Jakob Walter

Jakob Walter is based in Zurich. He studied architecture in Leipzig, Weimar and Zurich, graduating from the Bauhaus Universität Weimar in 2021 with Cohabitation Podcast, a six episode investigation into whether houses might be protected from demolition by providing habitat for endangered species. The project explored this question through interviews and the construction of a habitat for brown long eared bats in his own building.
He is part of the ZAS* (Zürcher Arbeitsgruppe für Städtebau), contributing to the city’s urban design and planning discourse while working to strengthen connections between architects and public administration. At ETH Zurich, he teaches and conducts research at the Chair of Architecture of Territory. As a lecturer, he is responsible for sessions in the Sessions on Territory guest-lecture series and works with students to map planning bureaucracies. He is currently co editing the book Agency: Architecture in the Civil Service (Hatje Cantz, forthcoming) with Dr Julio Paulos and Prof Milica Topalović.
His practice is grounded in a curiosity about who can design and proceeds largely through conversation. Through symposia, lecture series and podcasts, he brings practitioners, administrators and publics into shared debate. His projects include the Demolition Symposium and Lobbyist Symposium at ETH Zurich, the Zoopolis events for ARCH+, and the Horizonte lecture series in Weimar.
From 2021 to 2023, Walter was an editor at ARCH+, where he led the magazine’s event series and served as lead editor of issue 251, Unternehmen Architektur, which examined how commercial interests within architecture offices shape design. In 2025, he realised Hamburg Räumt auf?, a public sculpture, streetlamp and audio walk, with Niclas Riepshoff.
Across these formats, his work examines the relationships between architecture, bureaucracy and public life through research, interviewing and collective discussion.