ARDUINO CANTÀFORA, LUCA ORTELLI An Education in the Real, L’Atelier Cantàfora An Education in the Real, L’atelier Cantàfora, is an exhibition devoted to the pedagogical legacy of Arduino Cantàfora, a Milanese painter, writer, and professor of Architectural Drawing at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. It presents hundreds of painted wooden panels produced by students between 1992 and 1996, depicting urban façades in Geneva and Lausanne at a 1:5 scale, alongside rigorous exercises such as steam locomotives, enlarged beetles, and anatomically precise skeletons. The exhibition affirms Cantàfora’s belief in analogue representation as foundational architectural knowledge. A public discussion between Arduino Cantàfora …

UNE ÉDUCATION AU RÉEL L'ATELIER CANTÀFORA 18.03-05.06.2026 Opening! Tuesday 17 March 6.30pm Discussion between Arduino Cantàfora and Luca Ortelli, moderated by Nicola Braghieri An Education in the Real is an exhibition devoted to the pedagogical legacy of Arduino Cantafora, Milanese painter and writer and Professor of Architectural Drawing at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. It presents hundreds of painted wooden panels produced by students between 1992 and 1996, depicting urban façades in Geneva and Lausanne at 1:5 scale, alongside rigorous exercises such as steam locomotives, enlarged beetles and anatomically precise skeletons. The exhibition affirms Cantàfora’s belief in analogue representation as …

11.02.26 - On the occasion of the fourth edition of the Master Prize in Architecture, awarded by the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA), two projects from EPFL Architecture received an Honourable Mention, recognising the quality and commitment reflected in these diploma projects. Among the awarded works is the project by Léa Guillotin, Re-fabricating Sévelin: The Image of Industry in the City Centre. Located in Lausanne’s Sévelin district—today largely shaped by the service sector—the project questions the role of industry in the contemporary city in light of current ecological and logistical challenges. Building on the last remaining industrial complex …

During a one-week Summer Workshop at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in Central London, students will explore drawing as a fundamental tool in architecture and engineering, engaging with the site as both a built environment and a historically transformed place. Developed in collaboration with Drawing Matter, London, the workshop integrates hands-on drawing with research into the Drawing Matter Collection, a unique archive of architectural drawings. Students will construct survey drawings—understood as instruments for potentially transforming existing conditions—while investigating drawing as a corporeal practice of measuring, analyzing, and questioning spatial, tectonic, urban, and material articulation, as well as the notion of place. Drawing …

The Summer Workshop explored the structural, architectonic, environmental, and social dimensions of TRC and its application, particularly in the context of school programs in the Global South, where it serves as a socially and environmentally sustainable “lightweight” material. Building upon the TRC Prototype Pavilion initiated in 2019 at EPFL Fribourg and previous research by Brazilian architect Lelé on Argamassa Armada (ferrocement), the summer workshop aimed to craft full-scale (1:1) Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) elements for a new secondary school in Somaliland, Africa, a project led by Urko Sanchez Architects, based in Kenya. Additionally, we aim to facilitate knowledge exchange between …

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.