final reviews
During the finale reviews, the students presented ten interventions on the Campus Hönggerberg. Three representatives of ETH Real Estate gave feedback, as a sort of reality-check. Interestingly, many of the proposals were not that much different from the official plans of the university. Many of the projects tried to us the space better. One project, for example, transformed parts of the garage into an open-space office floor (as an alternative for the planned new HIC building). "At a recent meeting, we discussed a similar proposition", Hannes Pichler says, the Director of ETH Real Estate Management. "ETH Zurich has plans to use its space more efficiently." Open-space offices provide activity-based workplaces and help to increase collaboration. At the same time, they could free up a lot of square meters, which would reduce the need for new buildings. Real Estate is currently testing flexible workspace modules, to make better use of its infrastructure.
Other students suggested to generate more common areas to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between people. ETH Real Estate has similar plans for certain buildings. Some projects focused on the relation between architecture and landscape, for example by orienting the rooms in the HPF building towards the central green courtyard. Others tried to improve the relation to the public. A group of students opened the façade of the HCI building to strengthen its role as a pivotal public point on the campus. A small intervention which could have a big impact. "Many of these projects are like living labs, which is very interesting", Pichler says. "But they are not easy to implement on the whole portfolio."
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Detail of student project by Jasmin Appelt, Matteo Chiabotti, Nicola Nussbaumer -
Detail of student project by Alex Galiotto, Esteban Germann, Alex Wiesner
Some students outright rejected the notion of constant expansion in their manifestos. They write about re-using, refurbishing and improving the existing. ETH Real Estate however has a mandate to build more, to make room for the projected growth of students at the university. One small building makes the different outlooks most apparent. ETH Zurich plans to replace the HXE building, which is currently used independently by students, with an 80-meter-high tower. The student's proposal, on the other hand, preserves and extends the building that goes back to the Swiss national exhibition from 1939. Growth versus preservation, change versus identity.
"We are impressed by the work you put into the analysis and your suggestions", says Hannes Pichler to the students at the end of the final review day. "We often reached similar conclusions in our planning." However, some of the ideas of the students are too idealist for Pichler. "We have to be realistic at ETH Real Estate, because we have to provide the necessary resources at the right time." Next semester, the studio will publish all the projects developed during the collaboration. ETH Real Estate plans to use them as internal references for their plans on the campus. The coming years will show, how much the student's ideas will influence the built reality.