ABSTRACT Architecture organizes life, anthropology interprets practices, meanings, and social relations. The work of Gian Piero Frassinelli is emblematic of an anthropological perspective on architecture, understood as a cultural practice shaped by everyday life, labor, rituals, and modes of inhabitation. Emerging within the radical context of Superstudio, Frassinelli’s work helped redefine architecture not primarily as the production of buildings, but as a critical framework for understanding how human life is organized, represented, and imagined. Beginning with his thesis project, the Centre for Anthropological Studies in Florence, and continuing through subsequent research developed within Superstudio, such as The Twelve Ideal Cities …

Conférence de Bernard Tschumi suivie d'une conversation avec Pier Vittorio Aureli, directeur de l'Institut d'architecture de l'EPFL Cette conférence est proposée dans le cadre des expositions Des Cèdres à Dorigny, bâtir l’école d’architecture à Archizoom EPFL, et Jean Tschumi Designer au mudac, et promue par la fondation CUB. L’école d’architecture comme centre de réflexion critique sur les transformations culturelles et sociales Si la tour de 280 mètres dominant le lac Léman (Tour de Beaulieu, 1961) et la série de ponts habités enjambant la vallée du Flon (projet Ponts-Ville, 1988) avaient vu le jour, ils auraient radicalement transformé l’expérience urbaine et …

UNE ÉDUCATION AU RÉEL L’ATELIER CANTÀFORA 18.03-05.06.2026 Opening! Tuesday 17 March 6.30 pm This exhibition explores the vast field of graphic representation in architecture through fifteen years of teaching architectural representation at EPFL at the turn of the 2000s. It presents around a hundred paintings on wood, didactic works produced between 1997 and 2007 in the teaching units of the painter Arduino Cantàfora. They suggest a possible way of making, between thought and actio, where drawing and painting structure a concept and become an essential language for expressing the founding idea of a project. Despite the transition to digital technology, …

28.11.25 - Bruno Marchand receives the 2025 Culture du Bâti Award in the Architecture and Landscape category EPFL Architecture – the Architecture Section and the Institute of Architecture and the City – extend their warmest congratulations to Bruno Marchand, honorary professor at EPFL and winner of the 2025 Culture du Bâti Award in the Architecture and Landscape category. A key figure in architectural education at EPFL, Bruno Marchand was the director of the Laboratory of Theory and History of Architecture (LTH2) and of the Institute of Architecture and the City for several years. His work, particularly on collective housing in …

28.11.25 - The EPFL Architecture Studio TEXAS project was awarded the Swiss Arc Award 2025 in the Next Generation category. Congratulations to all the students and the teaching team involved for their outstanding work ! Hétérotopies Taking as a starting point the concept of heterotopia developed by Michel Foucault, the students envisioned the transformation of a housing block built in 1955 in Sarcelles, on the outskirts of Paris. With a careful and committed approach to preserving this modern heritage, they explored ways to extend the spatial and material qualities of these dwellings. Each group developed a collective housing project based …

12.11.25 - For her EPFL master’s project in architecture, Léa Guillotin outlined a plan for restoring an industrial district in Lausanne while promoting the reuse of construction materials. Léa Guillotin, who grew up in a village in Normandy, developed a taste for architecture early on. She got her first experience with it as a teenager, when she helped her parents renovate their family home. Then an optional architecture class she took during a high-school exchange year in the US convinced her of her calling. After graduating, she applied to EPFL so that she could study not just the theory and …

14.10.25 - An EPFL study shows red light, like blue, causes stronger glare than white, challenging the century-old and globally used function that describes how the human eye responds to different light wavelengths. The findings have implications for standards and research, as well as for the comfort of building occupants. Glare from sunlight can be a major source of discomfort for building occupants, especially when the windows have inadequate shadings. New smart glazing technology aims to provide protection from overheating in summer and from glare by changing the tint level to reduce the amount of solar radiation that passes through. …

This semester’s exhibition brings together work developed across the architecture design studios at EPFL. The projects reflect a wide range of questions, methods, and positions explored throughout the term. The images document the exhibition as it unfolded, showcasing student work through models, drawings, photographs, and digital media. They capture both the variety of approaches across studios and the shared moment of presentation and exchange. The exhibition was made possible by the commitment of the students and teaching teams. Their engagement and openness to discussion continue to shape the culture of architectural education at EPFL. ↗︎ Presentations of the design studio …

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.