Christoph Küffer

Christoph Küffer is Professor of Urban Ecology in the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland (Fachhochschule Ostschweiz) based in St Gallen, Switzerland.

He was a workshop presenter at the 6th Holcim Forum 2019 and wrote “Cities as Ecosystems and Buildings as Living Organisms” in The Materials Book: Re-materializing Construction.

Christoph Küffer is also a Lecturer in the Department of Architecture and a Senior Scientist in the Institute of Integrative Biology – Plant Ecological Genetics, in the Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Switzerland.

He studied Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich (2000), completing his PhD in plant ecology and Habilitation in plant and global change ecology (2006).

He has long-standing experience in collaborating with social scientists, scholars from the humanities and artists; amongst others as a fellow at the Collegium Helveticum (a laboratory for transdisciplinary research to promote knowledge exchange between the natural sciences, the humanities, art, technology and medicine established by the University of Zurich and the ETH Zurich), the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld University, and as a co-chair of Environmental Humanities Switzerland.

His research focuses on urban ecology, biodiversity conservation in novel and human-dominated ecosystems, and global change impacts on island and mountain ecosystems.