Teaching the common language between engineering and architecture through hands-on project-based learning while bringing industry leaders into the classroom.
Classes at ETH Zurich
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Digital Creativity for Circular Construction
Prof. Catherine De Wolf
This Future Cities Lab design studio explores how generative AI, extended reality, and digital fabrication can upscale circular construction. Students actively disassemble buildings, salvage materials, and design and construct new structures from these reclaimed resources, using digital technologies. The 2024 edition was taught in collaboration with Kunsthalle Zürich.
Fall 2024, Spring 2026
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Future-ready Construction and Infrastructure
Prof. Catherine De Wolf & Dr. Claudio Martani
The course teaches methods for designing and optimizing infrastructure that balance cost and performance under uncertain future conditions. Students learn to rigorously quantify the level of service, model the uncertainty over variable parameters, identify design solutions, and run simulations.
Fall 2025, Fall 2026
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Digital Transformation for Circular Construction
Prof. Catherine De Wolf
This course will teach students from different disciplines how to use digital technologies and innovation that enable the transition from a linear to a circular model in the built environment, through the case study of the reuse of the Huber pavilions on campus. The 2023 edition was taught in collaboration with Prof. Momoyo Kaijima & Dr. Iro Amerni and reused the materials from the Huber Pavilions.
Spring 2023, Spring 2024
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Project Management for Construction Projects
Bernd Hofer & Dr. Jens Hunhevicz
This course introduces construction project management through lectures and guest speakers from industry. The programme covers project cost, quality, time control, contracts, sustainability, leadership, BIM, data-driven delivery, industrialized and lean construction, and integrated project delivery. The course is under the responsibility of the CEA Lab and assisted by Ana Bendiek-Laranjo.
Fall 2025, Fall 2026
Other Teaching
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Norman Foster Insitute
Master’s Programme on Sustainable Cities
Invited by Norman Foster as faculty since 2023, Prof. Catherine De Wolf gives input lectures and workshops on data-driven digital approaches to circular urban planning and life-cycle assessment methods to reduce the environmental impact of cities. The interdisciplinary programme applies digital tools in fieldwork to train future leaders in designing and implementing sustainable, inclusive solutions for real cities.
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ETH Zurich Summer School
Digitalisation for Circular Construction - 2022
Students in civil engineering, architecture, computer science, and environmental engineering learned how to use digital technologies to upscale reuse in a hands-on course in which students disassembled an entire building to redesign a dome on campus. International students worked together on this dis- and re-assembly projects to learn about how to tackle the real-world challenges of circular construction.
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DiCE Lab
Digital Circular Economy (DiCE) Lab
Prof. Catherine De Wolf hosts the in-person events at ETH Zurich, to connect research with practice in the fields of digitalisation and circular economy. Topics range from ‘Business Models for a Circular Economy’ to ‘Measuring What Matters: Revolutionizing Actionable Circularity in the Built Environment’, in collaboration with Dr. Sultan Çetin, Dr. Deepika Raghu, Dr. Meliha Honic, and Anna Batallé Garcia.
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Ghent University
Jokerweek - 2022
The CEA Lab was invited at the Department of Architecture during Jokerweek to reassemble a dome pavilion with Ghent University students. The reuse structure then functioned as a live radio hub and public venue for discussions and events throughout the week. Prof. Catherine De Wolf also gave a lecture as part of the Jokerweek.
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D-ARCH
ETH Zurich’s Architecture Department
Invited as a co-supervisor of Master’s theses in the architecture department with Profs. Mariam Isoufou, Adrien Comte, Adrien Meuwly, An Fonteyne, and Barbara Buser.
From Classroom to Screen
These documentaries about our classes on circular construction and regenerative design highlight the students’ learning journeys through real projects.
CEA Teaching (2 min)
CEA Teaching (10 min)
Master’s and Bachelor’s Student Supervision
Thesis and project supervision focus on circular construction, combining architectural design, structural engineering, and digital technologies. Topics span material reuse and selective deconstruction; digital documentation and material passports; computational and AI-based design from reuse; environmental assessment of circular systems; and digital fabrication, robotic disassembly, and extended reality for reassembly. Many projects are embedded in real-world case studies and collaborations with industry, cultural institutions, and public partners, enabling students to translate research into built prototypes and demonstrators.
Past Teaching
TU Delft
2020 - 2021
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AR2R036 Re-design with Prof. L. Lousberg & Dr. C. De Wolf
Students are tutored in the redesign of a complex redevelopment project of the area of Rotterdam South. This course uses the ‘Hart van Zuid’ case to study how large-scale, mixed-use urban redevelopment projects are designed, procured, and managed through long-term public–private partnerships, integrating architecture, infrastructure, social programs, and complex contract models. Tutors included C. De Wolf, S. Zijlstra, P. Chan, T. Wang, H. Remoy, P. de Jong, and H. Wamelink.
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BK6AC3 Academische ontwerpreflectie with Prof. S. Zijlstra and Dr. C. De Wolf teaches architecture students how to critically reflect on their own design work using academic research, theory, and structured argumentation. The course focuses on linking design decisions to scientific literature and the design process, rather than on producing new designs.
EPFL
2018 - 2020
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AR-497 Building Design in the Circular Economy with Prof. C. Fivet & Dr. C. De Wolf
Master’s students leran about the concept of circular economy and its applications to building design, with a focus on design for disassembly, reuse, and life cycle assessment (LCA).
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PENS 212 Constructive Second Hand with Prof. C. Fivet, Dr. C. De Wolf, J. Brütting, P. Mariotte
Bachelor’s students in civil engineering, architecture, and environmental engineering collaborate to learn how to reuse waste materials for making new structures and furniture pieces and assess the impact of their products.
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In the Laboratory Elementary Architecture and Studies of Types (EAST) Design Studio by A. and M. Frohlich, an on-site workshop was co-organised by M. Frohlich, Dr. C. De Wolf, and Lozinger Marazzi on the reuse of the tram depot in Bern.
Nanjing University
2018
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As instructor, Dr. C. De Wolf introduced students to structural interactive design, with a focus on implementing circular economy principles in a design studio that emphasized learning by doing and working in teams.