BHSF Güterstrasse 8, Berne The transformation of the former warehouse of the Tobler Chocolate Factory is the geometrical and conceptual centre of the urban design for the site of the former waste incineration plant in the Holligen neighbourhood in Berne. The fundamental decision to preserve and convert this building represents an elementary approach to save resources while creating a new identity from the existing within the urban and architectural scale. Axel Humpert studied architecture at TU Graz and ETH Zurich. He graduated in architecture in 2004 and then worked for Meili, Peter Architekten in Zurich and Munich. Together with Benedikt …

Acts of collective and reciprocal interaction for a resonant practice Negotiations take place between bodies, programs, materials, site, intentions, and gestures, to produce an active, collaborative work site. Planes infer horizons. The year culminates with rooms designed in response to the Riponne. Resonant architectures respond, transform, emerge, disappear, resurface. Sites regenerate.

In Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie writes, “We are all migrants from a country called the past” (Rushdie, 1992). Rushdie suggests that the movement and transitions we experience are not only spatial but also temporal. The summer school aims to explore the fluidic nature of belonging, identity, and architectural materials which are central concepts in placemaking. The Summer School invites the participants to consider architecture as a dynamic process shaped by movement and transitions across human and non-human actors instead of static constructs. We aim to highlight movement as both a source and a method in architecture research. We look at …

Entitled "Towards Bioclimatic Cities", the Forum des transitions urbaines will be held on September 12, 2025 in the Auditorium of Microcity, a branch of the EPFL in Neuchâtel (Switzerland). Organized jointly by the Ecoparc Association and the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) of the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in partnership with the journal TRACÉS, the biennial event will approach this crucial theme for our built environment from different angles. online registration

13.05.25 - Michela Bonomo examines in this column the ideology of the luxury seaside villa and shows its limits. Her column was published in three daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. The concept of a seaside villa retreat is ancient, dating back to the Roman Empire, yet the idea of a summer Mediterranean vacation is a recent one. In an essay, Swiss architect Philippe Rahm explored the origins of the summer vacation by looking at it through the lens of science and medicine. As 19th-century scientists made major discoveries about the health benefits of the sea and sun and their role …

30.12.24 - Nathalie Marj, an architecture student at EPFL, has been awarded the RIBA Awards for Sustainable Design and received a special mention for the RIBA Silver Medal for her master’s project “Protocols for Beirut’s Unbuildable Lots: Designing Non-Sectarian Spaces.” This project explores innovative solutions for non-sectarian public spaces in Beirut, addressing crucial environmental, social, and economic sustainability challenges in a complex urban context. For 188 years, the RIBA President’s Medals have recognized the best student work in architecture worldwide. This year, out of 372 submissions, Nathalie’s project stood out for its response to key sustainability challenges while imagining non-sectarian …

06.12.24 - How can we ensure a low-carbon economy by 2050? What kind of sustainable housing can be imagined? The winners of the 2024 Durabilis prize awarded by EPFL and UNIL suggest ways forward, while raising awareness of potential risks. The Durabilis Award annually recognizes student work with a strong sustainability component, achieving a grade above 5 out of 6. This year, five winners from EPFL and the University of Lausanne (UNIL) received a prize (CHF 1,000 for master's theses, 500 for the bachelor's thesis) for their exceptional projects, selected from 38 submissions. The ceremony took place on Thursday, November …

05.12.24 - At the 2024 closing assembly, the Doctoral Program Architecture and Sciences of the City (EDAR) awarded two distinctions to Sara Formery of the Laboratoire d'Architecture et Technologies Durables (LAST) and Anna Karla De Almeida Milani of the Laboratory of Urbanism (LAB-U), respectively. Each year, this distinction recognizes the excellence of the research work and scientific merit of EDAR doctoral students by rewarding theses of exceptional high-quality. Sara Formery's doctoral work, carried out as part of the “Rhodanie urbaine” research project, focuses more specifically on the potential for transition towards sustainability of the urban banks of the Rhône. Over …

EPFL architecture graduates, Vincent Digneaux, Solène Guisan and Vincent Kastl, were crowned winners of the Sustainable is Beautiful student architecture prize for their modular footbridge over the Chamberonne river. Designing the structure, which serves as both a crossing and a meeting place, gave them their first taste of life as an architect. Several years ago, the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) at EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) launched Sustainable is Beautiful, a competition run in partnership with public and private organizations involved in green-transition projects, to help equip budding architects for their future role.

WINNER OF THE 2023 RIBA CHARLES JENCKS AWARD

The Dogma practice, founded in 2002 by Pier Vittorio Aureli, associate professor at the EPFL Architecture Department (ENAC), and Martino Tattara, has been awarded the prestigious Charles Jencks 2023 Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Created in 2003 to reward an individual (or office) who has recently made a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture, this prestigious prize has distinguished architects such as Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron over the years.

Housing is a major contributor to Switzerland's carbon footprint and energy consumption, but it is also a basic need. Research on climate change mitigation strategies has so far paid insufficient attention to households' preferences and their contribution to housing sustainability. Depicting residential preferences requires an understanding of the multilevel, context-specific, and interrelated determinants of the match between households and dwellings, which are made explicit in the residential mobility process.