Architect Anna Puigjaner was recently appointed Full Professor of Architecture and Care at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich, a cross-disciplinary new professorship made possible through support from the Stavros Niarchos foundation (SNF).
“All of us at SNF are proud to build on our longstanding and multifaceted partnership with ETH Zurich in this new professorship, and we congratulate Professor Puigjaner on her appointment,” said SNF Senior Program Officer Eleni Agouridi. “Architecture factors into our health, our ability to participate in society, the bonds of care we choose to form with one another, and this professorship will provide valuable new insights at a point of societal inflection.”
“Nowadays, as elsewhere, Swiss society is aging, which directly affects the prevalence of chronic health problems and disabilities while posing a challenge to the sustainability of the care system,” said Professor Puigjaner. “This situation requires a redefinition of care and rehabilitation provision, its related spaces, its labor economies and the bodies that provide it.”
ETH Zurch and SNF have enjoyed a longstanding and multifaceted collaboration encompassing a range of projects that seek to bridge gaps between research and meaningful improvements in people’s lives. SNF has supported the public research university’s CYBATHLON event, which aims to inspire research and development of technology to assist people with physical disabilities in going about their lives, while also encouraging dialogue on inclusion for people with disabilities.
As part of its Global Health Initiative (GHI) SNF also supports the Engineering for Humanitarian Action Initiative, a partnership between ETH Zurich, EPF Lausanne (EPFL), and the International Committee of the Red Cross that works to incubate scientific and technological innovations that improve service delivery to populations affected by humanitarian crises.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Bioethics Academy (SNFBA), which launched in 2019 with exclusive support from SNF and aims to expand awareness of bioethics in Greece through participatory, intensive workshops on timely ethical questions, is a partnership between the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University and the Bioethics Chair at ETH Zurich.
Photo credit: ETH Zürich / Marco Carocari