parity

talks

The Parity group is a fluid group of students, assistants and professors from the department of architecture at ETH Zürich who meet to discuss issues around gender and diversity, organizing the yearly Parity Talks in March.

Supporters of the Parity Talks 2025

 

ETH Zurich, Department of Architecture (D-ARCH)

NCCR Digital Fabrication

Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA)

Institute of Design and Architecture (IEA)

Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta)

Chair of Architecture and Care, Anna Pugjaner

Chair of Architecture & Urban Design, Hubert Klumpner

Chair of Architecture and Design, Christian Kerez

Chair of Art in Space and Time, Rosa Barba

Chair of Being Alive, Teresa Gali-Izard

gta Exhibitions

Association of Assistants at the ETH Zürich Department of Architecture (AAA)

Chair of Construction Heritage and Preservation, Silke Langenberg

Chair for the History and Theory of Architecture, Marten Delbeke

NEWROPE Chair of Architecture & Urban Transformation

universum carrousel journey, Jan de Vylder

Chair of Affective Architectures, An Fonteyne

Chair for the History and Theory of Architecture, Philip Ursprung

Studio Boltshauser

Studio Maria Conen

Studio Tom Emerson

Studio Theriot

Station+, Arno Brandlhuber

Architecture of Territory, Milica Topalovic

 

 

PARTNERS

Womxn in Design (Harvard GSD)

Claiming*Spaces (TU Wien)

DRAG lab (EPFL)

Parity Board (TUM)

and the Parity Front

Email

Instagram

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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this website belong solely to the authors, and not necessarily to the ETH Zurich and its departments or the individuals affiliated with ETH Zurich.


Parity Talks X: Where Do We Stand?

Where Do We Stand? March 4-5th, 2025

On its tenth anniversary, Parity Talks aims to facilitate a collective reflection on where we stand; What has been done? What have we achieved? What does doing parity work in the school mean? Where does the parity and diversity project stand at the D-ARCH? And – equally important – what is yet to be done? 

We want to take this opportunity to look inwards, at institutional structures, questioning privileges and systematic discriminatory practices. We want to expand and elaborate our commitment to parity and diversity issues, and consciously tackle questions that are intimately linked to gender and sexuality but have not yet been adequately addressed, such as decolonial perspectives, classism, racism, ableism, and ageism among others.

Opening with a plenum of past and present Parity Group members, we will continue with a series of workshops collaboratively conceptualised by students, faculty and members of the Parity Group, inviting critical external voices to inform our discourse and reflections. These will be focussed on how privilege and access – or lack thereof – informs the culture at D-ARCH and beyond, and to what extent non-normative positions are present and encouraged in research and teaching. At a crucial point in its life, this year’s Parity Talks are intended as a moment when members of  the department can come together to chart a path forward and devise a series of programs, goals, actions.  

PROGRAMME 

Tuesday, 4th March

18:15 – 19:30 Athena Lecture. Christina Varvia: Where Do We Stand? Across the Border

followed by Q&A with Lisa Maillard, by ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE

@HIL E4

Wednesday, 5th March

09:00–14:00 Plenary Programme PARITY TALKS X

 

09:00 – 09:20 Welcome by Vice Dean and PDK, introduction by Parity Group

@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer

 

09:20 – 10:50 Keynote. Giving Voice: Transnational Narratives in Architecture & Education

by Igea Troiani, moderated by Nitin Bathla

@HIL E71.1 (TBC)

 

11:00 – 12:30 Where Do We Stand? Plenum with Former & Current  Members of the Parity Group

with Blanka Major, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Daniela Ortiz dos Santos, Giacomo Rossi, Linda Sjøqvist, Orkun Kasap, Qianer Zhu, Torsten Lange, Paul Grieguszies, and Shriya Chaudhry.

moderated by HE Shen 何珅 and Emma Kaufmann LaDuc

@HIL E67 (Rote Hölle)

 

12:30 – 14:00 Just Soup. Seasonal Vegetable Soup with Sourdough Bread & Wildgreen Pesto

by Airas Sáchez Keller, Anne-Sophie Loretan, Elisaveta Kriman, Franziska Gödicke, Lisa Maillard, Nicolas Rolle, Orkun Kasap, Shriya Chaudhry, Virginia Zaretskie

@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer

 

14:00 – 17:15 Workshop Programme PARITY TALKS X

 

14:00 – 17:15 Our Lives in Social Space – A Performative Workshop (per invitation only)

by Paola De Martin, Anh Tran, Orkun Kasap

@HIL D34.2 (architektura office)

 

14:00 – 15:30 The Architecture of the “War Against Anti-Semitism”: A Critical Excavation, Analysis and Trans-Semitic Imaginarium (register here)

by Sofia Gloor and Jason Oberman

@HIL E2 (Baubibliothek)

 

14:00 – 15:30 How a Wall Gets to The Hague: Broken: a Documentary at the Heart of International Law by SEKUNDOS (Qianer Zhu, Mona Lecoultre, Carolina Contreras Alvarez, Aymane Filali) with the produder Stefan Ziegler

@HIL E67 (Rote Hölle)

 

14:00 – 15:30 (Un)Learning Excellence: Organizing for Solidarity in the Design Studio (register here) by Antoine Iweins, Gianna Ledermann, Kyra Michel and Noémie Zurbriggen, Nitin Bathla, Elisaveta Kriman, HE Shen 何珅.

@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer

 

15:45 – 17:15 Creating with Neurodivergence by Paula-Marie Bugla, Lisa Maillard, and Mikki Soriano.

@HIL E 70.5 (Care.)

 

15:45 – 17:15 Norm Spotting – Unveiling HIL’s Obstacles by trans*formativ, with Barbara Schaub 

@Hönggerberg Campus Public Space, Meeting point in front of HIL main entrance

 

15:45 – 17:15 Can Your Diversity Speak? A Decolonial Ritual (register here) with Estefania Cuero, Reyaa Wynn Peier Morgado, Unmasking Space by HE Shen 何珅, Nitin Bathla and Elisaveta Kriman

@HIL E67 (Rote Hölle)

 

17:15 – 18:20 Closing Programme PARITY TALKS X

 

17:20 – 18:20 Closing Conversation & Parity Group Award Ceremony by Parity Group

@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer

Using the resources from the Prix Meret Oppenheim, awarded to the Parity Group by the Swiss Government in 2023, the group intends to dedicate the prize money to support projects advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion at D-ARCH. To mark the tenth anniversary of the Parity Talks, we are launching a yearly Parity Group Award to recognize outstanding student work critically engaging with themes like gender, sexuality, inequalities, and decolonial perspectives, among others. During the award ceremony, two design or research projects from the past two semesters will be awarded CHF 1,000 each.

 

18:20 “Geschwellti mit Kääs und Salat” with a Local Wine Pairing

by Airas Sáchez Keller, Anne-Sophie Loretan, Elisaveta Kriman, Franziska Gödicke, Lisa Maillard, Nicolas Rolle, Orkun Kasap, Shriya Chaudhry, Virginia Zaretskie

@HIL E3 & E4 Foyer

The Fluid Archive

The idea of the fluid archive might have existed since a long time ago. Across wildly divergent geographic contexts and vast time spans, communities that are willing to build resistance against oppression began to talk about alternative futures, listen to voices below the silence, and collect diverse words, talks, texts and ideas that would be otherwise neglected. Collecting not for the sake of owning, but of listening, visiblising and empowering. Hence building such an archive is less about what a world is, but more about what it can become. 

The fluid Archive is an ongoing project of the Parity Group that enables a living archiving culture through saving a space. As a curated platform to present and publish the knowledge production and methodology of the Parity Talks, it aims at creating a research tool that supports bottom-up learning initiatives, and a piece of infrastructure that supports offline events of the Parity Group and possibly the decentralisation of the Parity Talks over the course of the year.

The Fluid Archive is a collective project that grows with the community of the Parity Group.

Calendar

05.03.2024
Parity Talks IX
On Inconvenience
08:00-12:00

The ninth edition of Parity Talks will be taking place on March 5, 6 and 7th 2024. This year, we shift our focus to openly naming the issues which lead to disparity by finding ways to talk – from different positions and bases of knowledge. We aim for inclusive spaces, to share and – most importantly – to listen, in spite and because of the feelings of discomfort and inconvenience that come with it. 

In collaboration with gta Exhibitions and ETH Wohnforum, PARITY TALKS IX will combine  carefully curated lectures, discussions, and exhibitions with events and workshops coming from you – our community within – to give space and time for inconvenient yet critical questions: What does it mean to speak up even though it is inconvenient? Who is able to speak up? Why do we choose to remain silent? Where are our blind and deaf spots? Together, we will address how privilege and dominant narratives might impact who is allowed to speak and who is heard, and will set up collective experiments to expand our listening. 

07.03.2023
Parity Talks VIII
Get your act together!
07:00-19:00

In the upcoming Parity Talks we will focus on taking action and bringing together different actors. After asking what it takes to keep a conversation, a building, an institution in good condition, and reflecting on what we can learn from what’s already happening in the cracks of it, we now start gathering ideas to implement change. How do we mobilise and bring together the grassroot collectivities and intelligences already present (in a conversation, in a building, in an institution) to do what needs to be done and act upon what’s still missing?

“Parity Talks VIII: Get your act together!” will take place in the Architecture Department on the 7th & 8th March 2023. The Dean’s Talk with Paul Bouet, co-hosted by the Dean’s Office and the gta institute, and the Athena Lecture with Anna Puigjaner, co-hosted by the ETH Wohnforum, will kick things off on the evening of the 7th, followed by a day of workshops, discussions and talks on the 8th.

Building on the inputs from the last seven Talks, this edition aims to put things into practice: how to act through design, in what we teach, in how we work and learn together? An open call for actions led to the formation of new constellations and collaborations across different chairs, hierarchies, roles and entities in the department, reminding us that it takes mutual support, solidarity and empathy to get things done. We still act too much on our own terms, let’s get our act together.

13.04.2022
Seven Questions Curatorial
Anne Mikoleit / Wuest Partner
-
Link

Guest curator: Parity Group, ETH Zurich Location: ETH Hönggerberg, HIL E67 Rote Hölle Studio Jan de Vylder universum carrousel journey – Carrousel, series of lectures FS 2021

06.04.2022
Seven Questions Curatorial
Urbanista
-

Guest curator: Parity Group, ETH Zurich Location: ETH Hönggerberg, HIL E67 Rote Hölle Studio Jan de Vylder universum carrousel journey – Carrousel, series of lectures FS 2021

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The Multiplicity of Other

A slide explaining the multiplicity

Author: Afaina de Jong
Tags: #Parity Talks VI


The deconstruction of modernist thinking in which rationality and the universal human are promoted, is central to reimagining freedom in the context of architecture. In doing so, the presence of highly particular voices connected to gender, race, class, and ability can no longer be seen as the confirmation of the premises and prejudices of the past, but exists as a reality of its own. Identifying the spatial knowledge of the overwhelming majority of othered groups is fundamental in design for the complex 21st century city. This multiplicity of other is where new spatial languages and practices will redefine dominant architectural paradigms. How do we as architects arrive at a newfound set of values, knowledge and methodology to design actual spaces of freedom?