ETH Materials Hub
Exhibition of materials accompanying the first year course of the Chair of Deplazes Design and Construction I/II
Exhibition Material Workshop 'Die keramische Fassade', Professur Spiro, 2016. Innovedum project 'Knowledge of Making', database
The ETH Materials Hub (MATHUB) is the materials platform at ETH Zurich for teaching and research . This collaborative project between the Department of Architecture and ETH Library currently focuses on information and materials samples from the field of the built environment. Alongside the collaborative online materials database, in which ten other Swiss organisations participate, the ETH Materials Hub together with all of the media offerings of the Architecture and Civil Engineering Library, i.e. materials samples, technical literature, journals, films and other database offerings, comprise a comprehensive information repository on the subject of materials and the built environment.
Plantbased Constructions
Exhibition at the ETH Material Hub from 17 April to 17 June 2024
Opening on 16 April, 18.00 (with vernissage of the April edition of the magazine werk, bauen + wohnen on the topic plantbased materials )
How can agriculture and architecture work together in a post-fossil fuel construction industry? How might cultivating the use of plants for construction improve outcomes for people, plants and animals across our bioregion?
In the autumn of 2023 London-based architecture practice Material Cultures led a guest design studio at the ETH Zurich entitled Planting Buildings: Housing the Ecoregion. Through researching cultivated plants across various European ecoregions, the studio explored the design of housing systems that bridge between the disciplines of conservation, cultivation and construction.
The work of the students is at the centre of this exhibition: eight 1:1 scale mock-ups that bring together the studio's research, material experiments and experimental construction details representing fragments of buildings that draw from the landscape.
Offering of the ETH Materials Hub
- external pageCollaborative online materials database
- Examples of materials and sample uses from wood, concrete, stone, clay, ceramics, glass, metal, plaster, limestone, bitumen, synthetics as well as plant-based building and construction materials and samples from the field of photovoltaics. These include both basic materials and processed or joined examples.
- Samples from teaching and research
- Information and documentation tool (beta version available on request). As part of the Innovedum project “Knowledge-of-Making”, a documentation and communication platform for production, processing and planning processes is being developed together with teaching and research. Two case studies are running in teaching, the university workshops and a metal foundry
Relevance for research and the general public
The ETH Materials Hub sees itself as a communicative knowledge platform that combines specialist knowledge from research and practice and makes the knowledge available for teaching and research. Production and processing processes are documented, discussed and documented for further use. This information can also be accessed by the general public.
Current activities, projects
- Focus on innovative wood materials (application of hardwood)
- Focus on solar materials (collaboration with the Chair Schlüter)
- Focus on natural stone (collaboration with external pageNatursteinverband Schweiz and Georesources Switzerland Group)
- Innovedum project “Knowledge-of-Making”: Development of a digital teaching platform
Use / online presence
- Online using the external pagecollaborative onlinematerials database
- The information on the physical materials samples available can be accessed via the RFID system in the Architecture and Civil Engineering Library at the Hönggerberg campus and directly from the database via QR codes.
- Materials samples can also be researched using external pageETH Library @ swisscovery.