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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

This documentary on the 2025 Master's projects at EPFL Architecture offers a glimpse into the topics addressed and investigated by master’s students: resources and craftsmanship, issues related to urban and territorial scales, social housing and individual housing, and interventions in existing buildings, including transformation, rehabilitation and renovation, are among the topics covered during the PDM. The PDM year at EPFL offers a rare freedom: the choice of one's own subjects and collaborations. It is a crucial moment when everyone takes a stand, not only in their studies but also in relation to the role of the architect. The video does …

Proving that reused concrete components are reusable again! At the heart of Lausanne’s museum centre last month, I was privileged to showcase new structural and spatial possibilities using the same structural elements used in previous demonstrators of Maxence Grangeot's PhD thesis. These prefabricated wall elements made from concrete rubble, originally fabricated in collaboration with Prelco, were disassembled from the tower configuration, and combined again with cut concrete slabs, into a pavilion whose structural layout and connections were validated by NFIC, and installation carried out in collaboration with Marti. This public pavilion has been exhibited as part of Tracés/espazium first “Baukultur …

Projets de Master 2025 Exhibition and reviews The 2025 Master Projects Exhibition showcases the work of EPFL architecture students as they confront the material, social, and territorial challenges of today’s world. Spread across three distinct areas, the exhibition showcases a diverse range of approaches: some projects delve into the use of local resources and traditional craftsmanship, working with materials such as wood or earth, or exploring self-building techniques. Others operate at larger scales, reimagining urban and territorial dynamics in light of environmental and societal shifts. A third group focuses on housing, both collective and individual, and on interventions within existing …

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.