Learning and unlearning. Bulldozers and cranes move like bizarre dancing through Zurich. The choreography is always the same, knocking down the old and building up the new. These machines follow blindly the patterns of Modernity as if nothing had changed. They remind me of zombies, undead creatures from the past.

In Eva Prats’ studio at ETH, I felt resistance to the status quo. It was seeing the future. Students studied the existing with care and respect. They listened to neighbours. They learned about communities, about shade, about wind and plants. They paid attention to memories and desires.

On the large table of the students, I saw no bird’s eyes view, no tabula rasa, no abstraction, but rather adaption, transformation and connection. They learned that design is not obliged to identify with the developer. They learned the new and unlearned what still is standard.