ETH Meets You at the IDEAS CITY Festival in New York City

ETH Zurich began its collaboration with the New Museum in 2014, as part of the Zurich Meets New York Festival. Now, a year later, ETH Zurich revisits the East Village with its Department of Architecture (D-ARCH), one of the most highly regarded architectural faculties in the world who are creating a pavilion made entirely from waste materials. The ETH Zurich Future Garden and Pavilion will play host to events, workshops, and an exhibition outlining the future metropolis.

Building Sustainable Cities from Waste

"The majority of future construction needs to address 80% of our world’s population: housing for low and no-income urban settlers in what we currently coin developing territories. Especially there, a local material such as unproblematic waste, processed through local skills offers the chance to develop new forms of architectural thinking and doing."

— Dirk Hebel, co-author of "Building from Waste"

For centuries we have viewed waste as a by-product and (ideally) invisible part in the making and existing of cities, but what if waste were an integral resource? Could we construct more sustainable cities? Dirk Hebel, Marta Wisniewska, and Felix Heisel authors of the book, "external page Building from Waste" think it is possible and their book provides the theoretical background for the IDEAS CITY project. Heisel tells us, "The ETH Zurich Pavilion is an architectural example of this approach, utilizing a U.S. waste product to highlight the potential of waste in New York through a temporary, zero-impact, yet expressive and exciting structure.“

ETH Zurich's Assistant Professorship for Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel and the Professorship for Architecture and Structure Philippe Block - BRG have designed a vaulted pavilion that will float in the narrow space between the buildings of New York City's First Street Garden. Constructed entirely from upcycled beverage cartons processed by the U.S. company external page ReWall, the pavilion is being prefabricated during the month of May at a external page Pop-Up Workshop + Gallery across the street from the site, making it possible to experience the usually invisible process of construction.

View renderings and project plan for the ETH Zurich Pavilion.

"In the Future There Will Be No Waste..."

The IDEAS CITY Festival theme for 2015, “Invisible Cities,” borrows from Italo Calvino’s classic novel that explores the constructs that invisibly rig cities together. The ETH Zurich Pavilion will play host to an exhibition of more than 25 different materials produced from waste from old denim jeans to plastic bottles, events, and workshops. As the festival finale event on Saturday evening, May 30^th at 5:30 p.m.  external page AIA New York Chapterand the Center for Architecture and ETH Zurich co-curate two panels: "In the Future There Will Be No Waste...", a dialog between architects, Dirk E. Hebel and Philippe Block, ETH Zurich and external page David Benjamin and Mark Wasiuta, Columbia University on what makes a smart city. The evening’s second panel, “Invisible Ecologies” continues the discussion with artists external page Tom Ackers and Melanie Gilligan, with external page Leah Kelly (neuroscientist) of Rockefeller University as moderator.

Social Innovation in the Data Age: Inventing a Truly Smart City

Swiss think tank, external page W.I.R.E. along with event partners, Google, Kickstarter, and Parsons, offer a workshop that will help you formulate your own ideas on how to design a truly "smart" city – developing, building, and testing ideas in an interdisciplinary and fast-paced prototyping process on May 29^th, 2015 12:00 – 8:00 p.m.

A Festival Hub

Aside from playing host to a series of curated events, the ETH Zurich Future Garden and Pavilion will be a festival hub for New Yorkers and festival participants alike, providing a magical after work ambiance, refreshments (courtesy of Café Select) and a peek into what a sustainable future society might look like. external page MiLES and external page Pareup explore solutions to waste from food to space over a "rescued" pre-work breakfast. All events are free and open to the public.

More information

Visit the events page at:ethmeetsyou.org

Visit the portrait page for more about: ETH Zurich