dokumentation easa005.ch - professur für architektur und städtebau ...

lecture marathon
Introducing the topic:
The lecture marathon
Monday and Tuesday of the first week were
reserved for an in-depth-introduction to
the topic of easa005:
trans - transit - transition.
In a lecture marathon, a range of invited
lecturers, with different backgrounds and
professions, presented their views, information
and research related to the topic.
lecture marathon
trans � transit � transition
Lectures held on Monday, August 8th, 2005
Peter Baccini
Peter Baccini is full Professor of Resource and Waste Manage�
ment at the Department of Civil and Environmental Enginee�
ring at the ETH Zurich. He leads the Swiss Federal Institute
for Water Resources and Water Pollution Control (EAWAG) re�
search group based near Zurich. EAWAG is an interdisciplinary
research team of engineers, environmental scientists, econo�
mists and architects that examines resource management of
heavily populated regions and the long�term behavior of an�
thropogenic sediments.
Josef Estermann
Former mayor of Zurich
As the former mayor of Zurich, Josef Estermann was invited to
EASA to talk about his experience with the city�s �s s urban plan� plan� plan�
ning.
First of all, he described the warm economic growth of the
eighties, followed by the economic recession which divided the
politics in the nineties.
In the eighties, Zurich was the very important center for in�
dustries, but today, not much of the industrial sector is left and
Zurich has become a service city.
To explain this situation, he described the two main models of
urban planning: the «core city» and the «urban sprawl».
The core city is the classical structural model based on the hi�
storical processes of concentration and decentralisation within
urban areas and between urban and rural areas. According to
the classical model, the most favourite locations and the best
traffic conditions are in the core city.
Ruedi Stauffer
Metron architects, Brugg
Metron can look back on a long and successful history. Sin�
ce 1965, the company has made a name for itself with its
progressive traffic plans, housing developments, area deve�
lopment and public buildings. In 1974, ownership of Metron
was taken over by the employees who have run the company
themselves since then. Metron�s �s s main goal is the design of su� su� su�
stainable human spaces and the continuous safeguard of life�s �s
foundations.
Markus Schaefer
HosoyaSchaefer architects
Zurich/Rotterdam
Hosoya Schaefer is a Zurich and Rotterdam based architectu�
ral design studio. Together with an international list of partner
companies, the office is involved in a broad range of projects,
from research and consulting to building design and realisa�
tion, and is active on various scales, from master planning to
architecture and from brand concepts to media installations.
In his speech on the topic of sustainable energy concept, Pe�
ter Baccini adressed a clear message to the young architects.
Showing a global overview on energy consumption and pro�
duction as well as on the existing resources (renewable or
not), Baccini drew important conclusions for a new generation
of architects and urban planners. They have to play a key role
today in order to reduce our energy consumption, use renew�
able energy and secondary resources that are to be found in
the new mines (or stocks) constituted by the urban systems
themselves.
The «urban sprawl» is the complementary and counter exam�
ple of the structural model. The «urban sprawl» model takes
as a starting point that cities have lost their former advantages
of being conveniently situated for public and private transport
and therefore preferred for trade and production. Cities are no
more the spider in the web but they are closely connected by
an equal communication network.
In Zurich, 40 years ago, 70% of the population lived in the
core city; today they are less than 40%. The course of histo�
ry shows that the city government failed in the attempt to
keep the manufacturing industry in town. The city planning
was unrealistic and therefore unrealisable. He argued that the
strongest reason for this failure is neither the number of legal
actions nor the government of the canton of Zurich who can�
celled the city zoning, it was, in the first place, the economic
development being unrelenting and irresistable — the so cal�
led globalisation.
Active advancement of social equality and a serious cultural
commitment are major parts of the company`s culture. Met�
ron has led the way in the architecture scene with regard to
interdisciplinary and company organisation.
In his lecture, Ruedi Stauffer mainly talked about the Metron
activities in Tuzla, Bosnia. He explained the Bosnian�Swiss col�
laboration in regard to the Tuzla Center for Ecology and Ener�
gy project.
During his EASA lecture, Schaefer presented the wide range
of research activities of the HosoyaSchaefer agency. He drew
an interesting picture of the global economics and the relati�
onships of big companies with their corporate identity, design,
and finally, architecture. His original position is to try out a
critical intervention (through architecture) within the client�
companies, cracking their strong corporate identity in order to
make innovation possible again.
documentation
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appendix