Midterm Critique of the course Architektur und Tragwerk with invited quests: Marina Montresor and Patrick Studer.

Der eintägige Design-Workshop für die Arbeitsgruppe Brückenbau fand am 17.01.2025 statt. Die Aufgabe bestand darin, ein kleines Gebäude mit unterschiedlichen Spannweiten zu entwerfen. Die Beteiligten entwickelten die Konzepte anhand von physischen Modellen sowie Skizzen.

Workshop organisiert von Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Pauli, Dr. Federico Bertagna, Bartosz Bukowski

Final presentations of focus works from the summer session 2025 took place on 11th September 2025. 

The goal of the course is to introduce students to Structural Design. The course fosters the development of a design thinking that emerges from the coexistence of a number of design parameters and performance criteria related to force flow, construction technologies, material use, and spatial qualities. 

Students will learn about diverse tools that allow for controlling such a complex blend of parameters and criteria at the interface between different disciplines such as structural engineering and architecture. These tools will include physical models, graphical methods, and digital tools. After a series of lectures and workshops, students will work on a design exercise that represents the core of the entire course. The design exercise is an opportunity to deal with an open-ended task that does not admit a univocal answer. 

In fact, besides structural performance, design options will be discussed and evaluated through a set of criteria including spatial qualities, constructability, and environmental footprint.

Current members of the Chair of Structural Design:

• Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Pauli
• Dr. Federico Bertagna
• Dr. Lluis Ernique Monzo
• Dr. Ioannis Mirtsopoulos
• Dr. Yasaman Yavaribajestani
• Bartosz Bukowski
• Michele Capelli
• Simon Eisenlohr
• Philine Euler-Rolle
• Ursula Jaray
• Stefan Jos
• Leo Kleine
• Juan Orjuela Sepulveda
• Natalia Pieroni

Former members of the chair:

• Dr. Davide Tanadini
• Linus Schmitz

The course “Architektur und Tragwerk” represents an opportunity for architecture students to develop a design project in which load-bearing structures and architectural space support and enhance each other as inherent parts of the same design process. The course fosters the development of a design thinking that emerges from the coexistence of a number of design parameters and performance criteria related to force flow, construction technologies, material use, and spatial qualities. Students will learn about diverse operative tools and strategies to control the complexity of such a multidisciplinary design process in which space-making and load-bearing elements are inherently intertwined. The potential of each design option will be evaluated based on various factors; in addition to structural performance and architectural expression, aspects related to material use, construction processes, and environmental footprint will play a crucial role in the whole process.

The course “Architektur und Tragwerk” represents an opportunity for architecture students to develop a design project in which load-bearing structures and architectural space support and enhance each other as inherent parts of the same design process. The course fosters the development of a design thinking that emerges from the coexistence of a number of design parameters and performance criteria related to force flow, construction technologies, material use, and spatial qualities.

Students will learn about diverse operative tools and strategies to control the complexity of such a multidisciplinary design process in which space-making and load-bearing elements are inherently intertwined. The potential of each design option will be evaluated based on various factors; in addition to structural performance and architectural expression, aspects related to material use, construction processes, and environmental footprint will play a crucial role in the whole process.

After a successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Critically evaluate structural design concepts with respect to their ability to support and strengthen architectural concepts
2. Identify the most relevant design parameters and performance criteria for a given design task and select adequate tools to effectively integrate them as part of the design process
3. Conduct design explorations in compliance with structural, spatial, and environmental design aspects simultaneously

3 ECTS

Graded semester performance

By 2050 at the latest, humanity must manage to step into an ecological age – an age in which it only consumes what is actually available to it, and in which all, absolutely all, material cycles are closed (including those of greenhouse gases). The period, leading up to then, will be marked by a tremendous transition, bringing seemingly enormous challenges, but simultaneously offering a unique opportunity to question everything that is not based on a fundamental physical law of the universe. Like many other things, the way we design, use, and dispose of our buildings will adapt to the new framework conditions. Structural design theory, on the other hand, is based on the basic physical laws of mechanics. From the material, through the construction process, to the building: for centuries, the locally accessible construction material and available artisans with their technical means and skills, in interplay with the local climate conditions, defined how buildings were constructed. Established knowledge of material properties, structural mechanics, and the relationships and interaction between them will remain valid and continue to constitute the backbone of structural design. Ideas, concepts, and utopias for a new generation of load-bearing structures can emerge on this basis.
 

Professur für Tragwerksentwurf

Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Pauli
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 1
8093 Zürich
Switzerland

assistenz.*pauli@arch.*ethz.*ch

Consultations:
Sign up sheet

The Red Canopy is the result of a summer school for architecture students held in Nanjing (China) in summer 2024. Entitled “Learning from the Ordinary”, the summer school focused on those spaces, materials, and elements that belong to the “ordinary” and as such are often overlooked. After a systematic analysis concerning the very notion of “ordinary”, 12 architecture students from NJU and CUHK engaged in a series of design explorations that resulted in the construction of a 700m² canopy made of bamboo and red woven geotextile.

Space

Located at the Northern edge of Xiangtang village, the canopy floats above a peach grove framing a series of new spaces and perspectives. The site was strategically chosen to demonstrate the underlying idea of the summer school: through design operations that are intentional, specifically tailored, and conscious of a variety of boundary conditions, it is possible to discover and activate spatial qualities even in those places that seem “ordinary”.

The peach grove was one of these places. It was a slope in between two paths, completely accessible, yet unused despite offering spectacular views on the mountains and on the neighboring fruit groves. The area lacked directionality, offering infinite possibilities to roam around the trees that eventually nobody took. The project aimed at highlighting these views by creating a space that users could navigate, guided by a sequence of perspectives on the mountains, sky, forests, purposefully orchestrated by the architects.

These perspectives were created through a series of openings in the surface of the canopy as well as by its edges. The space between neighboring supports is so wide that the side edges looked like the edges of a bigger opening, whose boundaries are lost in between the intricate landscape of the peach trees.

Structure

Supported by six pairs of columns that define its spatial boundaries, the suspended roof floats above the ground with a maximum span of over 30 meters. Each column is formed by a pair of bamboo elements connected one to each other to form a V-shaped saddle on top. Despite its roughness, this connection was carefully designed to solve all the main joints in the structure. In fact, in addition to connecting the pair of bamboo columns, the saddle creates space for the connection to a backstay cable and to the fabric itself. Forces coming from the surface of the roof are thus redirected to the ground through a combination of compressive and tensile forces that flow through the column and through the backstay cable respectively.

The surface of the canopy consists of 2-meter-wide woven strips of red geotextile. Curved bamboo ribs stretch across the fabric transferring forces to the six supports following a precise three-tier hierarchy. In addition to edge ribs, a set of primary ribs stretch directly between two supports; the secondary ribs stretch between two edge ribs instead. Primary and secondary ribs are tangential to the openings, thus creating control points for the tuning of their geometry.
 

Materials and construction

Red Canopy combines ordinary materials with circular construction principles to achieve a project rooted in local practices. The main components were sourced locally and assembled using low-tech construction methods common in the village. Thin bamboo elements, harvested nearby with the help of local villagers, form the ribs, while the woven fabric is made from woven geotextile, commonly used for different purposes by the locals. 

Material processing was minimized in order to meet the strict 5-day fabrication and construction timeline, as well as to favor a convenient reuse of the material itself. The team of 12 students together with the tutors fabricated all the parts and assembled the canopy with the use of basic tools and equipment and without the support of any professional contractor. This consideration was already part of the design process, with construction details and erection strategies that were developed accordingly.
After the placement and erection of the six bamboo columns, a network of cables was stretched in between them as a temporary support for the ribs. At a later stage, the ribs were placed on top of the cables, connected to the columns and between each other. Finally, the geotextile strips were unrolled and unfolded on top and connected to the ribs. After the removal of the temporary cables, the system could be tuned by tensioning the backstay cables of the columns.

Eventually, the extremely limited transformation of the materials used for the construction allowed villagers to effectively reuse parts of it after the disassembly. The Red Canopy was dismantled at the end of the summer school, the material was left on site and the villagers were instructed to take what they needed and to reuse it in the village. After one month, only the network of ribs was left.

The Red Canopy created a new focal point in the village of Xiangtang with minimal use of material and limited resources in terms of construction process. It demonstrated that, with clear design intentions and operative awareness, it is possible to find a “poetics in the ordinary”. It also showed that this poetics concerns global and local scale, from the construction in its entirety to the construction details that made it possible.

The Summer School was organized and led by Bartosz Bukowski and Dr. Federico Bertagna (Chair of Structural Design), in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Shuaizhong Wang (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Dr. Yue Zhao (Southeast University, Nanjing). It took place between Nanjing and the village of Xiangtang from June 24^th to July 19^th 2024. The results were presented in an exhibition curated by Dr. Yue Zhao held in Xiangtang Community Center.

The “Japanese Structural Design / Matsui Gengo” research project aims to document and disseminate the work of Japanese structural engineer Matsui Gengo (1920–1996). Throughout his career, both in academia and in practice, Matsui established fruitful collaborations with renowned architects such as Kikutake Kiyonori, Ito Toyo, and Ban Shigeru. These collaborations led to the design and construction of several iconic buildings of 20th-century Japanese architecture, including the Nakagin Capsule Tower, the Osaka Expo Tower, and the Hotel Tokoen. The architectural significance of these buildings was recognized relatively early, including at the international level. However, Matsui’s contributions remain largely unknown, particularly outside Japan.

The project was launched in 2019 as a collaboration between Japanese and Swiss institutions. Federico Bertagna initiated a preliminary research project on Matsui Gengo, resulting in two main publications (Maleva et al. 2022; Bertagna and Harada 2024). These publications drew the attention of several of Matsui’s former collaborators and family members, who revealed the existence of a substantial body of unpublished material. This material—never formally archived—is currently dispersed across several locations in Japan. In response, a collaboration was initiated in 2024 between the Chair of Structural Design (Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Pauli) and the Chair of Architectural Behaviorology (Prof. Momoyo Kaijima) at ETH Zurich, with the primary aim of safeguarding and preserving this material.

In addition to construction drawings and structural reports, the archive includes handwritten notes, photographs from construction sites, experimental test results, and personal memoirs. A systematic analysis of this material could provide valuable insights on two levels. First, it could offer new perspectives on the design and construction of buildings that, until now, have been understood primarily through the lens of architecture. Second, it could shed light on the well-established tradition of collaboration between architects and engineers in Japan. In this sense, the significance of the research goes beyond the study of Matsui as a key figure in Japanese construction history. Indeed, fostering synergy between disciplines may offer a meaningful strategy for addressing the challenges facing the construction industry today.

Related publications:

Gengo Matsui: the contribution of a structural engineer to postwar Japanese architecture

A visual approach to structural design: photoelasticity as a collaborative tool in Gengo Matsui’s work