OMNIBUS is an urban design and research practice created in 2009 by Noboru Kawagishi and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, two architects and urban designers graduated with a Master of Advanced Studies from ETH (Swiss Institute of Technology) in Zurich.
OMNIBUS is a trans-disciplinary structure, meant to be at crossroads of media, art, politics, illustration, landscape, architecture and urban design. OMNIBUS believes that architecture must open up towards other disciplines and should be political and controversial whenever needed.
OMNIBUS is engaged in several research projects, lately launching the research on ‘Other Urbanizations‘ that investigates the relationship between various political economies and urban forms in European cities (Berlin, Marseille, Zürich among others) and an ongoing, decade-long research and teaching practice on urban development in Asia (Singapore, Japan, China, etc).

Many of their works have been published in books, journals, magazines or online such as the essay on the ‘Future of Allotment gardens’  in Trans or ‘Prostitution, migration, urban space’ in MAS Context and Camenzind. ‘Hardbrucke: The Shadow of the City’ has been published in the book ‘Infrastructural Urbanism‘. The research on Skopje has been published in San Rocco, Clog. Other works have been featured in Horizonte, Offramp, and many others.

OMNIBUS lectured and taught workshops in several occasions, such as at the UIA in Tokyo, with the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, the University of Seville, and the ETH.

 

 

 

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA) in Marseille and at the Technische Universität (TU) Vienna, Austria. Charlotte holds a PhD on food systems and the built environment, from ETHZ. Most recently Asst. professor of urban design at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Charlotte is currently Asst. professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.

Noboru Kawagishi is born in Ishikawa, Japan and studied at Niigata University, Japan and at ETH in Zurich. He has been collaborating with KCAP/Zurich (Switzerland) and other offices (MITSUBISHI JISHO SEKKEI INC) in Japan. He is currently a doctoral researcher at the University of Tokyo.

They live and work between Zurich and Tokyo.