ETH1: Future Cities: Networks and Grammars

The ETH Sustainability Summer School 2013 will invite 30 Bachelor, Master and PhD students from a wide spread of nationalities and disciplines. The course aims to ensure a well-balanced mixture between science, technology and social sciences. Candidates will be selected from all relevant disciplines (e.g. architects, engineers, environmental scientists, geographers, social scientists and others interested in the urban fabric). Applicants will be evaluated on their academic strength, creativity and technical-related expertise, and their dedication to solving humanity’s grand challenges.

Learning Outcomes

The global south will be the locus of urban growth in the 21st century. It has to navigate a new path to build new economically productive, energetically efficient and environmentally healthy cities and urban agglomerations for their growing populations. A new path is needed as the existing models, grammars and visions of the global north were developed and tested over longer time periods for other population densities, other growth speeds and other climates.

What is currently missing are not insights into the design of individual buildings, but grammars to build and design cities and urban areas incrementally. These urban grammars for both the urban structure as well as for the networks are at the centre of this summer school. The groups will develop and experiment with their rules for the master planning of a new town of 100’000 residents. They will have to look at the physical design, its impact on the daily life of the inhabitants, its energy balance and economy.

Singapore is the ideal backdrop for such a design studio, as it has been built with a very strong urban grammar of its own and as it has extensive experience of providing housing to its fast growing population. Still, it is not clear, if its example can simply be exported, if it does not need rethinking for other places and different socio-economic conditions in the rest of the global south.

Assessment

Contact hours: 150h

Credit equivalent: 5 ECTS

Exams: none, but compulsory attendance of 95% and active participation on the case studies, final report and presentation

Accommodation will be arranged by the organizers and is included in the tuition fee.

ETH is subsidizing tuition for this program and students pay CHF 1000 (including accommodation).

Living costs in Singapore is estimated around SGD150 – 250 a week for food and transportation, but this will differ amongst individuals.

1. If I am accepted, when will I receive more course details, such as course content, reading lists, timetables, payment schedule & cancellation policies, campus maps and other logistics details? 
   You will receive the above-mentioned documents as soon as you have accepted our offer. However, the reading including a detailed program and the reading list might be only available by the end of May 2012.
2. Will I need a visa to attend this GSP course?
   Yes, you will require a student visa to attend this course. Please refer to the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) link for more information on this. The host GSP coordinator will be sending you more information via email on how to apply for a student's pass through the ICA Student's Pass Online Application and Registration (SOLAR) system a few weeks after you have been accepted to the course.
3. How can we interact with other participants and GSP alumni before the course?
   Please visit our GSP Facebook page and join the various events groups to meet informally with other GSP participants as well as alumni. Your may also post questions to course coordinators on the FB Wall.

You can direct your questions about course credits and scholarships to your home institutions. More details about the application process and deadlines will be available in the "How to Apply" page.

At the point of being shortlisted by your university, we require a 1-2 page CV, and a motivation letter in addition to the IARU GSP application form.

Please visit our website: http://www.sustainability.ethz.ch/lehre/Sommerakademien/index_EN for further information about this course, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..