Integrated Sustainable Development Through Collective Action
Date: 25 June 2025
Venue: Center of Nature Conservation + Masoala Hall event space, Zurich Zoo
Affiliated event with the ETH Zurich Sustainable Built Environment Conference (SBE25), titled “Shaping Tomorrow: Systems Thinking in the Built Environment,” ETH Hönggerberg, June 25-27, 2025.
Masoala Hall. Image source: Zoo Zurich
We live in times of far-reaching transformations, including changing climates, ecosystems, societies, and economies. Rapid population growth and increasing environmental degradation predominantly impact people living in the Global South, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. This creates both enormous challenges as well as opportunities to intervene with care, steering these transformations towards more just and sustainable futures.
How can we address the estimated 3 billion people living in informal housing by 2030?
What is needed to build integrated neighborhoods that are socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable in these contexts?
How does ISD, a Swiss NGO, contribute effectively to solutions that impact these challenges on a systemic level?
BUILD + KNOWLEDGE 01 is ISD’s first event, bringing together a group of like-minded actors engaged in sustainable development and construction. The event offers a platform to discuss innovative and place-based solutions to some of the pressing challenges of our time, providing insights into practical applied work and real experiences.
It features:
- 4 x 15-minute talks by international ISD consortium experts from Africa and Europe;
- an exhibition of built and in-development projects;
- networking opportunities with a community of people contributing to real built solutions;
- optional guided tour through the Masoala Hall;
- apéro riche
Integrated Sustainable Development (ISD)
Through collective action, Integrated Sustainable Development (ISD) contributes to systemic change in under-resourced places bybuilding integrated neighborhoods that are ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable.
In each project, we work with multidisciplinary partners, including the local government and community, planners and designers, academic institutions, implementation experts, as well as funders and investors, which fosters collaboration, shared learning, and greater impact.
Center of Nature Conservation with an audiovisual space for presentations. Image source: Zoo Zurich
Talks
At this event in the Nature Conservation Centre, speakers from Southern Africa and Europe, who are working together through the ISD platform, will share firsthand experiences from their practice, followed by discussions and apéro riche in the Masoala Hall event space.
ISD Project site in Oniipa, Northern Namibia
Exhibition
An exhibition of ongoing and planned projects by ISD and partner organizations from our international consortium will be shown. The selected, high-impact projects demonstrate how pressing challenges can be effectively addressed through innovative design and collaboration.
Planned neighborhood center in our Oniipa project, including a community hub with ECD center, shops, and offices, a number of sustainable housing showhomes, a resilient ecological infrastructure, and public open spaces
Resilient Neighborhood Project in Northern Namibia
ISD’s in-development project in Oniipa, Northern Namibia is a pilot for designing, planning, and implementing strategies to build a sustainable neighborhood for more than 500 low-income families currently living in informal settlements. The project, of which the comprehensive planning phase has been completed, will be discussed and exhibited at the event. It provides an opportunity for contributions to enable the implementation of sustainable development strategies starting later in 2025.
View into the Masoala Hall from the event space. Image source: Gautschi Storrer Architekten, © Heinrich Helfenstein; gta Archiv / ETH Zürich
Venue
The Masoala Rainforest at Zoo Zurich is an innovative structure and building technology that encompasses a rainforest ecosystem, native to Madagascar, where the Zoo is committed to its largest-ever conservation project.
The BUILD + KNOWLEDGE 01 event overlooks this unique scenery. An optional guided tour through the Masoala Hall will be offered prior to the event.
We are looking forward to an interesting, informative, and impactful evening.
This is an invite-only event. Please get in touch if you wish to participate.
Partners
