Our purpose

The AAA – what it is

AAA stands for Association of Assistants at the ETH Zürich Department of Architecture. The association is the representative body of the scientific staff at the department. Its purpose is to support its members and defend their interests. Anyone from the scientific staff is automatically a member of the AAA.

Scientific staff – a quick explanation

The community of the ETH Zürich Department of Architecture can be divided into several groups: students, professors, scientific staff, and technical and administrative staff. The scientific staff, also often referred to as Mittelbau, counts over 400 persons. It consists of all the assistants, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, lecturers, and all other scientific staff in the department.

In August 2021, the scientific staff at the D-ARCH consisted of:
– 328 scientific assistants
– 19 lead assistants
– 2 senior scientist
– 88 doctoral students
– 34 post-doctoral researchers

The AAA – what it does

The AAA works in its interests in different commissions and initiatives. In general, our president is the delegated person representing us at the Department Committee [Departementsausschuss], the strategic body of our Department. We are the voice for your concerns and we always try to reach our aim through a constructive dialog between professors, students and ourselves.

What you can do

If you belong to the scientific staff of the department, you are automatically a member of the AAA, thereby you can:

  • Get support in issues you’re faced with as individual of the scientific staff – get in touch anytime (see the ‘contact’ section of the website)
  • Take initiatives for the interest of the scientific staff
  • Take part in the different working groups
  • Vote
  • Run for:
    • President
    • Board member
    • Delegate for the Department Conference [Departmentskonferenz] (20+3 members)
    • Delegate for the Curriculum Commission [Unterrichtskommission] (4 members)