Rendez-vous incontournable dans le parcours de formation à l’ENAC, la «semaine ENAC» rassemble les étudiant·es en architecture, génie civil et ingénierie de l’environnement. Elle leur offre une première expérience de projets interdisciplinaires basés sur la résolution d’un problème réel et actuel.
Forma Urbis: Archéologie, anthropologie et construction
Certaines villes anciennes ont leurs ruines émergées du sable, enfouies sous la lave des volcans ou encore disséminées dans les champs. Ce sont les villes mortes. D’autres, en revanche, demeurent continuent leur métamorphose. Leur longue histoire s’intègre au tissu urbain, formant la matière vivante qui donne sens à leur structure. Ce patrimoine animé joue un rôle fondamental dans la construction de l’identité culturelle de nombreuses villes contemporaines. Au cours de la semaine, les étudiant•es ont travaillé à la réalisation d’une œuvre collective sur la permanence de la ville ancienne, intégrant les contributions spécifiques de leurs disciplines respectives. Les questions relatives à l’émergence de « fragments » de la ville antique ont été explorées à travers une approche dialectique, confrontant l’histoire, l’archéologie, l’anthropologie, la construction, la photographie et la conception architecturale.
@epflcampus @epflarchitecture @epfl_studies
SCHOOL LECTURE 6/7
Tuesday, May 13, Foyer SG, 6:30 pm
HOUSING VOL.2
Housing and Reuse: Six Exemplary Projects
AVIOLAT CHAPERON ESCOBAR
Transformation d’un immeuble au chemin Guillaume Ritter à Fribourg
Au détour d’une ruelle bordée de bois, la maison Ritter surgit, blanche et élancée, sans toiture apparente. Ses grandes fenêtres verticales et ses corniches saillantes créent d’étranges superpositions, tandis que son agencement en double enfilade prolonge et régénère le bâti existant. Recouverte d’un masque blanc intemporel, elle devient un objet-signe «ouvert» au bonheur des associations de pensées le plus poétiques.
Sébastien Chaperon is a Swiss architect who graduated from HES Fribourg in 2005. He has led projects at 0815 Architekten in Freiburg and Dreier Frenzel in Lausanne, including the Ecoquartier Jonction in Geneva. In 2014, he co-founded Aviolat Chaperon Escobar Architects, based in Fribourg and Neuchâtel. A member of FAS since 2022, he has also been a professor at HES-SO Fribourg since 2015, teaching construction, first-year architecture, and interdisciplinary projects.
Project images by Eik Frenzel
@epflarchitecture
@epflenac @epflcampus @epflstudents
Séminaire Enveloppe de l’atelier RELIEFS URBAINS
Dans l'atelier du Prof. Emmanuel Rey au Laboratoire d'architecture et technologies durables (LAST), le séminaire Enveloppe de cette semaine a invité les étudiantes et étudiants à explorer le dialogue entre construction et expression architecturale, à travers la conception d’une enveloppe à l’échelle 1:20 mettant en valeur des matériaux durables et ancrés dans leur contexte.
@last_epfl @epflenac @epflarchitecture
_epfl
review
mobile objects - potentialities (2/2)
To determine where and how to intervene in this fragmented space, la dérive was applied — an approach developed by Guy Debord that encourages intuitive wandering to interpret the atmosphere of a site. This method allowed for an exploration of the site's flows and user experiences, extending beyond visible structures.
Through this process, spatial gaps were identified — moments where the Mobile Object could meaningfully intervene. These points were informed by the natural rhythms and patterns of the environment, making la dérive not just an interpretive tool, but one that directly informed the design. The Mobile Object, therefore, becomes more than a physical presence — it acts as a tool for reshaping spatial relationships.
group – esteban germann and gustavo killer
professor – augustin clément
laboratory – ALICE / EPFL – BA1
architecture hub enac school drawing dose student
mobile objects – potentialities (1/2)
Amid the fragmented landscape of Quartier des Nations, a new kind of presence was imagined — a Mobile Object prototype designed to reconnect divided spaces. Instead of imposing itself, this structure integrates temporarily, adapting precisely to its surroundings. Lightweight and transportable, it adjusts to various terrains, while the preserved horizon line symbolizes continuity in the landscape.
Its cross-shaped footprint suggests flexibility, like a coordinate within an open grid, and its table-like form evokes themes of gathering, dialogue, and shared experiences. Through simplicity and adaptability, the Mobile Object reinterprets space, softening the rigidity of the environment and fostering moments of connection.
group – esteban germann and gustavo killer
professor – augustin clément
laboratory – ALICE / EPFL – BA1
architecture hub enac school drawing dose student
mobile objects – measures (2/2)
Each mobile object is shaped by the presence of fixed objects, which define the landscape. While fixed elements are embedded, mobile ones are implemented — navigating the spatial and connective possibilities of the site. These mobile elements act as mechanical organs of the landscape: disrupting rigidity, revealing hidden layers, and bridging public and private space.
By focusing on the Mobile Object, we begin to understand the essence and movement of space — its functions, flows, and ability to accommodate difference.
group – esteban germann and gustavo killer
professor – augustin clément
laboratory – ALICE / EPFL – BA1
architecture hub enac school drawing dose student
— —
A new building for the @epflcampus replacing the current underground parking beneath the Esplanade.
After the MED and BI buildings, the transformation of the CO building will enlarge the lecture halls with 1500 additional seats, increase dining spaces and modernize classrooms, while also featuring a rooftop.
╰ ╭
╳ Double Deck
╳ Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
╳ Lausanne, Switzerland
╳ 2023-2028
╳ Photos © Atchain / Dominique Perrault Architecte - ADAGP
╰ ╭
@ittenbrechbuehl @altitude_35 Architecture architecture
Urban Promenade – PhD Seminar “Neighborhoods in Transition II”
As part of the PhD seminar “Neighborhoods in Transition II – Potentials of urban slopes in a post-carbon perspective,” a thought-provoking urban promenade through Lausanne revealed how steep terrain can become a catalyst for resilient, community-focused urban living. Participants explored three pragmatic built examples that turn topographic challenges into opportunities – creating dense residential areas enriched with generous, well-integrated open spaces.
@last_epfl @aaschool @edar @epflarchitecture @epflenac
architecture _epfl
Debjani Bhattacharyya will join us on Wednesday, 07.05.2025 for the next lecture in the Neighbors lecture series on History & Theory of Architecture Vol. 5.
This lecture will examine the intertwined histories of maritime insurance and representations of maritime storms in the late 18th century Indian Ocean. It will show how storms became sites of prediction and legal arbitration, driven by the commodification of climate uncertainty. Through the concept of double commodification, it will explore how the monsoon was enclosed as a tradable risk and show a historical perspective on what is often seen as a contemporary phenomenon: the financialization of the climate crisis.
architecture enac
THEMA has an open position for a doctoral researcher to commence in October 2025. Within the framework of lab’s research interests, the doctoral candidate will investigate building materials to understand some of the local and global implications of their production and use in shaping building cultures. Find out more about the work at THEMA and the position at the link in bio.
architecture enac
Heliakos, villas solaires.
Fonds Chiché, Demetriades et Papadaniel.
Acm-EPFL
30 avril 2025, rencontre avec les architectes et @archizoomepfl @epflenac @epflarchitecture @epflcampus
Selon arrivage : construire avec l’existant
Benjamin Poignon, architecte chez baubüro in situ à Zurich, était l’invité de l’atelier du Prof. Emmanuel Rey du Laboratoire d’architecture et technologies durables (LAST) pour parler de son travail d’architecte à travers une sélection de projets. Intitulée « Selon arrivage : construire avec l’existant », sa conférence a permis aux étudiantes et étudiants de découvrir des projets se confrontant notamment aux enjeux de construction avec des éléments de réemploi.
_epfl
@last_epfl @epflenac @epflarchitecture
@bauburoinsitu
https://actu.epfl.ch/news/selon-arrivage-construire-avec-l-existant/
SCHOOL LECTURE 5/7
Tuesday, April 29, Foyer SG, 6:30 pm
HOUSING VOL.2
Housing and Reuse: Six Exemplary Projects
OLIVER CLEMENS, ANNA HEILGEMEIR
WiLMa 19 – Communal Living in collective Ownership
Small Interventions in a Post War Prefab Slab
In 2014-2015, we converted a seven-storey GDR state security office building in Berlin into a collective housing project. The extremely low-budget refurbishment created diverse rental apartments (40–300 m²) for 60 people, countering rising rents and promoting inclusivity. Like 200 other German projects, Wilma19 is secured through the Mietshäuser Syndikat, a solidarity-based ownership network ensuring long-term affordability and community self-management.
Oliver Clemens is an architect and co-founder, with Sabine Horlitz, of Studio CHplus, an office focused on socially driven urban and housing development. Working mainly with tenant initiatives and non-profits, the studio sees architecture as a balance between design, social, and ecological concerns—where aesthetics and function go hand in hand. Their expertise includes low-cost and self-managed housing, project development, financing, and research on collective living and non-profit ownership.
Anna Heilgemeir is an architect and researcher based in Berlin. Since 2011, she has worked on community-focused projects within networks of politically engaged architects. In 2017, she co-founded the planning cooperative coopdisco. Since 2014, she has taught and researched "spatial commons" at TU Berlin, exploring how bottom-up systems can scale and contribute to the socialisation of architecture and urban planning.
Portrait of Anna Heilgemeir by Franziska Ebeler
@epflarchitecture
@epflenac @epflcampus @epflstudents
Noémie Goehry, Louis Meier
Reuse San Siro, Milan, Italy, 2023
@noemie.goehry
@meierlouis
University: EPFL (École polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) @epflarchitecture
Studio: Studio TEXAS @texas.studio.epfl led by Professor Éric Lapierre
Scale: 1/500
Model material: Cardboard
Description: The project is a recycling center for the city of Milan, conceived around a strategy of reusing construction elements from San Siro, Italy’s largest football stadium, slated for demolition to make way for a larger facility.
Located on the edge of the city, the building spans over a main road near the stadium and generates, through its form, two distinct zones beneath the sorting center: a private logistical area for the intake and output of recyclable materials during sorting and compacting, and a public zone. This public space unfolds in several directions, creating a sheltered area under the structure that can host various temporary or evolving uses, a park that includes the terminus stop of a tram line, and a rooftop designed as a fan zone—though its structure and sober character allow for a flexible range of future programs.
The project positions the recycling center at the intersection of the city’s flows: waste, citizens, and vehicles. It asserts itself as a new symbol in contrast to the consumer-driven identity of San Siro, aiming to raise awareness about the importance of sustainable waste management.
photography architecture students
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION • PhD Students
The International PhD Seminar Learning from the South explores how different urban and cultural landscapes across the globe are responding to socio-ecological transitions. It brings together ongoing doctoral research that reflects both planetary and regional approaches to urbanization.
Through keynote lectures and peer discussions, the seminar will offer methodological and theoretical insights into the dynamics of Urbanization in Transition. Themes will include metropolitan challenges, grassroots movements, bottom-up spatial practices, and strategies for reweaving connections between communities and their environments.
We welcome applications from PhD students in a range of disciplines, including urban design, architecture, landscape studies, geography, and the humanities. Participants will be encouraged to share and reflect on diverse theories, methods, and situated experiences related to cultural landscapes and the Global South.
Attendance is in person for PhD students based in Europe. Participants from other regions may join online. Please indicate your mode of attendance in your submission email. The course gives access to 3 ETCS credits.
We invite PhD students to submit an abstract by May 2, 2025 to: anna.dealmeidasantos@epfl.ch
Teaching team: Prof Paola Viganò, Prof. Florence Graezer Bideau, Jérôme Chenal, Anna Karla De Almeida Milani and Ben Gitai.
Further details: check the link on my bio
@epflarchitecture @epflenac @epflcdh
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION • PhD Students
The International PhD Seminar Learning from the South explores how different urban and cultural landscapes across the globe are responding to socio-ecological transitions. It brings together ongoing doctoral research that reflects both planetary and regional approaches to urbanization.
Through keynote lectures and peer discussions, the seminar will offer methodological and theoretical insights into the dynamics of Urbanization in Transition. Themes will include metropolitan challenges, grassroots movements, bottom-up spatial practices, and strategies for reweaving connections between communities and their environments.
We welcome applications from PhD students in a range of disciplines, including urban design, architecture, landscape studies, geography, and the humanities. Participants will be encouraged to share and reflect on diverse theories, methods, and situated experiences related to cultural landscapes and the Global South.
Attendance is in person for PhD students based in Europe. Participants from other regions may join online. Please indicate your mode of attendance in your submission email. The course gives access to 3 ETCS credits.
We invite PhD students to submit an abstract by May 2, 2025 to: anna.dealmeidasantos@epfl.ch
Teaching team: Prof Paola Viganò, Prof. Florence Graezer Bideau, Jérôme Chenal, Anna Karla De Almeida Milani and Ben Gitai.
Further details: check the link on bio 🔗
Voyage d’étude à Lyon
L’atelier du Prof. Emmanuel Rey du Laboratoire d’architecture et technologies durables (LAST) a effectué cette année son voyage d’étude à Lyon, France. Cet enseignement extra-muros a permis aux étudiantes et étudiants de visiter des réalisations architecturales de diverses époques, qui mettent en valeur les opportunités spatiales et constructives de l’urbanité dans la pente. Ces différents thèmes entrent directement en résonance avec les enjeux abordés dans le cadre de l’atelier de projet RELIEFS URBAINS.
_epfl ’étude
@last_epfl @epflarchitecture @lrarchitectes_lausanne
https://actu.epfl.ch/news/voyage-d-etude-a-lyon/
SCHOOL LECTURE 4/7
Tuesday, April 15, Foyer SG, 6:30 pm
HOUSING VOL.2
Housing and Reuse: Six Exemplary Projects
MENNA AGHA, CHARLOTTE MALTERRE-BARTHES
"A Moratorium on New Construction" Book Launch & Talk
To launch the book A Moratorium on New Construction (Sternberg Press & MIT Press), architect-researcher Menna Agha joins author Charlotte Malterre-Barthes to challenge architecture's addiction to construction and explore alternatives. They'll tackle the thorny question of how a field built on material extraction can transform itself, the massive value shift it requires, and what we might gain by not building, building less, building with what is there, and caring for it.
Menna Agha is an Assistant Professor at the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism (University of Ottawa, Ca.) and an architect-researcher whose work examines the intersections of spatial justice, race, and gender. Previously leading the spatial justice agenda at the Flanders Architecture Institute in Belgium, she is cross-appointed at Carleton University's Institute for African Studies. Her perspective as a third-generation displaced Fadicha Nubian informs her research on space, territory, and displacement. Dr. Agha holds a PhD from the University of Antwerp and served as the Spatial Justice Fellow at the University of Oregon.
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, urban designer, and Assistant Professor at the EPFL, where she leads the laboratory RIOT. Most recently Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Malterre-Barthes conducts research on contemporary urbanization, material extraction, climate emergency, and ecological/social justice. She holds a Ph.D. from ETHZ the political economy of commodities in the built environment and is the co-author of several prize-winning books.
Project image (1) by Lara Almarcegui
Portrait image (6) by Caroline Palla
@epflarchitecture
@agha_menna
@charlottemalterrebarthes @riot_epfl
@sternbergpress_official
@mitpress
@epflenac @epflcampus @epflstudents
Biking under Rolex
Rolex Learning Center
Sanaa
@sanaa_jimusho
design architecture learningcenter
Construction durable ou l'utilité cachée de l'inutile
Marlène Leroux, associée de l’Atelier Archiplein à Genève, était l’invité de l’atelier du Prof. Emmanuel Rey du Laboratoire d’architecture et technologies durables (LAST) pour parler de son travail d’architecte à travers une sélection de projets. Intitulée « Construction durable ou l'utilité cachée de l’inutile », sa conférence a permis aux étudiantes et étudiants de découvrir des projets se confrontant notamment aux enjeux constructifs et de durabilité de l’utilisation de pierre massive.
_epfl
@last_epfl @epflenac @epflarchitecture
@atelierarchiplein
https://actu.epfl.ch/news/construction-durable-ou-l-utilite-cachee-de-l-inut
Grown out of my greenHouses research and the ongoing design studio 🌿, Greenhouse Studies is (also) part of the exhibition “Sun Shines in Architecture”, one of the three exhibitions of The Solar Biennale 2025. Our contribution features 34 greenhouse-houses case studies, handpicked 📌 from 1900 to 1999.
🚨 Another personal note alert 🚨 It’s really rewarding to see every case-study come together — it’s the result of truly engaging work by our students in the design studio at Laboratory EAST. Each one took on a different case study, and the outcome is visually super strong!
Drop a 💚 because their work deserves it! Thank you all, in particularly to Luciano Antonietti.
You can visit these 'houses' until 21.06.2025 at EPFL as part of The Solar Biennale ☀️
Drawings and models by this ✨ unbeatable team [Bachelor students] Julie Berger, Hafsa Boudhir, Tristan Combépine, Maeva Eap, Emma Fournier, Mara Giacomelli, Yasmine Helfand, Anis Kabeche, Rosemary Lefebvre, Joana Mendes, German Moskovitch, Moreno Osorio, Léa Roberts, Lili Rouveure, Marion Schaub, Léo Taillefer, Nikita Turelli, Arwen Wohlwend, [Master students] Niklas Amft, Matheu Bosch, Julie Bron, Andrea Calabrese, Emil Cayouette, Lise Courtin, Sacha Cudré-Maruoux, Emma Fong-Lesage, Selma Gaumet, Irem Keskin, Mélinda Pereira, Félix Pleines, Joshua Rigby, Jérémy Steyaert, Valentina Takatch, Julia Weber.
Pics 2,4,5,6 and 8 📷 Solène Hoffman. Thank you Solène!
_
student exhibition @east.laboratory @luciano.antonietti @archizoomepfl @epflarchitecture
Hello readers! Dropping some posts with updates from the past couple of months at EPFL. We’re leading a design studio on greenhouses: Greenhouse Studies 🌿 at Laboratory EAST. Personal note alert 🚨 I feel really lucky to have such a great group of students working on this topic—huge props to them! 🙏
Here’s a short teaser 👇 and a few pictures of the first weeks
“What is a greenhouse without the green? Or a ‘jardin d’hiver’ without winter? As part of the ‘Tackle The Type’ series, the design studio for bachelor BA6 and master MA2 students will explore greenhouses from a typological perspective and study its architecture as a set of climatic conditions, beyond its formal and functional characteristics.”
To be continued...
_
Hashtag drop...
studies
Critique intermédiaire de l’atelier RELIEFS URBAINS
Cette semaine, les critiques intermédiaires se déroulent dans l'atelier du Prof. Emmanuel Rey au Laboratoire d'architecture et technologies durables (LAST). Les étudiantes et étudiants façonnent des cadres de vie en résonnance avec leur environnement, en tissant des liens subtils entre formes bâties, usages et seuils entre espaces publics et privés.
@last_epfl @epflenac @epflarchitecture
_epfl
review
SCHOOL LECTURE 3/7
Tuesday, April 1, Foyer SG, 6:30 pm
HOUSING VOL.2
Housing and Reuse: Six Exemplary Projects
INGE VINCK
Friant, about this and that and so on
Une maison existante; un bâtiment 'moderne'. Une façade comme une grille de fenêtres. Des trop grandes fenêtres et de nombreux noeuds de construction. L'isolement comme une boîte dans la boîte est impossible. L'inverse comme solution; une maison dans une maison. Une nouvelle façade derrière l'existante pour résoudre les noeuds de construction et créer de la distance ou de l'espace face à la rue.
Inge Vinck is a Belgian architect based in Ghent; co-founder of architecten jan de vylder inge vinck. / inge vinck jan de vylder architecten (A JDVIV / IVJDV A- 2019). Currently Inge Vinck is professor at the Baukunstklasse of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and member of the board of 019 Gent/Smoke and Dust vzw.
architecten jan de vylder inge vinck/ inge vinck jan de vylder architecten (AJDVIV/IVJDVA) is today a multidisciplinary practice in which the making and the thinking is deeply imbedded. Many ongoing projects - drawing table and under construction - are alternating with all kind of reflections- drawings and writings -. New horizons are explored - international and research wise -. Profound positions are taken - the interest in drawing but also in debating the essence of urge today -. AJDVIV/IVJDVA is an architecture practice rich by many different previous trajectories. Inge Vinck was cofounder of jan de vylder architecten (JDV A – 2007/2010) and architecten de vylder vinck taillieu (A DVVT – 2010/2019)
Project images by Filip Dujardin
Portrait image by Marco Guastalla
@epflarchitecture
@architectenjdviv
@epflenac @epflcampus @epflstudents
Hannah le Roux will join us on Wednesday, 19.03.2025 for the next lecture in the Neighbors lecture series on History & Theory of Architecture Vol. 5.
In designing human and non-human environments in the majority world from the late 1950s onwards - the beginning of the era of post-colonial independence - architects used sections operatively to augment and delink from colonialism's power to plan. Famously, “tropical" architects introduced the ventilated and shaded section as the site of their mobile expertise. Materially, they also considered new genres of roofing while altering its relationship to the availability of raw materials. Representation in these cases is political, precisely because of the section's potential to delink technology from place and its insidious impacts while narrating progress. The Africa Section is this trope, but I coined the term to also suggest an imaginary bureaucratic office within which Western interests reposition themselves through architectural views.
Images:
“Imaginary Mies van der Rohe house” from Fry, M. and J. Drew, Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone, London, B.T. Batsford, 1956, p. 66
"Section through Roof and Details of Shingle Table and Stacking Methods” from Housing and Home Finance Agency and Ernst May, Unburned Clay-Thatch Shingle Roofing, Ideas and Methods Exchange 1956 Vol. 36 pp 1-5.
architecture enac