Ten students from SUPSI's Architecture degree course, in collaboration with ten Chinese students, divided into five groups, will be asked to design a sustainable residential complex to be built near the Grand Canal of Hangzhou. This year the theme will have as its main challenge that of making the constructive and typological details work with the scale of the project, which will be an aggregative settlement that will form a sustainable residential complex. The project will address the issue of urban density as a sustainable choice, also trying to maintain the height of the buildings within four floors (low-rise-low-density). The students will also have to think about common areas, public and aggregative spaces as well as green areas and systems for the production of renewable energy.

In the second session of the workshop, scheduled for July in Lugano, the students of the two schools will have the opportunity to focus on the constructive and energetic aspects.
The combination of architectural design, energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings and the promotion of construction standards with low environmental impact are the main means for China and Switzerland to achieve a more sustainable energy supply system, reducing CO2 emissions and thus mitigating climate change.

One of the aims of the workshop is the exchange of both Swiss and Chinese know-how in the field of sustainable architecture. The students of the two schools are given the opportunity to deal with new cultural, geographical, climatic and constructive situations and to integrate them into architectural design with the criteria of sustainability.

The workshop, supported by the city of Lugano for several years, is coordinated by the architect Nicola Probst, professor of project coordination at SUPSI, and Dr. Francesco Frontini, professor and researcher at the Institute for Sustainability applied to the built environment with the assistance of the architect Giusi Mombelli. The SUPSI students are Karine Cholet, Khori De La Cruz, Stefano Doninelli, Lorenzo Guida, Alberto Gullà, Giulia Jemec, Luca Manfrini, Jacopo Ruggeri, Emi Santer, Mattia Selvi.

For further information:
Arch. Nicola Probst
np@nicolaprobst.com

Dr. Francesco Frontini
francesco.frontini@supsi.ch

Students and teachers SUPSI-Zhejiang