The master thesis program set out to explore how writing and narrating histories shapes the way we perceive and transform our built environment. Taking infrastructure as its central lens, the studio questioned how large-scale structures – often defined by a single function – carry stories, meanings, and potentials that far exceed their original purpose. By confronting infrastructure with the notion of the monument, students investigated what happens when both are read, edited, and reinterpreted through the same narrative tools.

The structures along the Rhine in and around Kembs-Niffer became our red thread to rethink the European landscape via its stories: their capacities of space-making and addressing emergencies, environmental and otherwise. Le Corbusier’s little-known sluiceway (1959-62) connecting the Rhine to the Rhine-Rhone Canal and the surrounding semi-abandoned parkland were a focal point around which a multiplicity of historical and architectural scales were unraveled. Students confronted this nexus of narratives through comparison with a second related structure that each student selected along the Rhine.

We attempted to transform the problem-solving design approach into one of question-making. The built was revisited by simultaneously deconstructing various aspects of durability and sustainability. This embodied image of a mediated, rather than designed, future framed the entire program.

[Supervision] Prof. Freek Persyn, Prof. Dr. Maarten Delbeke, Dr. Falma Fshazi, Ellena Ehrl, Dr. Cara Rachele

[Students] Sara Godly, Lina von Waldkirch

Master Theses

Master Thesis Kembs-Niffer – Monument and Infrastructure

Engagements

The publication “Working on Transformation” documents and systematises the teaching experiments, undertaken at NEWROPE over the past six years.

The book grew out of lived experiences, such as student projects, research initiatives, travels, and encounters, that took place at the Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation at ETH Zürich. It is organised around four verbs – ‘to project’, ‘to experience’, ‘to sequence’, and ‘to activate’ – each representing both a learning strategy and an approach to expand the boundaries of architecture and urban transformation. It offers approaches, attitudes, and possible actions, inviting readers to imagine and implement alternative scripts, and to connect with people and environments in ways that open up space for change. The book is designed to be held close, carried around, and frequently referenced as a habitual working companion to address complex contemporary challenges.

“WORKING ON TRANSFORMATION means engaging in exploration, navigating friction, and sharing collective moments of learning. This book is a companion for that investigation. It offers approaches, attitudes, and possible actions, inviting you to imagine and implement alternative scripts, and to connect with people and environments in ways that open up space for change. The book grew out of lived experiences—student projects, research initiatives, travels, and encounters that took place over the past six years at the Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation at ETH Zürich. It is organised around four verbs, each representing both a learning strategy as well as an approach to expand the boundaries of architecture and urban transformation. While these verbs themselves are not new, we have learned that by committing to them explicitly, the depth and range of practice can be drastically expanded. Expansion here does not mean simply adding new elements, but reconfiguring established patterns and questioning the certainties that are deeply ingrained in the discipline. 

We see pedagogy as both a space for experimentation within the school and as an integral part of professional practice. Therefore, each verb features twice: to recount concrete experiences, and to reenact those same experiences as a living diagram. This reenactment is intentionally abstract—as an invitation to imagine your own models, your own ways of acting. Rather than providing a step-by-step manual, this companion offers these verbs as prompts. They become an open framework—meant for students and practitioners to appropriate, to experiment with, and to expand upon. In doing so, we hope you, dear reader, will find your own way to learn and transform, with and from others.

1) To Project: Understanding and reinterpreting reality

2) To Experience: Being fully present with all senses

3) To Sequence: Fostering relationships and building trust

4) To Activate: Designing through moments and sparks”

[Editors] Freek Persyn, Lukas Fink, Charlotte Schaeben, Rory McGrath

[Texts] Lukas Fink, Charlotte Schaeben, Freek Persyn

Books

Working on Transformation

Reflections

On 12 November 2025, we gathered at the Design in Dialogue Lab (ONA) at ETH Zurich to celebrate the launch of the “Working on Transformation” book. Students, colleagues and a wider circle of past and present professors engaged in questions of teaching joined us for the event. The evening brought together the editors – Freek Persyn, Lukas Fink, and Charlotte Schaeben – in conversation with invited guests Marc Angélil, Adrien Comte, Maria Conen, including the students Leon Weissheimer and Tabea Meienhofer, and members of the NEWROPE teaching team – Juan Barcia Mas, Ellena Ehrl, Sophia Garner, and Michiel van Iersel. While the book provided the starting point for the evening, the discussion opened up questions about pedagogy as a collective and situated practice and its relationship with architectural work. The evening concluded with an informal apéro where conversations about teaching and practising architecture continued.

[Place] Design in Dialogue Lab (ONA), ETH Zürich

[Editors] Freek Persyn, Lukas Fink, Charlotte Schaeben

[Guests] Marc Angélil, Adrien Comte, Maria Conen, Leon Weissheimer, Tabea Meienhofer

[NEWROPE Team] Juan Barcia Mas, Ellena Ehrl, Sophia Garner, Michiel van Iersel

Book Launch:
Working on Transformation

Related

Book Launch: Working on Transformation

Related

Book Launch:
Working on Transformation