Champion of the architectural project
Graubünden architect and ETH Professor Andrea Deplazes has embraced the linkage between design and construction both in teaching and practice. In the noughties, he became a pioneer of sustainable construction, epitomised by the Monte Rosa hut near Zermatt. Deplazes is set to retire in July.
It’s the end of March, and the studios of the Chair of Architecture and Construction are teeming with activity. A total of 430 students in their second semester are attending the Design and Construction II course, in which they learn the most important fundamentals for their architecture studies. In 15 studios, groups consisting of 28 students each create projects later to be assessed in a final review. “Yes, over the years, it has become a pretty big operation,” Andrea Deplazes notes happily.
This “operation” was set up by the professor 28 years ago. Now this course is being held for the final time under his lead; he will become a professor emeritus at the end of July. The shelves in the spacious office he shares with his assistants have already been largely emptied. All the material that turned up again during the clear out will be featured in his farewell lecture at the end of April (29/4/25), he tells us. For our conversation, we retire to a quiet, separated area in the office where an entire wall is decorated with a collage by the architect Bernhard Hoesli, a predecessor of Deplazes known for using collages as his design approach. In front of the collage, a cardboard model of the Monte Rosa hut stands on the floor. “To this day, hardly a month goes by in which I don’t present this project somewhere,” Deplazes says.
An iconic construction at an altitude of 2,883 metres
In fact, this project is already 20 years old. ETH Zurich celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2005, and the university marked the occasion by launching projects designed to be avant-garde. “Back then, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) wrote that no tangible solutions to current challenges regarding the energy supply and sustainability were to be expected from ETH architects in their ivory tower,” Deplazes recalls. “So the gauntlet was well and truly thrown down!” Deplazes designed this striking building – often referred to as a crystal – for the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) with the Monte Rosa studio, a team of 12 students. “Every semester, we chose the best design approaches and refined them until we finally had the most coherent project,” he recalls. To cope with the extreme conditions at an altitude of almost 2,900 metres, the studio developed a spatial heat trap – a continuous band of windows in the fa?ade that lets plenty of light and heat into the building. The staircase serves as a spiral channel in which the air is heated by the direct sunlight that shines through the windows. The air then rises and spreads into the individual rooms. Using basic ventilation technology, the exhaust air is also put to use via a heat exchanger. The shape of the fa?ade, clad in photovoltaic panels, was designed to follow the course of the sun from morning to evening.
The “hut”, a five-storey timber construction made from prefabricated frames, is largely self-sufficient today and meets its own energy needs. “I’ve always been interested in projects that have the nature of a case study; in other words, projects that make an illustrative statement extending beyond any one specific project,” Deplazes states.
From words to space
The Deplazes family originates from Brigels, a village in the Surselva region of Graubünden. Their son Andrea grew up in Chur, went to the local high school and was mainly interested in languages, semiotics and the books of Umberto Eco. High school then opened up new a world of thought for him and gave him the chance to go to university. “For my family, that was by no means a given back then,” he remembers.
He no longer knows precisely why he opted to study architecture at ETH Zurich, but he still remembers his first day there as if it were yesterday. The then Head of Department, Dolf Schnebli, welcomed the students and told them that if he could do it over again, he would still choose to become an architect – not least because you could speak Italian with the guest workers on construction sites. Deplazes knew then that he had picked the right path. During our conversation, he constantly draws parallels between architecture and language. He had been fascinated by architectural projects from an early stage, he relates, and by construction design – how you get from an idea to the structural result. Or to put it another way, how words turn into a built environment.
During his studies, he sometimes lived on the H?nggerberg campus, Deplazes says: “The last bus into town left at 10 p.m. If we missed it, we often slept under the desks of the institute.” He completed his internship at the architectural office of Peter Zumthor in Haldenstein near Chur. There he also met Valentin Bearth, later his business partner at their shared studio, Bearth & Deplazes.
The pair shared basic values, but when it came to architectural issues, opinions often differed. “We argued and were constantly searching for better arguments and the best solution. This created that field of tension that is crucial to good architecture,” recalls Deplazes. To this day, he says, the key questions for joint projects are: Is the project radical enough? Have we really found the best of all possible solutions?
Selected works by Andrea Deplazes
Deplazes could have stayed with Peter Zumthor after completing his degree, but he opted to become self-employed. That’s because while still working on his thesis, he had already won a competition for a school extension project in Alvaschein together with Valentin Bearth. “With a wooden structure, which was still highly unusual back in those days,” he remarks.
“It could have gone terribly wrong”
Deplazes had never planned to teach architecture himself – until those around him encouraged him to apply for an ETH professorship. In April 1997, he was invited for an interview in May for a discussion with the President; in July the ETH Board made its decision. After that, he had precisely two months to prepare to face 189 students who were about to knock at his door. “I had no team and no lectures or exercises prepared,” Deplazes remembers. “That could have gone terribly wrong, but that’s how I learned to improvise.”
From the outset, he had one strong architectural guiding principle: It is essential that the concept – developing ideas for a certain spatial context – and the design – the detailing for its structural implementation – are taught as a single entity. “Most students think of the conceptualisation as the creative exercise and the construction design process as the technical assignment. But the latter can be unbelievably exciting and even emotional,” he says. Deplazes criticises “expert idiocy” in which technical challenges in architecture are simply delegated away to specialists, calling it “the death of our discipline.”
Back when he was preparing his course for design and construction, there was hardly any corresponding teaching material. Civil engineering material was too technical and dry and mainly aimed at engineers. “What I needed was a direct, dialectical connection between ideas and hypotheses on the one hand and their translation into an architectural result on the other,” recalls Deplazes. In 2005, the textbook Architektur konstruieren – Vom Rohmaterial zum Bauwerk (Constructing Architecture: Materials, Processes, Structures) was created from files of teaching material he had written himself. Now in its seventh edition, it has been translated into eight languages, establishing itself worldwide as a textbook for universities. For Deplazes, this close dovetailing of design and construction is also a matter of respect for craftmanship. “Whether it’s window makers, carpenters or bricklayers – in Switzerland, there is an incredible variety of highly qualified craftsmen with immense expertise,” he explains. “As architects, it is our job to nurture and support this diversity.”
Potential of digital technologies
Nevertheless, for Deplazes, tradition and high-tech are not contradictions. He was one of the first architects to integrate robots into the design and construction process. One such design is the new building for the Gantenbein winery in Fl?sch with a skin made out of perforated, twisted masonry built with the aid of robots and in collaboration with his colleagues Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler. He also sees great opportunities in VR headsets and augmented reality in which real views are enriched with virtual elements. “In this way, small companies can also perform complex tasks with unskilled workers,” he says. “This allows them to compete with high-tech operations.”
At the same time, he sees great potential for countries where informal construction is the norm, such as in Columbia, where he recently went on a field trip: “Instead of establishing major construction industries, these technologies could also be used in the barrios as a tool to enable locals to build their own houses more smartly and make them more stable and durable.”
Digital technologies are also at the heart of Deplazes’ next big project. Together with Spanish architect Francisco Mangado Beloqui, he is currently building the Centro National in Pamplona. The intention for this private architectural school is to provide graduates with in-depth training for two years in all important digital technologies, including augmented reality, robotics and AI.
“In order to achieve architectural excellence today, young architects must be familiar with these digital tools, but they are no guarantee in themselves.”Andrea Deplazes
Students will work on specific assignments from developers responsible for public construction projects in Spain as well as with the construction industry. “In the same way as for the Monte Rosa hut project back then, four studios will each work on a specific case study and develop the projects for several semesters until they reach a more detailed design level,” explains Deplazes. The school will be connected to an office where the design process is finalised and made ready for execution – partly by the graduates themselves, who can use this opportunity to find their way into the working world. That’s the idea, at least. The Centro is to serve as a model for the architectural training of the future.
Starting this summer, Deplazes will alternate between his own office in Chur and the Centro National in Pamplona, where he will continue to teach. “I can’t play golf, so I’ll have to find something else to do when I retire,” he jokes. At the start of April, a delegation of Spanish politicians and business representatives visited the Institute for Technology in Architecture (ITA) at H?nggerberg, which serves as the blueprint for the Centro’s course of study. During this visit, Deplazes took the opportunity to present the Monte Rosa project again. It fascinates people to this day – even if its creator has long since moved on.
Farewell lecture
On Tuesday, 29 April, at 5.15 p.m., Professor Andrea Deplazes will give his farewell lecture entitled “Aufgebot zur Hausdurchsuchung” (House search warrant) at the Audi Max, ETH Main Building, R?mistr. 101, in Zurich.
The event will be streamed live at: external page https://event.swisscom.ch/v/eth-live-1/live/mainstage