What will the cities of the future feel like? Will they be cooler, more resilient, more human, or simply bigger, faster, and hotter? According to ETH alumna Estefanía Tapias, no one has the answer. And that uncertainty is exactly what makes cities so fascinating.

In the latest episode of the We Are ETH podcast, host Susan Kish sits down with Estefanía, an architect, urban scientist, and Head of Smart & Digital for WSP in the Middle East, to explore her journey from Colombia to Zurich to Dubai and to understand how she is helping shape the cities of tomorrow in some of the world’s most extreme climates.

From Medellín to Zurich to Dubai: A Journey Shaped by Curiosity

Estefanía’s story began far from the desert skylines she works with today. Growing up in Colombia, she dreamed of becoming an artist. Architecture came next, followed by technology, data, and ultimately cities themselves.

“I’ve always been curious about cities,” she says. “How they evolve in 5, 10, 20 years… no one knows where we will be.”

That curiosity eventually brought her to ETH Zurich, where she completed her PhD under renowned professor Gerhard Schmitt at the Future Cities Laboratory. This pioneering hub blended urban science, technology, climate research, and design long before “smart cities” became a buzzword.

“For me, ETH was the perfect combination,” she recalls. “A visionary professor, a cutting-edge laboratory, and a city, Zurich, that I fell in love with at first sight.”

Those six months for her Master’s thesis turned into eight years. Zurich shaped not just her research but her life as well: “I ended up marrying a Swiss person. My daughter is Swiss. Everything came together very nicely.”

Why Dubai? A Laboratory for Big Ideas

Today, Estefanía works in Dubai, which she describes as similar to what Singapore felt like 15 years ago: a place buzzing with ambition, experimentation, and large-scale technological investment.

“There’s a momentum here,” she explains. “You see it in day-to-day life. They’re pushing innovation everywhere. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but that is simply part of building the future.”

She also points to Saudi Arabia, where entire cities are currently being built from scratch, something that no other region in the modern world is attempting at a comparable scale.

“In my lifetime, I will only have this opportunity once,” she says. “You learn from all the cities that came before, meaning what worked and what did not, and you apply it to a place being built from zero.”

Some projects succeed quietly. Others, such as The Line, have faced challenges. But even the difficult experiments matter.

“They pushed technology forward,” she says. “If it weren’t for these ambitious projects, the software and systems we use for city-building would not have advanced as quickly.”

When Heat Becomes the Challenge and the Teacher

Estefanía’s PhD focused on urban climate and sustainability long before she ever experienced what 45°C heat really feels like. “When I arrived in Dubai, the heat was unbearable. I thought: I cannot do this,” she laughs. “By my second summer, I realised I had adapted.”

Her research helped her recognise something essential:

Cities must adapt as well.

Extreme heat now shapes how cities must be designed, influencing shading, materials, energy systems, and public spaces. Traditional Gulf urbanism provides valuable clues, and technology offers new tools, yet people ultimately remain at the center.

“We need buildings that work with the environment instead of working against it through endless air conditioning,” she says. “There is so much opportunity to rethink how cities respond to heat.”

Why ETH? Vision, People, and a City That “Grew Organically”

When asked why she chose ETH Zurich for her PhD, Estefanía answers without hesitation: “It was the person I would work with, and it was also the city.”

Professor Schmitt’s vision shaped her academically. Zurich shaped her personally and professionally.

“It is modern but not too modern. It is technological but still full of culture. It is clean, safe, close to nature, and still very much a city,” she reflects. “It grew organically. It is still my favourite city in the world.”

Her perfect Zurich moment?

“A coffee by the lake, looking at the mountains full of snow.”

Advice to Young Urbanists: Move Where Cities are Moving

For students who dream of shaping cities, she offers the same advice she once received: “Go where things are happening. Don’t stay comfortable. Live in the places that are changing fast and learn from them.”

Her own path reflects that philosophy, moving from Turin to Zurich to Singapore and eventually to Dubai.

“It is easy to criticise from far away,” she says. “I wanted to come here, experience it, and solve problems instead of just pointing at them.”

Looking Ahead: The Future No One Can Predict

When asked what she is most curious about today, Estefanía lights up: “Future cities. How they evolve. How systems change. I wish I had a machine that took me 10 years forward and then brought me back.”

Until such a machine exists, she is helping build that future herself.

This article is based on We Are ETH, the podcast highlighting ETH Zurich alumni who are shaping science, industry, and society around the world. Listen to the full episode on your favourite platform.

Did you know that ETH Zürich has an office in Singapore? And it’s ETH’s only research centre outside of Switzerland! I got the opportunity to spend 4 months in this inspiring environment, strengthening collaborations in energy research.

The Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) was established in 2010, in collaboration with the Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF). Over 100 researchers work here in different teams and in two research programmes: the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) combines science and design for a sustainable urban future with an Asian perspective, and the Future Resilient Systems (FRS) programme seeks to develop a framework,  methods and tools to make critical infrastructure systems more robust and resilient.

Challenges on the other Side of the World

Important parts of these two programmes actually deal with energy research, in the area of city planning, e.g. working on novel designs for the energy supply of the future and on the resilience of future energy systems. At the Energy Science Center (ESC) in Zurich, we have the vision to look at challenges in the field of energy on a global scale. Therefore, it sure looked like an ideal opportunity for me personally to move my office to the SEC in Singapore for a couple of months, to better understand the challenges on the other side of the world, in a different culture, different climate and a different political setup.

Highly Inspiring Opportunity

And, it was highly inspiring! I really enjoyed the thriving atmosphere amongst researchers from all over the world, and from different disciplines: in a team working on energy systems for low-carbon cities that I had close interactions with, there is a civil engineer, an energy science engineer, two chemical engineers, and an architect, just to give you an example. I truly believe that this form of close interdisciplinary collaboration is needed to solve the energy challenges of the future. This also became clear during the discussions with the local government agencies, where the future of Singapore is planned today.

The Art of Presentation

Another thing that struck me: The amount of effort that was put into the presentation of former and current research projects! Each project is presented at the entrance to the SEC, using a multitude of media (movies, 3D-modellings, drawings, objects). Communicating science is taken seriously at SEC.

I’m already looking forward to visit my colleagues in Singapore again soon.

Communicating Science is taken seriously at the SEC

Christian Schaffner is the Executive Director of the Energy Science Center (ESC) of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. The ESC is an inter-disciplinary competence centre to promote energy research and teaching at ETH.

Links to documentaries about smart cities and the SEC that aired on various TV channels this year:
«Cities of the Future» (Vom Fischerdorf zur Megacity – wie die Welt verstädtert)
NZZ TV, Swiss TV SRF1 | 24.08.2017
«Smart Cities 2.0»  
Toggle | 31.03.2017
«Futuropolis»  
Toggle |  31.03.2017