Learning Ecologies

The earth is beginning its sixth mass extinction event. What if human development, instead of displacing and destroying species, cultivated and restored biodiversity? What if more integrated human-biological environments created happier, healthier and more productive people? The project introduces theoretical and practical knowledge of ecological design at the centre of architectural education.

Studio Tom Emerson (D-ARCH), in collaboration with the Crowther Lab (D-USYS) and the new Masters in Landscape (D-ARCH), will build a new Masters design studio based on interdisciplinary collaboration, and based in and around the new garden project.

The new masters course will refocus the students’ attention on the principles of care, reuse and restoration of the environment. The experimental garden will be a site for students to learn through project-based action in real world conditions.

Students of landscape and architecture in Studio Tom Emerson will design, draw, plan, coordinate, build a new garden using diverse soils and plants, sustainable irrigation and building materials. Experts in these fields who will add theoretical lectures and on site practical advice. Each semester will have a slightly different focus and each project will build upon the work done during the previous semester.

Create a learning environment which fosters the practical implementation of theoretical knowledge through action orientated project based learning.
Allow students to learn construction methodologies and techniques both by hand using, craft and traditional skills but also through technologies available at the Departement (i.e. Concrete Lab, Wood Workshops, Material Science laboratories, etc).
Foster a learning environment in which responsibility and awareness of the impact of architects on future generations becomes tangible.
Create a place where teamwork is encouraged and supported, through the division of responsibilities and roles.
Give students the opportunity to encounter the complexities within which they will be expected to operate, by bringing them into close contact with other disciplines such as water management, landscape design and ecology.
Allow students to put hypothetical concepts into practical use whilst developing social and personal competences through real constructed experiments in the garden.

Student orientated objectives
Architecture students will be able to tap into knowledge around materials, carbon cycles, ecological systems, and water management, already being investigated in other departments within the institution, assembling a cloud of relevant knowledge and skills. The action orientated and semi-self-directed projects will enable the students to develop multiple competencies relevant to a future architectural practice focused on sustainable development.
This experiment can serve as a local field site for many USYS masters students interested in conducting field work, but unable to travel internationally for logistical reasons.

Faculty orientated objectives
Crowther Lab has implemented biodiversity – ecosystem function experiments all over the world, and is extremely excited by the prospect of establishing an experiment in Zürich itself. Partnership with Studio Tom Emerson will extend and broaden existing networks in a fundamentally new direction – helping to understand how the diversity of the biological world influences human experience and interaction with nature.

Degree program as a whole
Integrating the Studio Tom Emerson Masters design studio into the new Masters in Landscape Design provides a unique opportunity to offer this course to students on both courses. The chair will continue to be part of both the IEA (Institut für Entwurf und Architecture) and will also become a member of the LUS (Landscape and Urban Studies) offering places to students on both courses.
Due to Studio Tom Emerson’s long-standing interest in teaching architecture in relation to landscape and the wider territory, the instigator of the Master in Landscape Design, Christophe Girot, has approached the chair in the past with this suggestion, and we see this collaboration with the Crowther Lab as the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this offer.