HIL AND THE SATELLITES
In recent years, the architectural discourse has at the department of architecture at the ETH Zürich has adapted its values, becoming more theoretic, directing its focus towards the current social and political status. In fact, today’s society is facing a very vast range of challenges, reaching from the realm of social justice and inclusion, the ageing population, the digital revolution to planetary urbanisation, articulating the importance of caring for the environment we live in. In fact, also the design approach has changed and has been oriented to a stronger analysis of the spatial and social context of the building, creating atmospheres, celebrating memory and intensifying existing structures. This approach distances itself from modernism and the previous emergence of “star-architecture”, directly evoking reminiscences to the analog architecture introduced in the ETH in the late 1980s by Fabio Reinhart and Miroslav Sik. This theoretical orientation raises the question of how architectural education can contribute, preparing the students with the knowledge to act within practical realities of the built environment. Architecture requires critical reflection but also the technical and practical capacity to engage with material processes. For this reason, architectural education must provide an interdisciplinary understanding, enabling students to detect problems while also equipping them with the technical and practical fortitude to address them. Within the history of the Department of Architecture at the ETH Zürich, multiple teaching systems, previously reflected a confrontation with the origins of architecture, rooted in the period of Ancient Greece and Rome. The teachings of Gottfried Semper emphasized the importance of material knowledge, construction techniques to integrate arts and crafts within architectural education. Semper was convinced that through the technical understanding of material and the original construction systems, architecture could evolve. Later, during the functionalist period Otto Rudolf Salvisberg further reinforced the connection between architectural education and professional practice. Design studios were structured different building typologies, tasking the students to develop different problem-solving strategies for specific building types.
These two educational models can serve as an inspiration for the development of the architectural faculty to a more interdisciplinary institution. The implementation of a deeper technical knowledge, represents a common goal with the department of construction engineering, fostering the collaboration between the faculties sharing the HIL building. Although there persists the need to practice the gathered knowledge in a realistic context, participating with the city and the inhabitants.
This process happens outside of the Hönggerberg, reestablishing the DARCH’s urban contribution. Following Salvisberg’s educational system, the students need to design with existing structures, of different typologies to practice their problem-solving abilities, while also representing social demands by working with the inhabitants and the city. The selected areas for practice, represent hospitals, former food, and industrial production sites, as well as former residential areas that are no longer active or in need of reconstruction and are currently proposed by the city to be transformed into multifunctional residential areas. These new sites, are defined as satellites to the HIL building, they represent places of urban alienation that through the collaboration of architecture and engineering students, are going to be progressively appropriated in participation with the local population. Through these laboratories the students are going to acquire technical, social and also practical knowledge, developing future development plans of the sites, actively constructing, and adapting the buildings. Therefore, the scholars gather knowledge of material, by participating in artisanal construction processes. Through this distributed educational structure, architectural education is no longer confined on the campus of the Hönggerberg. Instead, it becomes an active participant in the transformation of the city. The satellite laboratories allow students to engage directly with the material and social realities of urban environments, developing the tools to appropriate and generate new spatial synergies, in the currently estranging HIL building. Ziegler and Lantner’s project, remains the centre of the departments, where the architecture students develop the ground knowledge for the practical design work in the satellites. In addition, the HIL is going to be adapted to become a more public and social space, exhibiting the work and the experiences of the transforming sites, becoming a place for Town Meetings, fostering public discussion between all the actors involved in the satellites. The central forum of the faculty reestablishes its institutional role within the urban context, reconnecting architectural education with the processes that shape the contemporary city.