New at the department

As of April 1, 2017, Prof Dirk Hebel was appointed to the professorship of Sustainable Construction. With the regular replacement of the professorship after two replacements by Gero Quasten and Aita Flury, a move of the department from the department of building construction to its own rooms in building 11.40 is also connected.

Dirk Hebel (*1971) was previously Assistant Professor of Architecture and Building Construction at ETH Zurich (since 2012) and Head of Research for Alternative Building Materials at the Future City Laboratory Singapore, a research project of ETH with the National Research Foundation Singapore.

From 2009 to 2012 he was Scientific Director of the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and Urban Development. In 2008, he taught as a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and as a visiting professor at Syracuse University, USA. From 2002 to 2009, he taught at the chair of Marc Angèlil at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich as coordinator for first-year design teaching and as head of the "Master of Advanced Studies" program for Urban Design.

Dirk Hebel's architecture is characterised by the use of unusual building materials. He builds with air (exhibition pavilion for the Lindau Nobel Prize Winners Foundation and temporary balcony for KunstWerke Berlin, 2005), water (as project manager for the BLUR Building at EXPO.02 in Switzerland), bamboo (in his research into new bamboo composite materials for use in the building sector) and with waste (ETH pavilion for the IDEAS CITIES exhibition, New York 2015), among other things.

His research focuses on the study of resource cycles, the development of alternative building materials and construction methods and their application, especially in developing countries.

The results of his teaching and research activities have been published in numerous publications and awarded international prizes.

Publications (selection):

- CULTIVATED BUILDING MATERIALS: INDUSTRIALIZED NATURAL RESOURCES FOR ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION (2017, Birkhäuser, with Felix Heisel).

- SUDU AND THE SUSTAINABLE URBAN DWELLING UNIT (2015, Ruby Press, with Melakeselam Moges and Zara Gray).

- BUILDING FROM WASTE: RECOVERED MATERIALS IN ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION (2014, Birkhäuser, with Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel).

- CITIES OF CHANGE: ADDIS ABABA (2009, Birkhäuser, with Marc AngÈlil).

- DEVIATIONS (2008, Birkhäuser, with Marc Angèlil), An Experiment in Architectural Design Theory.

Prizes (selection):

Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Innovation Grant (2013).

ZUMTOBEL GROUP Award (2014).

LANXESS Award Singapore.