Gradients of Care

The documentary Deaf President Now! and the principles of DeafSpace reveal how access is deeply connected to visibility, communication, and sensory experience. In the HIL building at ETH Zürich, however, academic space remains largely shaped by efficiency, productivity, and auditory dominance.

The project therefore asks what spatial conditions emerge when a Deaf or hard-of-hearing person becomes the default user. Hearing is understood as a gradient, and so is the project itself. The intervention transforms the current information centre and former library spaces into a continuous Care Core organised through the vertical sequence of assembly, interaction, and retreat.

A new ramp and central void improve accessibility and strengthen visual connections across all levels. The existing suspended ceiling system becomes the project’s central spatial agent. Existing steel panels are selectively removed, reused, and redistributed, while translucent acoustic textiles join the structure to create visual and acoustic gradients instead of rigid separation through walls and doors.

The density, spacing, and height of the textile directly shape the atmosphere and sensory conditions of each floor.

Open and collective spaces on the ground floor allow gathering, events, eating, and informal exchange, while tighter spacing and increasing textile surface on the upper levels create stronger acoustic absorption and more enclosed environments for interaction, learning, focus, rest, and sensory regulation.

Former ceiling components reappear as furniture and spatial elements, establishing new forms of material kinship through use, maintenance, repair, and care.

Master Thesis Spring 2026

Project by: Aylin Wyler Teaching Team: Anna Puigjaner, Pol Esteve Castelló, He Shen 何珅, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Lisa Maillard, Paule Perron, Valentina Noce. In Collaboration with Guillaume Habert and He Yufei (BUK).

Images 1, 4, 6, 9: Luís Úrculo