News

URBES at CCS 2025

Published:12.09.25 — Kudos to Marc and Martin who presented their latest research at the Conference on Complex Systems 2025

New study reveals the impact of human mobility on heat exposure

Published:11.09.25 — A recent article, led by Guo-Shiuan Lin and published in PLOS One, demonstrates that daily and seasonal human mobility modulates temperature exposure in European cities

Welcome Xue and Yen-Shou!

Published:11.09.25 — Prof. Xue Feng (University of Minnesota) and Yen-Shuo Huang (PhD student at UCLouvain) are visiting the URBES lab

Keynote at Beat the Heat 2025

Published:29.08.25 — Gabriele Manoli delivered a keynote speech on urban mobility and heat exposure at the Swiss TPH conference in Basel

Cities obey the same laws of living systems

Published:21.08.25 — An EPFL study has found that urban areas follow the same universal rules observed in the natural world. From population size to carbon emissions and road networks – could the key to sustainable urbanization lie in the very “metabolism” of our cities?

URBES at ICUC12

Published:15.07.25 — Great participation of the URBES lab to the 12th International Conference on Urban Climate (ICUC12)

Can we harvest wind energy in cities?

Published:26.06.25 — A new study by URBES, published in the Wind Energy journal, quantifies the wind energy microgeneration potential in the cities of Lausanne and Geneva.

URBES at the Pint of Science Festival 2025

Published:21.05.25 — An evening of fun and discovery in Lausanne, with a great presentation by Marc on human mobility, heat exposure, and inequality!

Xinjie joins the lab!

Published:19.05.25 — Xinjie Huang, a PhD student at Princeton University, is visiting URBES for a scientific exchange

URBES at EGU25 and the CECAM workshop

Published:16.05.25 — Our latest research has been presented at EGU25 in Vienna and the CECAM workshop "Stochastics processes: Inferences in complex systems".

Wind lidar installed at EPFL

Published:23.04.25 — The scanning lidar will enable to acquire wind and aerosol backscatter measurements within the boundary layer of Lausanne

The spatial distribution of urban trees can impact human health

Published:20.03.25 — A long-term study on Switzerland has found a link between the spatial arrangment of residential trees and mortality risk.

URBES at the exhibition "Datapoiesis" in Venice

Published:15.01.25 — URBES together with ENAC-IT4Research have developed an online platform for urban data visualization now displayed at the Datapoiesis exhibition in Venice

To densify or not to densify? That is the question

Published:20.08.24 — As researchers learn more about the costs and benefits of urban densification, city planners will be able to make better-informed measures, says Gabriele Manoli, a tenure-track assistant professor at EPFL, in this column published in three daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland.

Are transport systems ready to cope with extreme heat?

Published:07.08.24 — In a recent comment published in Nature, a team of scientists – including Gabriele Manoli – provides a call for action to improve the resilience of global transport systems to future heatwaves

Behind the paper with the Royal Society

Published:19.07.24 — Our recent work on the angiogenic growth of cities has been featured in the seminar series "Behind the paper with Royal Society journals".

Ecohydrology Summer School at EPFL Valais Wallis and ETH Zürich

Published:23.06.24 — We have just concluded the Ecohydrology Summer School, an intense and stimulating week between Zurich and Sion!

New guidelines for nature-based solution in humanitarian settlements

Published:12.06.24 — A new report addressing the integration of nature-based solutions in the planning and management of humanitarian settlements has just been published by UNHCR

URBES at EGU24

Published:22.04.24 — Busy week in Vienna as URBES was involved in several sessions and presentations at the EGU General Assembly 2024!

The angiogenic growth of cities

Published:04.04.24 — A model of the growth of London and Sydney shows that cities develop in a similar way to biological systems – the study has been featured by The Telegraph, The Guardian, and others.