Superonda Talks is a lecture series organised each semester by a laboratory at EPFL Architecture to open up discussion on a particular research theme in order to deepen our field of knowledge and to create dialogue amongst the academic community, professionals and design enthusiasts.
As its name implies, the Superonda Talks take root in an experimental and ideal practice, referencing the radical 1970s Italian architects Archizoom. It is the place and space where EPFL Architecture opens up to investigational approaches to address relevant issues of our time, questioning realities that are taken for granted.
Handcrafting Digital Transition
SPRING 2024
A program proposed by Laboratory LAPIS under the direction of Prof. Nicola Braghieri
As architecture undergoes its transition to the digital era, there seems to be a discrepancy with its fundamental mission — the crafting of buildings. At first glance, the abundance of new technologies appears to have widened the gulf between the conceptualisation of a building and the culture of manual labour. Yet, various voices of resistance emerge countering this reality.
Yearning for a symbiosis between these seemingly disparate worlds, we pose the following question: How and to what extent can digital craftsmanship coexist with handcraft techniques of architecture?
Programme
Monday 04.03 6.30 p.m.
CARLES OLIVER (IBAVI)
Community
Monday 18.03 6.30 p.m.
RURAL STUDIO
Pedagogy
Monday 08.04 6.30 p.m.
BOULOUKI
Heritage
Monday 13.05 6.30 p.m.
DANIEL ROSBOTTOM
Practice
TOWARD A DOMESTIC CITY
AUTUMN 2023
A program proposed by Prof. Sophie Delhay
The habitat makes up the largest part of urban material and is home to the largest number of people; its impact on the planet, society and our intimate lifes is therefore decisive.
As globalization, digital tools and the Anthropocene era have thrown us all into the same global-city, we make the hypothesis that it is from the domestic space that architecture will be able to lead to an ecology of human relationships that is fairer, more economical, and more beautiful, so that we can inhabit and share this global-city in a virtuous way.
Programme
Monday 02.10 6.30 p.m.
RIKEN YAMAMOTO
Social Bonding
Monday 30.10 6.30 p.m.
ANNA CHAVEPAYRE
Emancipation
Monday 13.11 6.30 p.m.
ANNE LACATON
Sobriety
Monday 04.12 6.30 p.m.
JOSÉ TORAL
Desassignation
Mercury Rising :
Architecture Beyond Greenwashing
A program proposed by Prof. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
“Hot, hot, hot, hot/ Hot, hot, hot, hot”
(Yeon Kim / Troelsen Thomas / Sigvardt Mikkel Remee, “Hot Summer,” in Strictly Physical, ed. Monrose (Universal Music Publishing Ab, Emi Music Publishing Denmark A/s, Culture Technology Group Asia, S M Entertainment Co Ltd, Ctm Outlander Music Lp, 2007).
Because it relies on extracted materials, isn’t construction unsustainable by design? Pressure is increasing for the sector actors’ to diligently address the harm caused by the built environment, from new construction to usage and demolition, begging the question of whether real ‘sustainability’ in architecture and planning is possible. For the industry, the temptation is great to adopt strategies of simulated commitment instead of investing in actual change toward less emissions. NGOs have called out large companies for ‘low integrity’ pledges, pointing at the systemic social, political, and ecological injustice the built environment creates via material, wealth, culture, and labor extractivism.1
While institutionalized greenwashing hollowed the term ‘sustainability,’ how do architects and designers position their work beyond the inadequacy of a flattening universalistic understanding of a ‘sustainability beneficial to all’? What emancipatory forms of practice allow for accountable and revolutionized construction modes? How to face the mistakes of the past and form new values grounded in humility? In this lecture series, we will discuss how the discipline of architecture corrects course in the face of a climate crisis of unprecedented magnitude—beyond greenwashing.
1. Silke Mooldijk, Thomas Day, Sybrig Smit, Eduardo Posada, Frederic Hans, Harry Fearnehough, Aki Kachi, and Takeshi Kuramochi Carsten Warnecke, Niklas Höhne., Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2022 (Cologne: New Climate Institute, Carbon Market Watch, 2022).
Programme
Monday 06.03 6.30 p.m.
MERIEM CHABANI (New South)
with SUMMER ISLAM (Material Cultures)
in collaboration with l’ASAR
Monday 03.04 6.30 p.m.
JENNIFER NEWSOM & TOM CARRUTHERS (Dream the Combine)
with AMY PERKINS (Assemble)
Monday 24.04 6.30 p.m.
SARAH GRAHAM & MARC ANGÉLIL (AGPS)
with ALIA BENGANA (Alia Bengana)
Monday 15.05 6.30 p.m.
ARCHITECTS CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK (ACAN)
with NAGY MAKHLOUF (ALICE)
Whole Wood
A program proposed by Yves Weinand and Christophe Catsaros
Wood was first able to meet the needs of many societies, before being replaced by other building materials. Once the material of choice, it ceased to be so in the industrial era. However, it could once again become the most suitable choice from a technical and mechanical point of view.
Programme
17.10.2022 6 p.m.
Lecture by Sarah Nichols
03.11.2022 6 p.m.
Lecture by Mario Rinke
21.11.2022 6 p.m.
Lecture by Stéphane Berthier
05.12.2022 6 p.m.
Debate with Mario Rinke, Sarah Nichols, Stéphane Berthier et Yves Weinand. Moderated by Christophe Catsaros
Politics Of Kindness
A program proposed by ALICE Lab, Teresa Cheung and Daniel Zamarbide
For this series, Superonda intends to address the issue of political attitudes in design by inviting a series of beautifully yet seriously engaged guests under the borrowed title of POLITICS OF KINDNESS. Recognisably, this title is freely taken from Jacinda Ardern’s speech at the UN in September 2018, calling for a paradigm change when invoking kindness as a political tool.
How about architecture? How is this issue addressed, if it is at all? Is empathy and benevolence an official part of architectural and design agendas? What is the degree of participation of both the profession and architectural institutions to a world more dedicated to the craft, skills, and practice of living together, of collective, multi-specific cohabitation? The talks wish to address these ambitious and fundamental issues via a transdisciplinary approach, proposing guests from a diversity of fields such as politics, landscape design, SF, biology, curatorship and design.
Programme
06.12.2022 6.30 p.m.
DESIGN TRUST, Hong Kong
Talk by Marisa Yiu
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Architecture & Environnement
Produced in collaboration with Sébastien Marot and Raphaël Bach
Archizoom supports this semester the reflections developed in the History and Theory of the Environment course given in Bachelor 1 at the EPFL by Sébastien Marot. A course that invites us to understand to what extent environmental concerns today lead us to rethink the meaning and principles of architecture and other project based disciplines. This series of lectures aims to explore how architects and urban planners can understand environmental concerns today, and how they can stimulate our imagination and our responsibilities.
Programme
30.03.2021
“Architecture et Développement durable”
Conversation around Durer: Éléments pour la transformation du système productif
Talk by Pierre Caye
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20.04.2021
Building-In-Time : From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion
Conversation with Marvin Trachtenberg, Luc Baboulet et Sébastien Marot
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27.04.2021
“To Re-enchant the World” & “I will life to go on”
Talks and conversations by Starhawk (EN) & Isabelle Stengers (FR)
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04.05.2021
NOUS SOMMES LE PAYSAGE
Talk by Anna Chavepayre
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18.05.2021
Agriterritories, Urbanisation in the Countryside
Talk by Milica Topalovic
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