Milica Topalovic: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2021 |
| Name | Prof. Milica Topalovic |
| Name variants | Milica Topalovic Milica Topalović |
| Field | Architecture and Territorial Planning |
| Address | Professur Arch.&Territorialplanung ETH Zürich, ONA G 41 Neunbrunnenstr. 50 8093 Zürich SWITZERLAND |
| Telephone | +41 44 633 85 03 |
| mt@arch.ethz.ch | |
| URL | https://topalovic.arch.ethz.ch |
| Department | Architecture |
| Relationship | Associate Professor |
| Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 052-1147-21L | Architectural Design V-IX: Nothing but Flowers - Nature and Territory in Zurich (M.Topalovic)   Please register (www.mystudies.ethz.ch) only after the internal enrolment for the design classes (see http://www.einschreibung.arch.ethz.ch/design.php). Project grading at semester end is based on the list of enrolments on 2.11.21, 24:00 h (valuation date) only. This is the ultimate deadline to unsubscribe or enroll for the studio. | 14 credits | 16U | M. Topalovic | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | From the age of the dinosaurs, cars have run on gasoline Where? Where have they gone? Now, it's nothing but flowers (Talking Heads, 1988) The studio will investigate and imagine nature in the metropolitan territory of Zurich. The results will be made public in the form of online investigative reportages, meant to inform design practices and public discourse on ecology and nature conservation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | NEW ECOLOGIES New Ecologies is a studio series at Architecture of Territory dedicated to ecologising architecture. Ecological thinking, which foregrounds the interactions between organisms (or by extension between objects, or social and technical systems) and their environments, is applied in considering design practices in their social and environmental effects. The studio series is affiliated with the Future Cities Laboratory and the new Master of Advanced Studies MAS UTD starting in the fall 2021. Citizens, experts, and fellow designers and artists will accompany us in the process. PROCESS AND RESULTS The semester consists of investigative journeys and intensive studio sessions. Architecture of Territory values intellectual curiosity, commitment and team spirit. We are looking for avid travellers and team workers, motivated to make strong and independent contributions. Our approach enables students to work with a range of methods and sources pertaining to territory, including ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, literature research and essay writing, large-scale drawing techniques, photography, videography, and online publishing. Experts and guests will help us sharpen our skills and craft common agendas through debates. Students work in groups of two to three. SEMINAR WEEK: PIONEERS OF CONSERVATION Investigative journeys constitute the core of the project. The first studio day starts with an exploratory walk through the forested backstage of the Hönggerberg. The investigations will continue throughout the seminar week, dedicated to pioneers of nature conservation. Foresters, gardeners, volunteers and veterans of nature associations, scientists, and environmental activists will be our guides. We will traverse the metropolitan territory of Zurich by foot, by bike, by bus and by train. The common trip is followed by a period dedicated to fieldwork in respective student teams. The seminar week takes place from October 24–30 (cost frame A). It is integrated, mandatory, and open to all interested students. LECTURES SERIES: MY SPECIES Within the lecture series ARCHITECTURE OF TERRITORY. Territorial Design running in alignment with the studio, four guest speakers engaged in fields ranging from art and landscape to bioethics and environmental philosophy, will address the theme MY SPECIES, approaching territory through the notions such as multispecies, coexistence, and diversity. CREDITS The semester offers the total of 19 credit points. The Design Studio with Integrated Discipline (Planning) 14+3 KP and the Seminar Week 2 KP. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | We are often told that Nature is being lost, damaged and polluted, sacrificed to consumption habits and ambitions of urban development. We are told of the environmental crisis of planetary proportions, of the loss of species and the imminent collapse of the web of life. We hear appeals to preserve and respect Nature, to curb our resource use and manifest an ethos of care. Nature is the concept governing actions of individuals and societies, and yet, if we try to put our finger on “nature”, to situate it in our environments, it is slippery and far from clear. The politics of space and territory relies on both green arguments, as well as privileging of our own species. Nature is often not more than a convenient gesturing: the net loss or gain of forest; the carbon offsetting; the nature compensation, the green tech, the greenwash. But nature is also a space of imaginary. As a concept, Nature has played a historical role for the human communities through its associations with the divine, the primitive, the bestial, the corporeal, and the feminine. In Switzerland and other countries, the forming of nature conservation as a scientific discipline mirrored the industrialisation processes throughout out the XIX century as a specific reaction. Invigorated by aesthetic and patriotic sentiments, early activist movements deplored the industrial destruction of both “nature” and “homeland”. Gradually conservation efforts consolidated, working their way into institutional and land use frameworks. Much of nature conservation effort historically has been rooted in the nature-culture divide, an understanding where any product of human activity is seen as being separate from nature, and thus resulting in the production of landscapes cleared from human inhabitants and demarcated from human use. But different paradigms of conservation took hold as well. Some approaches have emphasised on the role of the human carer in the protection and a sustainable use of nature (through for example mining or logging). Others have explored rewilding of landscapes through the reintroduction of previously disappeared species. In the seemingly pastoral, but essentially highly technological territory of Switzerland, the meaning and the role of nature is far from settled. Being woven into the territory, nature areas remain an object of multiple pressures and interests. As the failures of recent initiatives—the CO2-Gesetz, the Trinkwasser-Initiative and the Pestizidfrei-Initiative—have patently shown, there is little agreement on what kinds of nature are worth preserving, by whom, and how. As designers, we may add that, there is also a lack of environmental imagination, which ought to be explored. In this semester we will investigate and imagine nature in the metropolitan territory of Zurich. We will analyse political, financial, cadastral and other entanglements between urban space and nature. We will engage in multispecies ethnography, tracing our relations with other species. We will engage with aesthetics, science, and the philosophy of nature. Focusing on selected sites, from the Rhine plains, through the fields of Weinland, the logistic valleys and leisure hilltops around Winterthur, to the forests and pastures of Zürcher Oberland, we will look at nature in its different incarnations—the protected biotopes, the nature monuments, the second natures and the third landscapes of the agglomeration, the cheap natures of industrial farming, and so on. Students will write their own project briefs, and will develop territorial analysis and projects for the chosen sites. The takes form of a web-based investigative reportage. During the production we will work with GIS and CMS experts, a journalist, a data scientist, a videographer and a photographer. The results of the studio are delivered in the public forum, meant to inform design practices and public discourse on nature conservation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | Individual and group work. Critiques: 9.11.; 30.11.; 22.12 No extra costs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 063-0703-00L | Architecture of Territory: Territorial Design in Histories, Theories and Projects This core course (ending with «00L») can only be passed once! Please check before signing up. | 2 credits | 2V | M. Topalovic | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This lecture series sets up an agenda for widening the disciplinary field of architecture and urbanism from their focus on the city, or the urban in the narrow sense, to wider territorial scales, which correspond to the increasing scales of contemporary urbanisation. It discusses the concepts of territory and urbanisation, and their implications for the work of architects and urbanists. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The course will enable students to critically discuss concepts of territory and urbanisation. It will invite students to revisit the history of architects’ work engaging with the problematic of urbanising territories and territorial organisation. The goal is to motivate and equip students to engage with territory in the present day and age, by setting out our contemporary urban agenda. The lectures are animated by a series of visual and conceptual exercises, usually on A4 sheets of paper. All original student contributions will be collected and bound together, creating a unique book-object. Some of the exercises are graded and count as proof of completion. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Within the theme My Species, the four guest speakers engaged in fields ranging from art and landscape representation to bioethics and environmental philosophy, will approach territory through the notions such as multispecies, coexistence, and diversity. With a more-than-human perspective on the territory, the guest speakers will elaborate their take on “telling horrible stories in beautiful ways,” debate “the dignity of plants,” expound upon “mankind’s fascination to better the world,” and confer “the non-human turn” and what is to come after. 23. 09. 2021 On Territory MILICA TOPALOVIĆ 30. 09. 2021 Architecture and Urbanisation MILICA TOPALOVIĆ 07. 10. 2021 Methods in Territorial Research and Design MILICA TOPALOVIĆ 14. 10. 2021 Multispecies Worldbuilding Guest lecture by FEIFEI ZHOU 21. 10. 2021 Better Nature Guest lecture by ALEXANDRA DAISY GINSBERG 04. 11. 2021 Planetary Urbanisation: Hinterland MILICA TOPALOVIĆ 11. 11. 2021 Tomatoes Talk, Birch Trees Learn – Do Plants Have Dignity? Guest lecture by FLORIANNE KOECHLIN 18. 11. 2021 Disappearance of the Countryside MILICA TOPALOVIĆ 25. 11. 2021 What is Soul? On the Idea of Species Being Guest lecture by OXANA TIMOFEEVA 09. 12. 2021 Our Common Territories: An Outlook MILICA TOPALOVIĆ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | The lectures will take place on Thursdays, 10.00-12:00, at ONA Fokushalle E7 and on ZOOM. Lecturer: Prof. Milica Topalovic Team: Prof. Milica Topalović, Dr. Nazlı Tümerdem Student Assistant: Michiel Gieben With the support of Hans Hortig, Evelyne Gordon, Vesna Jovanović, and Jan Westerheide Contact: Nazli Tümerdem tuemerdem@arch.ethz.ch Our website: https://topalovic.arch.ethz.ch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 064-0017-21L | Research Methods in Landscape and Urban Studies | 2 credits | 2K | G. Vogt, H. Klumpner, F. Persyn, C. Schmid, M. Topalovic | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Advanced PhD candidates of urban studies, urban and landscape design and urban sociology report about their experiences and insights in the concrete application of methods utilized for their research and scientific publications. Discussion of ongoing individual work, methodological questions, critical perspectives on urban and landscape design and city's relation to society. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The seminar seeks to provide participants with a differentiated knowledge of methods in the field of the urbanism. Furthermore, it provides a platform to exchange contemporary urban research experiences across disciplinary boundaries, drawing from different geographies of knowledge production. Possible meta-themes include modes of data assessment in urban studies, ways of progressing from hypothesis to synthesis, and research by design as method. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The format will provide an overarching methodological meta-theme, to be defined prior to the event. One external guest critic will be invited. In this case, each presentation will conclude with a discussion round, providing sufficiently detailed feedback for every doctoral candidate. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | The seminar is joint-organized by the chairs of the professors H. Klumpner, Ch. Girot, G. Vogt and M. Angélil (who in HS18 is mainly responsible for the course (one full-day event in the academic semester). Participants in both cases will be expected to submit single-page abstracts of their papers in advance and to make a presentation of app. 20 minutes at the colloquium. The discussion rounds will be moderated by the organizing professor and the invited guests. Enrolment on agreement with the lecturer only. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||