Water Behaviorology in Swiss Public Spaces

The design studio Water Behaviorology in Swiss Public Spaces took place during the Spring Semester 2025 at ETH Zurich, under the direction of Prof. Momoyo Kaijima (Chair of Architectural Behaviorology). The teaching team included Tanguy Caversaccio, Samuel Dayer, Sofia Ferrari and Erik Fichter.

The following students participated in the studio: Chiara Abbondondolo, Mario Affolter, Leticia Almeida Davoglio, Luis Berka, Matthieu Berté, Julia Bopp, Tara Brunner, Bjarne Buhr, Noé Capaul, Sina Celli, Gian Christoffel, Clara Cusimano, Julian Custer, Lia Danner, Cleo de Jong, Yuliya Degtyaryova, Etienne Fey, Severin Finsterle, Giovanny Flores, Laura Frei, Hector Gentizon, Aram Godinez, Eleah Gollin, Alyssa Gubser, Linus Ham, Lena Hofstetter, Paula Jürgens, Keerthana Kahanvearl, Josephine Kaiser, Joel Koch, Christina Kreutz, Jessica Kuttikattu, Vera Lucas Martins, Gianna Maissen, Mira Malzanini, Joy Marti, Giulia Marti, Neo Miksaï, Julia Morel, Leonardo Mühlestein, Lea Nydegger, Leonie Omoregie, Sara Pagano, Aline Panhuber, Marlène Perren, Lorenzo Principe, Pierrick Ritz, Laura Rogowska, Noelle Rüsch, Oliver Schierscher, Dalia Schilling, Samira Schubert, Alex Schwitter, Aida Skenderi, Chris Snophan, Fernando Soares, Zeno Späth, Josefina Steuer, Sofia Thüring, Bigna von der Heiden, Linda Weber, Zeno Wolfsteiner, Yifei Xiao, Yiran Yang, Alexander Zgraggen, and Fabian Zihlmann.

Swiss forests do not only offer dynamic public spaces but are also essential ecological systems and reservoirs for climate resilience. Water plays a key role in defining their character. As a shared natural resource, a climate-sensitive material of the forest, and a sensory experience, it shapes the behaviors of these spaces. In today’s changing climate, water, in its various states, serves as a tangible embodiment of its effects.

In this context, and in light of unprecedented challenges posed by climate change, how can architecture reimagine public spaces by engaging with water and its changing behaviors?

69 second-year ETH Bachelor students, in collaboration with the Waldlabor Zurich, engaged with this question during the Spring Semester 2025, and built 12 full-scale public space interventions in the forest.

Located near ETH Campus Hönggerberg, the Waldlabor forest serves as both recreational area and research site. The Waldlabor initiative brings together the City and Canton of Zurich, ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), forest owners, and foresters to imagine, over the next 100 years, how Swiss forests can be managed in response to climate change. In order to better understand and preserve this habitat, it leads a range of research projects, among them studies on water storage and cycles in the forest.

This setup offered a unique learning environment. Students collaborated with experts from diverse fields including biology, hydrology, dendrology, sociology, carpentry, and landscape architecture. This interdisciplinary exchange encouraged students to think beyond disciplinary boundaries, develop a holistic understanding of the site, and consider both human and non-human actors in their designs.

This reflection was grounded in the Chair’s methodology of Architectural Behaviorology, which considers both the site and their interventions not as static, isolated objects, but as part of a dynamic, interconnected network of actors and relationships. This methodology gave students the tools to grasp, reflect on, and respond to complex climate dynamics.

Their built structures made abstract phenomena visible, bringing the effects of climate change into public experience and dialogue. For example, one group’s intervention, «The Island of Sound», sits above an underground water tank. Their structure collects and amplifies the subtle sounds of the water below, inviting people to sit, listen, and reflect. With «Parasite», another group created a wooden platform suspended under an existing bridge, making hidden water flows accessible and offering new perspectives on the river and its ecosystem.

Through slow learning, rooted in a circular design process of on-site observation, hand drawing, 1:1 prototyping, and iterative making, students developed a deep sensitivity to the site. The semester encouraged careful contextual analysis, empirical research, hands-on experimentation, and critical reflection. Their final designs emerged through a bottom-up approach, grounded in direct experience with real social, economic, physical and ecological constraints, and shaped by dialogue with the site and its actors.

The interventions remain in the forest throughout the summer, offering new public meeting spaces, sensory experiences, and opportunities for visitors to engage with present-day climate realities. The designs are not only learning outcomes but also social and ecological contributions, invitations for others to encounter, understand, and inhabit the changing forest.

In this way, students' actions go beyond academic exercise, and offer a space for everyone to learn and engage with new ways of designing. They reveal new spatial and social possibilities for public space in Switzerland, while helping to articulate the role of architecture in society and in responding to climate challenges.

External experts supported the studio throughout the semester, enriching both research and design. Their input deepened students’ understanding of site-specific challenges and opportunities. Guest critics from various disciplines brought diverse perspectives to the reviews and sparked critical discussions around the proposals.

Guest Lecturers included: 

• Koki Akiyoshi – Architect, Founder and CEO, VUILD, Inc.
• Céline Baumann – Landscape Architect, Guest lecturer at ETH Zurich
• Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine – Artists filmmakers, Beka & Lemoine
• Federico Billeter – Designer, Woodworker, Supervisor of RAPLAB ONA
• Dr. Martin Brüllhardt – Environmental scientist, Managing Director at Waldlabor
• Dr. Marius Floriancic –Hydrologist and researcher at ETH Zurich, Guide at Waldlabor
• Em. Prof. Günther Vogt – Landscape architect, Professor emeritus at ETH Zurich
• Lluis Enrique Monzo – Architect and Structural Engineer, Chair of Structural Design, ETH Zurich
• Dr. Niklaus Reichle – Sociologist and Lecturer, Universität St.Gallen
• Andreas "Butsch" Rudow – Forest engineer, Lecturer in Dendrology at ETH Zurich, Vice-President Waldlabor
• Alessandro Tellini – Director of RAPLAB, Lecturer for Model and Design at ETH Zurich

Additional Guest Reviewers:

Marianne Burkhalter, Adrien Comte, Patricia Guaita, Siena Hirao, Guido Huwiler, Andreas Kalpakci, Romain Legros, Anna MacIver-Ek, Débora Mesa Molina, Arnaud Michelet, Annette Spiro.

The project by the ETH Zürich Architectural Behaviorology was submitted for the Swiss Arc Award 2025 in the Next Generation category and published by Nina Farhumand.