Designing for Climate: Swiss Student Showcase

​Join Swissnex and Zurich University of the Arts to discover how Switzerland's emerging designers are taking on sustainability, the environment, and the climate crisis.

​This showcase brings together four projects by bachelor's and master's students at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) on display at Assembly, the Swiss stage at Climate Week NYC from September 22-25, 2026. Spanning industrial and game design, the projects take on questions of material reuse, regional resilience, water and energy, and the everyday systems that shape how we consume.

​The projects are winners of the REFRESH X Punch Prize, which recognizes outstanding diploma projects of the ZHdK Department of Design that innovatively deal with questions around ecological sustainability, the climate crisis and the complex entanglements between society, the environment and technology. The prize, now in its third year, exists as a result of the close exchange between REFRESH Festival and Swissnex in Boston and New York.

​Join us for a guided tour of the exhibits, presentations by student designers, and the opportunity to connect with students, artists, and professionals developing creative approaches to climate change.

​Coffee and snacks will be served.

​More information, speakers, and event program

​This event is part of Assembly, the main Swiss stage at Climate Week NYC 2026. As world leaders gather in Midtown Manhattan, Swissnex assembles Swiss and global voices – from private sector innovators and researchers to artists and policymakers – in the East Village for three days of communal climate thinking and action. Assembly speaks to deliberation and democracy – the idea that communities must collectively define their futures – as well as the ongoing, creative, improvisational process of constructing those futures from the pieces of our present.