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Institute of Technology in Architecture · ETH Zürich

Advancing the future of computational design.

The Computational Design Laboratory at ETH Zurich, led by Prof. Bernd Bickel, pioneers algorithms and solutions for interactive design, geometry processing, and computational fabrication.

Explore research Join the lab

Affiliated with D‑BAUG and D‑INFK, ETH Zürich

FlexMaps Pavilion: a twisted timber arc assembled from flat, flexible mesostructured panels
FlexMaps Pavilion: a twisted arc made of mesostructured flat flexible panels IASS 2019

Our research

Computational design and visual computing

  • Tensioned membrane structure with cable anchors

    Interactive Design

  • Freeform surface with its control network and patch layout

    Geometry Processing

  • Robotic tool tracing cut-out shapes on a fabrication bed

    Computational Fabrication

  • Whimsy jigsaw pieces shaped like animals, generated by the method

    Creative AI

Recent papers

Publications

Bold = lab member

  1. NewSIGGRAPH Asia

    Generative Whimsy Jigsaws

    Jeremy Chew, Kenji Tojo, Nobuyuki Umetani, Bernd Bickel

  2. 2026SIGGRAPH Asia

    Efficient Nano‑Optical Eye Tracking for Smart Glasses

    Jipeng Sun, Lekang Yuan, Ruslan Guseinov, Bernd Bickel, Thabo Beeler, Thomas Auzinger, Felix Heide

  3. 2026ACM TOG · SIGGRAPH Asia

    Inverse Rendering for Modeling with Line Primitives

    Kenji Tojo, Ariel Shamir, Nobuyuki Umetani, Bernd Bickel

  4. 2026ECCV

    Pretrained Video Models as Differentiable Physics Simulators for Urban Wind Flows

    Janne Perini*, Rafael Bischof*, Moab Arar, Ayça Duran, Michael A. Kraus, Siddhartha Mishra, Bernd Bickel

  5. 2026CVPR

    DiffSoup: Direct Differentiable Rasterization of Triangle Soup for Extreme Radiance Field Simplification

    Kenji Tojo, Bernd Bickel, Nobuyuki Umetani

  6. 2026Computer Graphics Forum

    Hierarchical Optimization of the As-Rigid-As-Possible Energy

    Hendrik Meyer, Bernd Bickel, Marc Alexa

All publications

Highlights

People

Our team

  • Portrait of Prof. Bernd Bickel

    Prof. Bernd Bickel

    Professor

  • Portrait of Dr. Bharath Seshadri

    Dr. Bharath Seshadri

    Postdoc

  • Portrait of Dr. Pengbin Tang

    Dr. Pengbin Tang

    Postdoc

  • Portrait of Dr. Kenji Tojo

    Dr. Kenji Tojo

    Postdoc

  • Portrait of Dr. Sophia Kuhn

    Dr. Sophia Kuhn

    Postdoc

  • Portrait of Anna Maria Eggler

    Anna Maria Eggler

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Zhenyuan (Desmond) Liu

    Zhenyuan (Desmond) Liu

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Jeremy Chew

    Jeremy Chew

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Rafael Bischof

    Rafael Bischof

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Yuhan Zhang

    Yuhan Zhang

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Yixin Zeng

    Yixin Zeng

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Haoyang Zhou

    Haoyang Zhou

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Stefania Rasile

    Stefania Rasile

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Malina Strugaru

    Malina Strugaru

    Doctoral student

  • Portrait of Dominik Stoll

    Dominik Stoll

    Teaching assistant

  • Portrait of Fábio Porfírio da Costa

    Fábio Porfírio da Costa

    Operations & admin

Alumni Dr. Michal Piovarči · Dr. Eleftherios Triantafyllidis · Manas Bhargava

Life at CDL

  • The lab on a mountain terrace
  • Group photo on an alpine hike
  • Lab members in front of a historic building

Join us

Write your thesis with us.

We take Bachelor and Master thesis students interested in computational design, visual computing, interactive geometry processing, spatial computing, creative AI, computational fabrication and reinforcement learning.

Thesis coordinator

Rafael Bischof

Email rabischof@ethz.ch

PhD and postdoc openings are announced here when available.

Available thesis topics · Bachelor & Master

Teaching · HS25