PERSYN, Freek; FINK, Lukas; SCHAEBEN, Charlotte; McGRATH, Rory (eds.)
Working on Transformation

Working on Transformation is the result of encounters. Staged between faculty, students and collaborators at the Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation at ETH Zurich (otherwise known as NEWROPE), these encounters are performances of world-building, inviting participants and audiences to imagine new ways to choreograph alliance. Recognising the present need for new forms of critical design education underscores the project’s immediacy. By documenting the production of NEWROPE’s teaching experiments, the book becomes a guiding companion, anticipating future experiments to be staged outside of this forum.

Imagined in this way, it is not an instruction for collaboration but a component part of these very relations. Portability catalyses functionality: the book is designed to be held close, carried around and frequently referenced as a habitual working companion. Inside, the narrative is distilled across four chapters, each organised around a verb: “to project,” “to experience,” “to sequence,” and “to activate.” These verbs arise twice within each chapter: first as a contextual survey of established disciplinary practices within the field of architecture and urban transformation (the Action); and second as a speculative invitation to re-enact these practices in nascent forms (the Primer). These latter sections offer rumination on NEWROPE’s ongoing pursuit of collectivity as a methodology to address the urgent complexities of our times. [publishers’ note]

Published by InOtherWords, 2025
Design by OK-RM
Education / Graphic Design / Architecture