Prof Dirk E. HEBEL

Dirk Hebel

Project Leader of Alternative Construction Materials &
Co-PI of Urban-Rural Systems

Dirk E. Hebel is full professor of Sustainable Construction at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. Prior to that, he was assistant professor of Architecture and Construction at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. He was also the founding scientific director of the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He was as well guest professor at Syracuse University and guest lecturer at Princeton University.

He is the author of numerous book publications, lately Cultivated Building Materials (2017, Birkhäuser, with Felix Heisel), SUDU – The Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit (2015, Ruby Press, with Melakeselam Moges and Zara Gray), Building from Waste: Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction (2014, Birkhäuser, with Marta H. Wisniewska and Felix Heisel), and Cities of Change: Addis Ababa (2009, Birkhäuser, with Marc Angélil). In 2008, he published the book Deviations (2008, Birkhäuser, with Marc Angélil), an experiment in architectural design pedagogy and in 2005 Bathroom Unplugged (2005, Birkhäuser, with Jörg Stollmann). Together with Stephen Cairns, he is the founding editor of the Future Cities Laboratory Magazine, published in Singapore.

Dirk Hebel practices architecture by activating unusual building materials such as air (DISCOVERIES, an exhibition for the Foundation Lindau Nobel Prize Winners and  ON_AIR, and installation for KunstWerke Berlin), water (as the project manager for the BLUR Building for EXPO.02 in Switzerland), bamboo (in his research on new bamboo composite materials for the building sector), or waste (as in the New York ETH Pavillion for IDEAS CITIES 2015 and the award-winning project UNITED_BOTTLE). Dirk Hebel was one of the founding partners of INSTANT Architects (2002-2008).  

Research

His research concentrates on a metabolic understanding of resources and investigates alternative building materials and construction techniques and their applications in developed as well as developing territories.

Awards

  • New York Van Alen Institute Fellowship Award
  • Red Dot Design Award for Best Conceptual Design
  • SMART Innovation Grant Singapore
  • LANXESS Award Singapore
  • Zumtobel Group Award
  • KTI

Education

Dipl Arch ETHZ, MArch Princeton University

Affiliations

Founding Scientific Director of the Ethiopian Instituite of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development, Addis Ababa

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