On the day 3 of the Capitalising on uncertainty summer school, we have the pleasure to welcome two lecturers focussing on model uncertainty: Jonas Warmuth is a structural engineer and researcher working at the intersection of structural engineering and architecture. His work explores how digital tools can support designers in the early stages of a project, when requirements, constraints, and even the structural concept itself are still evolving. At EPFL's Structural Xploration Lab, he developed Dragonfly3D, an interactive design framework that helps engineers and architects explore structural possibilities rather than simply optimize predefined solutions. His research focuses on interactive equilibrium …

On the day 3 of the Capitalising on uncertainty summer school, we have the pleasure to welcome two lecturers focussing on design with uncertainty: Sigrid Brell-Cokcan is the founder and director of the Chair of Individualized Production at RWTH Aachen University, President of the Association for Robots in Architecture (RiA), and a member of the Board of Directors of euRobotics. With a background in architecture, she has collaborated with leading international practices including Coop Himmelblau, Frank Gehry, Peter Cook, and Bollinger + Grohmann. Her research focuses on making industrial robotics accessible to architecture and construction, particularly through intuitive human–robot interaction …

DO ROBOTS DREAM OF CONSTRUCTION SITES? 09.09-05.12.2026 Tuesday 8 September 2026 6.15pm – Introduction by Cyril Veillon 6.30pm – Discussion between Stefana Parascho and Aude Billard, moderated by Pier Vittorio Aureli 7.30pm – Opening doors and aperitive To mark the opening of the exhibition Do Robots Dream of Construction Sites?, organised in collaboration with prof. Stefana Parascho, Director of the CRCL – Lab for Creative Computation at EPFL, we are delighted to welcome prof. Aude Billard, a physicist and pioneer in the fields of machine learning and human-robot interaction. She heads the LASA laboratory, the Laboratory for Algorithms and Learning …

Exhibtion Opening Lecture Do Robots Dream of Construction Sites? 09.09-05.12.2026 Produced in collaboration with the CRCL Do Robots Dream of Construction Sites? What if robots didn’t replace people, but worked alongside us to conceive, plan and build architecture? While digitalisation is reshaping the built environment, most efforts have centered on automation and substitution, with little real impact on how we design or build. The talk argues that adaptability - not automation - is the key to sustainable architectural and construction impact. It highlights autonomous systems that adjust structural and spatial strategies in real time, and human-robot interaction models that keep …

24.08.26 - EPFL’s very first buildings and their surrounding areas were just classified as historical monuments. In connection with this, the School has entered into an agreement with Vaud Canton and the ETH Board to preserve its emblematic 20th-century architecture while enabling the Lausanne campus to keep changing with the times. It is the start of a new chapter for EPFL’s Lausanne campus. Today, EPFL and Vaud Canton announced that the campus’s original buildings, constructed between 1969 and 1984, and their surrounding areas have been classified as historical monuments. This recognition of the School’s architectural heritage has also led to …

11.08.26 - What if robots were increasingly in need of us? Archizoom and the CRCL laboratory at EPFL propose an exhibition to invite visitors to rethink the automation of construction sites, exploring robotic arms, recycled timber and the confidence to co-create with increasingly intelligent machines. Despite decades of technological promises, construction remains one of the least automated sectors — and one where the physical demands of the work remain the most intense. In light of this, the CRCL – Lab for Creative Computation, led by Professor Stefana Parascho, is exploring a different approach. Rather than opposing robots and workers, this …

09.07.26 - Prof. Stefana Parascho and Prof. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes have been selected to organise the 2027 EPFL Latsis Symposium. The Latsis International Foundation grants CHF 40K to one head of unit at EPFL, or a group of heads of units, per year for the organization of a scientific symposium. EPFL will host In the Same Room: Technology and Critique in the Built Environment, a symposium convened by Prof. Stefana Parascho (CRCL) and Prof. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT) that brings architects, engineers, social scientists, historians, and theorists into the same room to confront one of the defining tensions in contemporary architecture: how …

06.07.26 - For almost two decades, Luca Pattaroni has been studying alternative and countercultural communities at EPFL’s Urban Sociology Laboratory (LASUR). His research asks what these models of coexistence and collective living might teach the rest of society. When asked what question drives his work, Luca Pattaroni, who co-heads LASUR at EPFL, is unequivocal: “How do people and communities, with all their diversity and differences, learn to live side by side in a city?” Pattaroni specializes in what are often labeled the “margins” of society. Yet he sees alternative communities, countercultural movements, activist and artistic circles, squats, the homeless, migrants …

In July 2026, the Rolex Learning Center became a place of exchange around the Master Projects in Architecture at EPFL. Bringing together the final juries and the exhibition, the event offered a moment to reflect on a year of research, design, and experimentation, while opening this work to discussion with invited critics, faculty, students, and the public. The projects revealed a wide range of positions and methods. Developed independently, they nevertheless converged around shared concerns for contemporary architecture, engaging with questions of territory and public space, housing, industrial and cultural heritage, and architecture in mountain environments. Congratulations to all the …

Manfredo Tafuri was one of the most influential architectural historians of the twentieth century, and his work continues to shape the landscape of architectural history and theory. This anthology presents—for the first time—a carefully curated selection of essays and interviews spanning his entire career, from 1964, the year in which Tafuri decided to focus exclusively on architectural history, to 1994, the year of his untimely death. These texts—most translated into English for the first time—reveal the extraordinary range of Tafuri’s scholarship, ranging from topics as diverse as the critique of architectural ideology and capitalist development, to the contradictions of the …

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 …

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.