24.07.24 - Exhibition "Radio-Activities" Architecture and Broadcasting in Cold War Berlin at Wechselraum, Stuttgart July 19–August 16, 2024 The exhibition Radio-Activities showcases the built infrastructure for radio in Berlin, from the Weimar Republic to the Cold War era. Through the presentation of sounds, archival drawings, and cartographic representations, it offers a unique perspective on the interplay between politics, electronic media, and architecture. Alfredo Thiermann's research spans from the Weimar Republic to the Cold War, focusing on Berlin’s radio infrastructure. 60 years after the Berlin Wall’s construction, the exhibition re-examines the coexistence of opposing political and aesthetic worldviews within the city. …

28.06.24 - The new issue of "matières" brings together essays in which an 'end' to architecture - historical or current - is analysed and interpreted. A publication directed by Christophe Van Gerrewey, assistant tenure track professor. Architecture continues thanks to the consequential proclamations of its end. The aim of this issue is to examine how this mechanism has worked and continues to work.To refer to the end of architecture is always to redefineits end in the other sense of the word: its purpose, itsmeaning, its finality. This end is only possible because there is no consensus on what architecture really …

21.06.24 - From the start of the 2025 academic year, a Master's degree in Urban Systems will enable ENAC students to become specialists in adapting cities and surrounding areas to climate change. Mobility, governance, municipal sustainability agendas, public health, data management... In light of climate change, Switzerland needs to equip itself with experts in urban management in the most comprehensive sense. In collaboration with the world of practice, the School of Architecture, Civil, and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) has developed a new master's degree in urban systems. Scheduled to start in the fall semester of 2025, it will offer graduates of …

20.06.24 - Professor Sophie Delhay will succeed Professor Dieter Dietz as Director of the Architecture Section (SAR) from the 15th of August 2024 Associate Professor of Architectural in the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) since September 2023, Sophie Delhay will become Director of the Architecture Section (SAR) and a member of the ENAC Direction from the 15th of August 2024. Professor Dieter Dietz has directed the Architecture Section since January 1st 2020. We thank him warmly for his remarkable commitment to the education section and to his role in the ENAC Direction. Communication ENAC

04.06.24 - How can we renormalize reuse? That’s the question posed by Barbara Lambec, an architect, heritage specialist, and researcher at EPFL’s Structural Xploration Lab (SXL), in this column published in three daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. The construction industry is responsible for 15% of global CO2 emissions and 33% of the waste produced in Europe. As the climate emergency unfolds, construction practices need to change – or rather, return to how they used to be. The industry reinvented itself less than a century ago with the advent of machines and globalization. Today, raw materials and products are sourced from …

A multi-purpose log building program La seconde partie du semestre a consisté au développement d’une proposition collective de projet, composée des éléments identifiés lors de la première phase. L’atelier agit alors dans un intérêt commun, divisé en groupes thématiques, mais collectivement engagé dans la production d’une proposition unitaire et rationnelle à toutes les échelles. En étudiant le projet de la plus petite à la plus grande échelle, cette seconde partie a été aussi l’occasion de pousser l’étude de la construction jusqu’à la réalisation d'prototype à l’échelle 1/1. - The second part of the semester consisted in developing a collective project …

L’architecture continue grâce aux proclamations consécutives de sa fin. Ce numéro de matières veut examiner comment ce mécanisme a fonctionné et continue de fonctionner. Faire référence à la terminaison de l’architecture est toujours une redéfinition de sa fin dans l’autre sens du terme: son but, son sens, sa finalité. Cette fin n’est possible que parce qu’il n’y a pas de consensus sur ce qu’est réellement l’architecture, ni sur quoi elle mène. Que se passe-t-il lorsque l’architecture se termine? Ce qu’on entendait par le mot architecture n’existe plus, ou n’est plus jugé suffisant, et se transforme, pour le meilleur ou pour …

This semester we asked ourselves why not letting water leak beyond romantic reasons and reintroduce it into the public space. We will started by looking at what we have and capture the multi-layered past of the site, its complex ecology, its projected futurism in order to build on it. We let the water draw itself, on and through the existing enviroment, following its own logic. We looked at water as a common ressource that can activate civic spaces as much as it is activated by the public.

In the twentieth century, radical social, political, economic, environmental, and technological shifts challenged existing social contracts - offering new potentials for exercising dominance as well as paths toward liberation. These historical transformations were reified in - and shaped by - new spatial arrangements. The course charts a map of these transformations as they intersect with the production of the objects most specific to the discipline of architecture: buildings. In order to consider buildings as simultaneously concrete objects and conceptual constructs, the coursework examines the changing and competing definitions of the notion of typology as a means to historicize architecture in …

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.