Prof. Roger Diener, Prof. Marcel Meili, 
Vesna Jovanovic, Christian Mueller Inderbitzin, Mathias Gunz, Rolf Jenni
Exercise types: 'e' or 'e+i'
Group work in Basel and research on location in Hanoi, Ha Long, Red River Delta
Start: Tuesday, 21. February, 2012, 10 AM at ETH Studio Basel, Spitalstrasse 8, 4056 Basel

During the past several years we have learnt a lot about the transformation processes of contemporary cities under globalization pressures. But what is the impact of these forces on territories, beyond the clear gravitational fields of metropolitan centers? In order to find concrete answers we have ventured this year to the territory of Northern Vietnam, named once Tonkin by the French, an ancient, levelled, intricate and rich agricultural landscape, where the whirring of the 90+ million inhabitants has caught our attention. This project continues ETH Studio Basel's territorial researches in Switzerland (1999-2005), the Nile Valley (2009), Rome - The Adriatic (2010), and Florida (2011), which clearly show ways in which densely populated environments invent new types of space: traditional natural or rural areas turn into urbanized territories characterized by a multilayered occupation of landscape, overlapping structures and meanings.