News

Keynote explores the physics and complexity of growing cities

Published:19.08.26 — Prof. Gabriele Manoli delivered a keynote speech at the 4th International Conference on Urban Science and Intelligence (ICUSI 2026), held on 8–9 August at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou).

Statistical physics explains the growth of urban skylines

Published:19.08.26 — What if the same mathematical framework could describe the growth of bacterial colonies, crystal surfaces, and… urban skylines? This seemingly surprising question lies at the heart of our new study on city growth. 

Predicting Flood-Driven Displacement at the FloodTraces Hackathon

Published:14.07.26 — At the FloodTraces workshop in London, Martin Hendrick and a global team of partners have built a machine-learning model using mobility and rainfall data to detect early signals of population displacement, enabling faster and more informed humanitarian response.

Xinyang joins the lab!

Published:01.04.26 — Dr. Xinyang Fan has joined URBES as a postdoctoral researcher – welcome!

URBES lidar goes live

Published:13.01.26 — The doppler lidar installed at EPFL has been integrated into the EUMETNET E-Profile programme which collects, processes and disseminates vertical profiles of atmospheric properties.

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