Preliminary results of the PhD thesis "Subtropical Vienna" by Julian Raffetseder are currently on display at the World EXPO Osaka 2025. Selected from more than 200 submissions the project is part of the "Planet" exhibition running from August 15 to October 12 in the Swiss Pavilion. The project continues the chairs long term research on "Thermal Governance" highlighting the need for collective responses to the climate crisis. 

The PhD project “Subtropical Vienna: Integrating Solar Governance in the Climate Adaptation of a Central European City” investigates how solar governance, the deliberate planning of daylight and shade access in cities, can guide the climate adaptation of compact urban form in Central Europe. Using scenario-based methods, it explores how the built environment can respond to future climate conditions by negotiating solar and shade access in ways that are both spatially and societally meaningful.

method

The exhibited model shows a climate adaptation scenario for a “Subtropical Vienna” where the access to daylight and shade are carefully balanced. It explores how sunlight and shade can shape a city’s geometry while maintaining daylight access. Color coding reveals the relationship between claims for daylight access (blue) and shade provision (red), and the volumes that result from them. The design scenario is informed by prior stakeholder interviews collecting the sun and shade preferences of local residents. 

Thermal Governance - EXPO Osaka

Chair of Architectural Design and Participation, TU Munich

Chair of Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environments, USI Mendrisio

The WATER FUTURES exhibition explores the potential of water not only as a physical substance, but also as a medium that shapes and is shaped by the urban and architectural imagination. In our time, there is an undeniable urgency to address water as more than just a commodity. Issues such as the privatisation of resources, scarcity, contamination and large-scale extractive practices make this engagement critical and urgent. Yet, water also continues to serve as a generative force - promoting health, care and collective action. To address these challenges, water pedagogies in architectural education must embrace water’s dual character: as a site of crisis and as a source of creativity, community and resilience.

The joint travelling exhibition of two chairs from the Technical University Munich (Germany) and the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio (Switzerland) presents student projects on the theme of WATER FUTURES. It highlights the project outcomes of the design studios of the Chair of Architectural Design and Participation headed by Prof. Francis Kéré (2022-2024) and the results of a research seminar of the Chair of Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environments under the direction of Prof. Sascha Roesler (2023). The exhibition builds multiple bridges between architectural design and research, while addressing the pressing global water challenges that are exacerbated by climate change.

The Chair of Architecture Design and Participation projects emphasised contextual sensitivity and encouraged students to develop site-specific solutions through a mix of conceptual thinking and hands-on experimentation. Over the past six semesters, students have addressed water challenges at a variety of scales and design programmes. These range from elements to buildings, from devices to landscape masterplans, with a focus on unconventional water sources and resilient architecture. Projects from the design briefs COLLECTRA[SH], FOODTOPIA, [SUP]PORT and WATER EVER showcase creative interventions from around the world, that address local issues such as flooding, drought, pollution, local resource availability, biodiversity, passive systems and underline the need for spaces that benefit local communities while proposing sustainable systems for water harvesting and use. The projects point to possible directions for the future of architecture when faced with water-related challenges.

The works by the Chair of Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environment's research seminar focused on the future impact of rising sea levels on the (urban) coastal environment, urging students to combine scientific knowledge with architectural foresight. The seminar emphasized the need for future-oriented competence of architects; it equipped the students with tools to anticipate and adapt to ecological changes. The students explored the future of cities through interdisciplinary approaches, incorporating sociological, technological and political insights to promote resilient infrastructure and urban planning strategies for a series of case studies worldwide.

Combining the site-specific projects with real-scale components by the Chair of Architectural Design and Participation with the research-based scenarios by the Chair of Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environmentseminar, this touring exhibition presents an integrated view of how architecture and urbanism can address the multiple challenges of climate change. The works on display emphasise the importance of collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts to design a resilient way forward for our water-affected landscapes.

ZAZ Bellerive - Zentrum Architektur, Zurich 

Water and Time in Education and Design

The Climate Adaptation Lab and the Material Transition Lab opened their joint exhibition at the Palazzo Canavée at the Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio. The two seminars challenge the separation of mitigation and adaptation in architectural thinking, proposing a shift in perspective that sees climate change as both a material and spatial question.

The exhibition showcases the thoughtful work of third-year Bachelor students, who engaged critically and creatively with questions at the intersection of climate, material, and design

The Climate Adaptation Lab – Subtropical Vienna

Student developed Postcards from Subtropical Vienna respond to Vienna’s projected climatic shift by studying global analogue cities and conducting fieldwork interviews in Milan. The resulting rulesets propose adaptation strategies at the scale of district, street, and building—negotiating sun, shade, and the spatial implications of climate change.

Led by Prof. Dr. Sascha Roesler and Julian Raffetseder

Ground futures

The Material Transition Lab – Ground Futures

This seminar explored the architectural agency of ground-based materials—earth, stone, and clay—within the context of energy and material transition. Rather than seeking novelty, students engaged with historical practices and the concept of Stoffwechsel to rethink the role of materials in sustainable construction and architectural continuity.

Led by Prof. Dr. Sascha Roesler and Dr. Lydia Xynogala

Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Canavée building

The Climate Adaptation Lab - The Material Transition Lab

"Perhaps no country in the world possesses a greater abundance of mineral waters than Greece, nor is there any country in which they are less known," wrote Frederick Strong, the English consul to Bavaria and Hannover in Athens, in his 1842 book Greece as a Kingdom.

The scientific analysis of mineral springs, rocks, and soil in Greece in the late nineteenth century led to a new understanding of the country’s landscape and resources: its airs, waters, and places. In a process of conceptual mineralization, the terrain was documented as a broad chemical network with healing properties. Doctors, chemists, and geologists constructed knowledge through fieldwork, laboratory studies, and treatises. From geochemical evaluation to proposals for actual buildings, minerals such as sodium chloride, magnesium, and sulfates became the impetus for a major construction endeavor. Greek Thermalism - a nationwide taking of the waters – peaking in the interwar and postwar eras. The state sought to take care of its citizens through the promotion of natural treatments for a wide range of medical symptoms. State-funded bathing towns at hot springs known as Loutropolis emerged across the country with corresponding buildings: hydroclinics. Tourism flourished in these new urban centers; the water bottling industry, roads, railway networks, and other infrastructures grew around them.

This exhibition explores the significance of this movement by re-enacting two pivotal historic moments: Greece’s display at the 1878 Paris World Fair with Pericles House where Section V, among various ground specimens featured bottles of mineral spring waters. For the financially struggling new Greek state, mineral resources symbolized progress and potential, subject to the scrutiny of the Great Powers. The second re-enactment is of Room No. 7 from the 1938 Hygiene Exhibition held during the Metaxas dictatorship. This exhibition reflected the Greek state's organized efforts to promote its mineral-rich sites as international destinations for hydrotherapy and leisure tourism in the 1930’s.

This exhibition brings together rare books, posters, postcards, and historic maps alongside architectural fragments, accounting records, and various artifacts collected by Xynogala during her fieldwork - culminating in a diverse display that also includes a water bar: it contains mineral spring waters collected over the course of four years. Presented are also actions by "Friends of the 750 Mineral Springs of Greece" a non-profit association dedicated to the maintenance and preservation of an often-overlooked natural resource and cultural heritage.

In an earlier iteration the exhibition was presented at gta exhibitions in collaboration with Niels Olsen and Fredi Fischli.

Images

Exhibition at Accademia di Architettura (Mendrisio)

Loutropolis - Mineral Springs and Baths in Greece

In my talk, I will revisit the German term "Stoffwechsel," which was coined in the 19th century by such prominent figures as the chemist Justus von Liebig, who defined the term scientifically, the philosopher Karl Marx and the architect Gottfried Semper, who gave the term theoretical significance. Literally, Stoffwechsel means "(ex)change of matter". Over the course of the 19th century, the term Stoffwechsel moved beyond its scientific origins in physiology and reverberated widely across the areas of economics, technology, art, and architecture. In the light of these writings, Stoffwechsel means both the "transformability of materials" in architecture (Ákos Moravánszky) and the "metabolic regimes" of urban and ecological systems (Timothy Morton), thus addressing the character of the development of the material world. According to Marx, Stoffwechsel does not occur solely as a biochemical automatism, but always requires also "labor". Labor appears as a "process between man and nature"; through labor, Stoffwechsel leaves the purely natural automatisms, such as digestion or photosynthesis. The decisive factor here was to analyse Stoffwechsel not as a mere abstraction (metabolism), but as a concrete exchange of matter through transforming labor (metamorphosis), which corresponded to the basic intuitions of the architect Gottfried Semper. Semper carried out an early anthropological analysis of labor as a process of making, which added the aspect of form to the production of things that cannot be reduced to technology and matter. It is only by considering this multifaceted theoretical legacy that the significance of Stoffwechsel for today’s ecological thinking can be revealed.

Conference “Marx in the Anthropocene”, 11-14 March 2025, IUAV, Venice (Italy)

Labor and Form – Revisiting "Stoffwechsel"

In the twentieth century, architectural theory has shown difficulties to deal with the sphere of knowledge that is occupied, both in method and content, by so-called architectural anthropology. The emergence of architectural an- thropology itself can be understood as an outcome of a conceptual omission in architectural theory as it evolved since the 1960s—this is the central the- sis of this paper. To support this thesis, I will, in a first step, recall the his- toriographical self-understanding of architectural theory; in a second step, I will sketch the early field of architectural anthropological research in order to name forms of differentiation of this field. Finally, I will explain what can be described as the today’s legacy of architectural anthropology: Beyond its occupation with the material culture of popular architecture, it is a field-re- search practice through which empirical methods have entered into architectural research.

Presence of Architectural History, Wolkenkuckucksheim. International Journal of Architectural Theory, Vol. 28, Issue 44/45, 2024/25

The Archive and the Field. Ethnographic Research in Architectural Theory

While tools of prediction and simulation used by climatologists and planners are becoming more and more sophisticated, urban futures are increasingly uncertain. In this context, this conference examines the relations between urban and cultural production and the transforming tools and methods for forecasting and simulating climatic futures. It asks, how can cultural production respond to and use climate simulations, and what is the role of architecture, culture and art in envisioning multiple climatic futures?

The term simulation, which originates from the Latin “simulō” or “imitate”, has gained new meaning in recent decades, in which computer simulations have transfromed many scientific and cultural domains (Heymann, Gramelsberger, Mahony 2017). According to Jean Baudrillard’s renowned Simulacra and Simulation (1995), the simulation of reality contains more truth than reality itself. This symposium will therefore focus on simulation in the search for new insights into our uncertain climatic future, especially in cities.

Climatic prediction and simulation have invariably formed part of architecture and urban design. Technologies of simulation for anticipating the environmental and microclimatic effects of design solutions and so called “ecological design” were the prerequisites for rethinking the existing city. In the context of new environmental laboratories since the early 1960s, scientific knowledge on urban climates has been generated through simulation and experimentation (e.g. wind tunnels). Examples of the investigation of wind flows through simulation in closed physical experimental set-ups are the Micrometeorological Wind Tunnel at Colorado State University or the Environmental Simulation Lab in Berkeley, where the wind profiles of emerging high-rise districts have been investigated (Roesler 2022).

In the last decades, simulations in urban design are increasingly complexifying (Batty and Torrens 2005); new instruments and laboratories are playing a systematic role in the scientific anticipation and simulation of the future. At the same time, climate fiction (cli-fi) and ecocriticism have become established ways in which literature and culture reacts and engages with the climate crisis. Architecture and urban design have adopted speculative methods from cultural practices such as literature and film, imagining and planning for multiple scenarios and futures. Cultural production and critique has in turn been informed by urban climatology.

However, although architecture and urban design have turned towards the future as never before, there is a dearth of academic reflection on this turn, and on the significance of simulation technologies and climate speculation for cultural production that reflects on the climate crisis. This transdisciplinary conference asks about the role played by the prediction and simulation of the climate in urban design and cultural production past, present, and future. It will bring together architectural and urban historians, cultural and media theorists, science and technology studies scholars, historians of science and climatology to explore the new role of climate prediction and speculation in urban design and cultural production.

Panel 1

Andri Gerber: How to play CO2: Environmental games as ultimate simulations?

Andri Gerber explores the relationship between games, architecture, and urban design, referencing Jean Baudrillard’s ideas on simulation and simulacra. He argues that games function as simulations, translating aspects of reality into mechanics and themes, with architecture and urban environments often serving as references. However, while games influence how reality is represented, their impact on architectural and urban design has been limited. With increasing awareness of the climate crisis, environmental games present new opportunities for engagement and education but also face challenges. Games are powerful cultural and pedagogical tools, yet they simplify reality and often carry specific ideological biases. They are also technologically fixed, limiting player agency. By considering games as cultural practices, the discussion aims to assess their potential and limitations in shaping architectural thought. A historical perspective will be introduced, tracing the development of environmental games and the increasing complexity of their simulation models.

Anne Dippel: The Depths of Illusion. Knowing Reality Through Computer Simulations

In this talk Anne Dippel explores the decline of concept-based truth in the digital age, focusing on how computer simulations shape knowledge in physics. Using a media ethnography of the quantum physics double-slit experiment and its simulation, Anne Dippel introduces "operational realism" as a way to navigate digital epistemic challenges. The presentation, based on a recent book co-authored with Martin Warnke, examines the ethical implications of algorithmic world design and the role of media in knowledge production. Drawing from new materialism, media theory, and queer-feminist science and technology studies (STS), the talk reflects on different epistemic perspectives through a case study that blends theory and practice with humor and critical insights.

Panel 2

Panel 2: simulation as cultural technique

Marco Caracciolo: Weirded Urban Spaces in Contemporary Fiction and Video Games

Marco Caracciolo explores how the literary mode of the weird is uniquely suited to grappling with the uncertainty of the climate crisis. Originating in H.P. Lovecraft’s early 20th-century work and later reimagined by authors like Jeff VanderMeer and China Miéville, the weird blends science fiction and horror while emphasizing bodily atmospheres. Marco Caracciolo examines how the weirding of urban spaces in fiction enables the simulation of both empirical and affective instabilities caused by climate change. Using China Miéville’s The City & the City (2009) and the video game Alan Wake 2 (2023) as case studies, the talk argues that these narratives provide compelling frameworks for representing climate uncertainty in an emotionally resonant way.

Peter Krapp: Simulation as a cultural technique

In this talk Peter Krapp explores simulation as both a cultural technique and a means of preserving cultural memory through modeling, imitation, and serious play. He examines how simulation serves as a critique of the computer age, tracing its media history from ancient thought experiments to modern computing. Peter Krapp challenges common-sense realism as anti-speculative and highlights simulation’s role in shaping our understanding of mediated reality. The discussion also addresses the theoretical foundations of computing, particularly the ability of universal Turing machines to emulate one another, emphasizing the significance of simulation for digital heritage, archives, museums, and the preservation of digital culture.

With the speakers of Panels 1 and 2: Andri Gerber, Anne Dippel, Marco Caracciolo and Peter Krapp. Moderated by Noa Levin and Sascha Roesler.

PANEL 3

Angela Rout: Reimagining Data: New Approaches to Climate- Responsive

This presentation examines how data visualization and computational methods can be adapted for architecture, allowing practitioners to interpret complex information in spatially and visually intuitive ways. Architecture transforms observations into meaningful spaces for people and the environment, and with digital technologies and ubiquitous sensors, architects now have access to vast new data sources. Architectural data—ranging from observations to visual records—is dynamic and multidimensional. While scientific data analysis methods reveal patterns, they must be reimagined to align with the creative, context-driven nature of design. This lecture explores how redefining architectural data can lead to proactive, climate-responsive solutions that address both environmental and human needs.

Joshua Silver: Observing the Future: Digital Simulation to Sustain Networks of Design Practice

Joshua Silver explores how digital simulation practices help sustain precarious architectural design and construction, particularly in the face of uncertain work conditions and the climate crisis. Using the Los Angeles Academy Museum of Motion Pictures as a case study, he examines two simulation approaches: Transsolar’s "thermal comfort" consulting, which uses simulations to adapt design features to future climate uncertainties, and Kiran Consulting Group’s Discrete Event people flow simulations, which model building occupants as spatial problems to be solved. The paper concludes by reflecting on the limitations of simulations, including their rejection or failure to sustain the futures they propose.

Panel 4

Dario Negueruela del Castillo: Simulating Urban Denkstile: Vision-Language Models as Theoretical Lenses for Uncertain Futures

This presentation introduces an innovative urban simulation approach that integrates data-driven digital twinning with critical urban theory. Utilizing advanced vision-language models (VLMs) enhanced with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), the method operationalizes the thought styles (Denkstile) of urban theorists like Henri Lefebvre, Walter Benjamin, and Georg Simmel, alongside contemporary paradigms such as assemblage theory and urban metabolism. Rather than merely aggregating data, this approach simulates the complex social, material, and discursive assemblages that shape cities, offering a historically grounded, multi-layered perspective on urban environments. Initial results demonstrate how AI-driven methods facilitate dialogues between theoretical frameworks and urban realities, providing a nuanced alternative to reductionist, purely data-driven models. By critically engaging with simulation as a cultural technique, this work contributes to speculative urban planning, exploring multiple climatic and urban futures while examining AI’s role in cultural production and urban climatology. Ultimately, this fusion of computational innovation and theoretical insight advances discussions on urban resilience, climate adaptation, and the future of cities amid environmental and technological change.

Orit Halpern: Planetary Experiments: Science, Life, and Politics in the Age of the Anthropocene

We are living in an era of planetary experimentation, where the boundaries between scientific laboratories and the world itself have dissolved, as noted by Bruno Latour. Large-scale scientific projects, such as the Event Horizon Telescope and the European Commission’s Destination Earth, exemplify this shift by using the entire planet as an experimental space. The concept of the Anthropocene further reinforces this notion, as human-caused global warming has been framed as both an unintended experiment and a problem requiring deliberate planetary-scale interventions. This paper examines how digital twinning technologies, particularly NVIDIA’s Earth 2 and the EU’s Destination Earth, are reshaping planetary management by automating data analysis and utilizing generative AI for climate crisis response. These developments signal a broader epistemic transformation in how knowledge is produced and life is governed in the digital age.

With the speakers of Panel 3 and 4: Angela Rout, Joshua Silver, Dario Negueruela del Castillo and Orit Halpern. Moderated by Noa Levin and Sascha Roesler.

With all speakers of the day, followed by the conclusion by Sascha Roesler. 

A one-day Symposium organized by the Institute of Urban and Landscape Studies (ISUP), and the Institute for History and Theory of Art and Architecture (ISA), and the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio (USI), in collaboration with ZAZ Bellerive – Zentrum Architektur Zürich, at Höschgasse 3, 8008 Zürich

On Simulation: A Cultural Technique for Uncertain Urban Futures

We are currently be witnessing an important shift in architectural theory, in which the category of ‘future’ increasingly replaces the dominant role of ‘history’. While in recent decades history has guaranteed a solid understanding of temporality and development in architecture, current ecological upheavals (climate change, energy transition, etc.) are challenging this status. As the historian Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued, the future (in the 21st century) eludes ‘the grasp of historical sensibility’ due to the unprecedented character of the climate crisis. In the field of tension between ‘experience and expectation’ (Reinhart Koselleck), architecture is increasingly falling under the spell of what is to come. New, non-primarily historical methods and concepts of futuring are therefore required. In my contribution, I will address emerging forms of knowledge about the future in the context of the current ecological challenges and pose the question of the future (in) architectural theory.

“Resources for a Future” Symposium, in the frame of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2024, Estonian Academy of Arts

The Future as a Resource

The Climate Adaptation Lab aims at rethinking climate control – a key concern of the discipline of architecture – through the lens of city climate and climate change phenomena. Architecture’s one-sided obsession with controlling the indoor climate of individual buildings is questioned and the (thermal) dialectics between inside and outside examined instead.

Due to its man-made character, the city climate differs fundamentally from the natural climate. By looking at the historical emergence of this concept since the beginning of the 20th century (as urban climatology) and the complex adaptation in the field of architecture and urban design, a robust architectural knowledge for today’s discussions on the “climate adaptation and mitigation” was provided. After an introduction into the history of modern architecture and urban planning striving for new “climate cities,” case studies and methods with particular relevance for today’s architects were addressed.

Relying on these theoretical approaches, the city of Vienna served as a main case study for the students. The city of Vienna is projected to change its climatic zone from the humid-continental to the humid-subtropical by 2050. This climatic shift of cities can also be described by defining city analogues (Bastin et al.). This method holds interesting implications for architectural research: What (implicit) knowledge can we derive from the study of analogue cities for the climate adaptation of Vienna? The seminar therefore looked closely at the similarities and differences of the public realm in the humid-subtropical city of Milan, analyzing the preconditions that constitute its urban thermal landscape and developed ways of transferring this knowledge to Vienna.


Federico Bertagna (ETH Zürich)
Giulio Bettini (Penzis Bettini Architekten, Zürich)
Giulio Galasso (ETH Zürich)
Dr. Lidia Gasperoni (TU Berlin)
Dr. Lorenzo Stieger (USI)
Natalia Voroshilova (Master Student ETH)
Dr. Noa Levin (USI)
Prof. Dr. Rainer Hehl (TU Berlin)
Sibil Sträuli (Pini & Sträuli architects, Milan)

Group D


Cipolla Emanuele
Contini Massimo
Frigerio Edoardo Gabriele
Monaco Gabriele
Robatto Elena

Group F


Carnal Robin
Heleno Oliveira Monica
Jeannerat Louise
Moser Nadja

Group K


Jacopo Gioanina
Simone Mirabella
Matteo Miretta
Nora Soldati

City, Climate, and Architecture – The Climate Adaptation Lab

While 20th century architecture learned to control the climate of a building, the architecture of the 21st century needs to learn to cope with the climate of cities. Problems such as urban heat and air pollution need to be included in planning and design. Based on empirical realities in Cairo, Chongqing, Geneva and Santiago de Chile, the book underlines that the materiality and social practices attached to room heating, compound greening, street alignment or climate policies together form the tissue for contemporary urban climates. It interweaves socio-cultural with meteorological data and pioneers the new concept of "thermal governance" by linking architectural and technological as well as legal and economic dimensions of climate control in urban environments.

Main outcome of a six-year research project on "architecture and urban climates," funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Based on ethnographic inquiries and visual mappings.

Geneva (Switzerland):
The Architecturalization of Water Ecologies
On the Integration of Energy Transition and Climate Adaptation
Lorenzo Stieger


Santiago de Chile:
The Standardization of Indoor–Outdoor Transitions
On the Dynamics between Public Spaces and Climate Control
Lionel Epiney


Chongqing (People’s Republic of China):
The Electrification of the Urban Fabric
On Governing the Built Environment’s Seasonality
Madlen Kobi


Cairo (Egypt):
The Domestication of Urban Heat
On the Everyday Production of Microclimates
Dalila Ghodbane

Architecture and Thermal Governance
Six Components
Sascha Roesler, Madlen Kobi, Lorenzo Stieger


Urban Climate Protocols
Visualizing Socio-climatic Differences
Sascha Roesler, Madlen Kobi, Lorenzo Stieger,
Chandrasekhar Ramakrishnan, Adrian Ehrat ;
with the support of Lionel Epiney and Dalila Ghodbane

Volume 2 in the series Klima Polis, Birkhäuser

Coping with Urban Climates - Comparative Perspectives on Architecture and Thermal Governance

The publication rethinks climate control – a key concern of the discipline of architecture – through the lens of city climate phenomena over the course of the 20th century. Based on a history of climate control on urban scales, it promotes the integration of indoors and outdoors in order to reduce environmental and thermal loads in cities. Just as heating and cooling practices inside the buildings are affecting the (urban) climate outdoors, urban heat islands are influencing the energy requirements and thermal conditions inside the buildings.
While the first part of the book focuses on the interwar period in Europe, the publication’s second part considers examples from all over the globe, tracing the growing significance of ecological thinking for the design of urban environments.

A new series highlighting design-driven approaches to urban climates across the globe.

I European Developments before 1945:
The Field of Knowlegde

Urban Studies of Man-made Climates
An Introduction


1 Thermal Geographies of the European City
Urban Hygiene and the Heat Economy


2 Man-made Climate by Design
Urban Climatology and Modern Architecture


3 Democratizing Urban Nature
Infrastructures of Climate Control at Large Scales

II Global Adaptations after 1945:
Three Design Metaphors


Design Metaphors of Man-made Climates
An Introduction


4 Thermal Heritage
Collective Memory and the Natural History of Cities


5 Microclimatic Islands
Thermal Spectacles and Closed-system Imaginaries


6 Energy-Synergy
Energy Ecologies and Settlement Structures

7 Singapore as a Model?
Urban Climate Control in Practice

Volume 1 in the series Klima Polis, Birkhäuser

City, Climate, and Architecture - A Theory of Collective Practice

In this semester’s seminar students documented the current energy landscape of Warsaw and imagined ways for its transition towards a carbon free future. The fragmented quality of the city fabric, its strong infrastructural imprint and its continuing reliance on fossil energy make it an intriguing object of study. Building upon emblematic ethnographic descriptions of urban ecologies by Boyarsky and Banham, student groups of two developed their take on the energy ecologies found in the city of Warsaw.

Building upon an analysis of the status quo during a field trip to Warsaw, students envisioned a transition strategy during the following seminar weeks in Mendrisio. In a shift to a more contemporary medium, students were asked to produce a video essay that develops a new chapter in the conceptual dealings with urban energy. The fieldwork material acquired during the excursion formed the basis for the video essay production in Mendrisio.

Informed by input lectures of filmmakers, theorists, and architects, students had the chance to iteratively work on their video essay along the six seminar days of the semester. As a final outcome, students formulated their unique approach to urban energy theory in the form of a video essay and presented it in front of invited guests.


Dr. Adam Przywara (University of Manchester)
Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Iacobis (CENTRALA)
Monika Konrad (Head of municipal planning Warsaw)
Michał Suchora (BWA Warsaw)
Aleksandra Kedziorek (MSN Warsaw)
Anna Ptak (Warsaw University)
Patrycja Okuljar (Studio Okuljar)
Dr. Rafael Dernbach (USI)
Prof. Milica Topalović (ETH Zürich)
Prof. Kevin B. Lee (USI)

Group 06

Group 01

Group 02

Group 03

Group 04

Scarcity of Means: Warszawianka Sports Complex

Group 05

Energy Microgrids: Za Zelazna Brama Estate

Group 07

Group 08

Group 09

Warsaw: Energy Landscapes and Energy Transitions

This lecture series promotes the notion of "energy landscape" as a conceptualframework to challenge our current understanding of energy as a cheapand abundant resource for architecture. It presents concepts and methods for designing the energy landscapes of the future.

The City as Energy Landscape 

This project, located next to a highway overpass, combines adaptation and mitigation strategies in the redevelopment of an industrial site. The design connects indoor and outdoor spaces, addressing solar exposure, wind dynamics, and biodiversity as key elements of its microclimatic approach.

To adapt for warming climate conditions, shade and wind are considered key design elements. The highway overpass serves as a source of valuable shade during hot summer days, creating cooler and more comfortable outdoor spaces. Towers are positioned at a 45-degree angle to prevailing wind directions, reducing gusts and minimizing façade downwash enhancing pedestrian comfort.

Optimized structural shading elements on the façades provide essential shade while also generating photovoltaic electricity, supporting renewable energy production and lowering energy demand. The use of sustainable materials, such as wood and rammed earth, minimizes embodied carbon in construction processes. Green infrastructure, including vegetated façades and permeable surfaces, enhances biodiversity and mitigates urban heat accumulation.

The project integrates adaptation and mitigation strategies, connecting microclimate considerations with sustainable design to address the challenges of future urban climates.

Urban Design Competition with ARGE Meier Hug Semadeni Architekten

Werkstadt, Bern Ausserholligen

The “Testplanung HB/Central 2050” was an interdisciplinary competition commissioned by the City of Zurich to develop a long-term strategy for the area surrounding its main station. As part of this process, the chair devised a microclimatic strategy that goes beyond conventional heat mitigation to emphasize the role of thermal diversity in urban environments.

The urban climatic concept integrates the changing thermal qualities throughout days and seasons around Zurich HB to inform programmatic uses. Sunny winter locations are suggested for public transport stops while continuously shaded walkways are provided for summer. Indoor and outdoor climates are conceived as interdependent, both serving the future thermal diversity and pleasure of Zurich’s inhabitants.

The differentiated and interdisciplinary approach to urban climate design was positively highlighted in the jury report.

Testplanung with pool Architekten, S2L, Atelier Descombes, mrs Partner, and Urban Catalyst

Masterplan HB / Central 2050, Zürich

The aim of this paper is to broaden the Eurocentric architectural history of climate control by introducing a discussion of the interrelation of architecture and thermal practices in the Southern Chinese “non-heating” zone. Based on a governmental policy that dates from the 1950s, China is divided into a heated North, where urban houses enjoy the amenities of a district heating infrastructure, and a non-heated South, which lacks this infrastructure. Most high-rise buildings in this zone are constructed without insulation, and a rapidly growing middle class heats under uninsulated conditions. Residents mitigate the winter cold through active means of climate control, primarily with electric devices that serve to warm certain parts of their bodies, or warm limited spaces in their apartments. This paper is based on a methodology that combines ethnographic building analysis, discourse analysis, architectural theory, and building science. Most of the fieldwork data - including home visits and interviews with residents and thermal experts - was collected in winter 2017-18, in the northern part of the non-heating zone of China, especially in the city of Chongqing. Our architectural view of heating in the non-heating zone perceives buildings as agents that mediate between the macro- and the micro-scale, between the North and South, and between inside and outside.

Article published in ABE (Architecture Beyond Europe) 17, 2020

Urban Climate Indoors. Rethinking Heating Infrastructure in China's Non-Heating Zone

The exhibition promotes the notion of “energy landscape” as a conceptual framework to challenge our current understanding of energy as a cheap and abundant source for architecture. It presents concepts and methods for designing the energy landscapes of the future, taking the greater region of Geneva in Switzerland as its case study. While in the last few decades the discipline of architecture was mainly concerned with the self-sufficiency of individual buildings, the exhibition emphasizes the need for a new urban scale for saving energy, which integrates technological systems and natural processes.

The City as Energy Landscape Exhibition

In den Städten Europas sind Wohngebäude auf die steigenden Sommertemperaturen nicht vorbereitet. Überhitzung wird zusehends als ein Problem wahrgenommen, welchem entweder architektonisch oder technisch begegnet werden kann. Vergleichbar mit Entwicklungen in tropischen Gebieten werden in den kommenden Jahren wohl auch die Wohngebäude Zentraleuropas vermehrt mit mechanischen Kühlinfrastrukturen ausgestattet. Diese voraussehbare Entwicklung verläuft konträr zum Gebot der Stunde, den Energieverbrauch im Gebäudesektor massiv zu senken. Im Rahmen dieses Vortrags soll die wachsende Nachfrage nach gebäudekühlenden Massnahmen im europäischen Wohnungsbau zum Anlass genommen werden, um über die konzeptionelle Verknüpfung von Aussen- und Innenraumklima in Städten nachzudenken. Das architektonische Paradigma, das den Sommer als ein thermisches Problem des Aussenraumes begreift, den Winter hingegen als ein Problem des Innenraumes, verliert zusehends seine Gültigkeit.

ÖGFA-Österreichische Gesellschaft für Architektur, Säulenraum der Wirkstätte, Wien.

Gebäudekühlung im europäischen Wohnungsbau

Microclimates, as natural or technical phenomena, are thermal zones with site-specific physical and thermodynamic characteristics; they are shaped by air temperature, moisture, rain, wind and other environmental factors. This publication emphasizes the man-made character of urban microclimates, and as such, expands existing approaches from applied climatology and building science. As artifacts, microclimates are part of local material cultures with various ecological, social and political implications. Following a theoretical approach which mediates between architecture and the social sciences, this publication explores how thermal diversity — both outdoors and indoors — is a product of human interaction with the built environment of cities. The case studies and interviews critically engage with urban microclimates in Burkina Faso, France, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan and the United States. Far from being arbitrary, the case studies highlight the critical role of architects, landscape architects and urban planners in the design and construction of urban microclimates.

Microclimates and the City. Towards an Architectural Theory of Thermal Diversity / Sascha Roesler and Madlen Kobi

Between Laboratory and Sea Ranch. Architecture and the Notion of Microclimate / Lisa Heschong, in Conversation with Sascha Roesler

Citizens and Climate. Microclimatic Patterns in Medieval Cities (Northern Italy) / Roberto Leggero

Indoor Urbanism. Air-Conditioned Microclimates in Metro Manila (The Philippines) / Marlyne Sahakian

Public Microclimates. Thermal Outdoor Expectations in Post-Earthquake Christchurch (New Zealand) / Silvia Tavares

Thermal Sensations. The Case of the Jade Eco Park in Taichung (Taiwan) / Philippe Rahm, in Conversation with Sascha Roesler

Thermal Layers. The Case of the Lycée Schorge in Koudougou (Burkina Faso) / Francis Kéré, in Conversation with Madlen Kobi

Building a Brazilian Climate. The Case of the House of Brazil in Paris (France) / Ignacio Requena-Ruiz

Heating and Cooling the Desert. The Case of the Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs (USA) / Matthias Brunner

The Urban Microclimate as Artifact. Towards an Architectural Theory of Thermal Diversity

Thermal standards exert an increasing impact in architecture. What has been a minor issue in planning processes just three decades ago has become an inflexible determinant in the design practice of architects. Thermal standards increasingly determine the concept, structure and form of buildings; just think of the imperative to insulate building envelopes. Even more, thermal standards turned out to be the silver bullet of Western societies on their way towards energy transition and sustainable architecture. Agencies like the US-American “LEED“, the British “BREEAM“, the German “Passivhaus“ or the Swiss “Minergie“, “2000-Watt Society,“ and “SNBS“ offer certifiable solutions for thermal comfort in combination with the promise of sustainability for architecture and cities. Based on case studies from Switzerland and various international contexts, the conference inquires in what ways the global circulation of thermal standards affects and translates into local design and building practices. Moreover, the conference reflects on the relevance of current standards for thermal concepts of cities beyond the individual house. The conference addresses thermal standards following an multi-disciplinary approach; the participating speakers are architects and social scientists. The conference will be held in three panels followed by a roundtable discussion. 

Prof. Sascha Roesler – THE LEGACY OF PASSIVE CLIMATE CONTROL

Dr. Sabine Von Fischer – CONCEPTS AND CONTEXT OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Prof. Elisabeth Shove – THE COMFORT OF STANDARDS AND STANDARDS OF COMFORT

Andreas Hofer – MORE THAN HOUSING: THE HOLISTIC APPROACH	

Prof. Muck Petzet – SOLID BUILDINGS WITH SOLID THERMAL STANDARDS

Prof. Andrew Witt – URBAN SOLAR DESIGN

Dr. Giulia C. Romano – ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND THERMAL INSULATION IN URBAN CHINA

Dr. Emma Street – THE (RE)SCALING OF REGULATORY GOVERNANCE

Conference co-organized by the Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship and Zürich University of Applied Sciences, Mendrisio

Thermal Standards in Architecture

With his “Weltkonstruktion” publication, Sascha Roesler offers the first intellectual history on ethnographic research conducted by modern architects. The publication goal was to document the relevance of this history for today’s constructive thinking in architecture. The modern architects’ empirical exploration of domestic buildings outside Europe uncovered the narrowings of modern concepts of construction, and made their epistemic limitations visible. In the ethnographic discourses about popular building outside Europe, parameters related to building that the architecture discipline – owing to time constrictions, or theoretical and ideological reasons – had neglected, may reconsidered again. In lieu of construction’s usual orientation towards load-bearing structures, novel conceptual fields of reference appear, highlighted as thermodynamic or symbolically structured materiality.

“Roesler has struck an epistemological goldmine.” (Prof. Dr. Stephan Trüby, TU Munich)

“It is a unique book, as it is written by someone who knows intimately about architecture and building technology and writes from the viewpoint of architectural construction, yet it is a history of ethnography.” (Dr. Michael Guggenheim, University of London)

Book publication "Weltkonstruktion. Der aussereuropäische Hausbau und die moderne Architektur – ein Wissensinventar," Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag