Broadway Bites: Learning from Zurich’s Architecture Competitions

When

Location

Event type

Upcoming
May
  • 1 March 2025 — 1 November 2025 USA 01 Saturday USA
    Photo by: Felicia Kieselhorst
    Open Call, Academia

    Open Call: Academic Residencies in San Francisco

    Swissnex in San Francisco is offering 2-8 week Academic Residencies for Swiss researchers, professors, and lecturers.

    Info & tickets
  • 27 May 2025 USA 27 Tuesday USA
    Event, Academia

    Swiss Reception at NAFSA 2025

    The official reception of the Swiss higher education institutions at the world's largest conference on international education and exchange.

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  • 1 September 2025 China 01 Monday China
    Program, Academia

    Tech&Ethics II: Navigating Innovation and Integrity in Life Sciences

    Building on the success of Tech&Ethics: Shaping Digital Integrity in 2024, Swissnex in China is proud to announce the next chapter of this initiative which aims to increase Switzerland’s knowledge and competencies on China.

    Info & tickets
  • 24 September 2025 — 26 September 2025 Japan 24 Wednesday Japan
    Innovation, Event, Startups, Academia

    Swiss-Japan Energy Days 2025

    Join us at Swissnex in Japan for a Swiss-Japanese seminar on energy innovations during the 'Energy Week' of the Future of Earth and Biodiversity theme (September 17-28) at the World Expo 2025 Osaka. The event will explore academic trends, startup pitches, private sector needs, and policy advancements, fostering collaboration between academia, industry, policymakers, and emerging entrepreneurs.

    Info & tickets
  • 1 November 2025 China 01 Saturday China
    Academia

    Next Generation Solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction

    In 2025, Swissnex in China is launching a new program around Next-Generation Disaster Risk Reduction Mitigation (nexGenDRR).

    Info & tickets

Zurich has emerged as a global leader in innovative and inclusive approaches to urban living — especially through its extensive network of non-profit housing cooperatives. A key factor behind their success has been the use of competitions as a tool to further architectural and urban design exploration and promote public engagement in the urban development process.

In this edition of Broadway Bites, Susanne Schindler, an architect, historian, and research fellow at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, will explain how the City of Zurich has used competitions both to grant access to city-owned land and to ensure quality in housing construction. Participants will then discuss what U.S. cities might learn from the Swiss experience.

Broadway Bites is a monthly lunch event at Swissnex, bringing guest speakers from Swissnex’s global network to give a short talk on their work.

Lunch will be provided.

Program

  • 12:00pm – Doors open
  • 12:15pm – Lunch & Presentation
  • 12:40pm – Conversation
  • 1:30pm – End

Event start time

Speaker

Susanne Schindler

Susanne Schindler is a trained architect and urban historian focused on the intersection of policy, finance, and design in housing in a transnational perspective. Her most recent book is Cooperative Conditions: A Primer on Architecture, Finance and Regulation in Zurich (with Anne Kockelkorn and Rebekka Hirschberg, gta Verlag, 2024). She is currently a research fellow at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.