A summer school taking place this September will bring together EPFL and ETH Zurich PhD students to explore how uncertainty can become a productive resource in design and fabrication through a hands-on construction robotics challenge. The program combines lectures in architecture, robotics, and work psychology with the full-scale construction of a timber structure from irregular timber stock, using an ABB industrial robot in a human-robot fabrication workflow. No previous experience in construction robotics is required, only curiosity. More details, including the program, dates, and registration information, are available on the website: https://cap-uncertainty.epfl.ch/ For questions, please contact: cap-uncertainty@epfl.ch

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 Opening Tuesday 8 September 6.15pm – Discussion between Stefana Parascho and Aude Billard, moderated by Pier Vittorio Aureli 7.30pm – Opening doors and aperitive What if robots didn’t replace us, but worked alongside us? Robots are capable of assembling, analysing, experimenting and learning from their mistakes. Could they take on construction work without replacing human labour? Research carried out by the CRCL – Lab for Creative Computation at EPFL explores a form of collaboration between humans and machines that departs from the traditional promise of automation. It opens the way to more inclusive …

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 …

30.07.26 - Cities and communities have often developed around waterways. Today, they play a vital role in adapting to climate change and strengthening social bonds. Rivers are a key resource for food, directly through fishing or indirectly for irrigating crops. In the 19th century, when industrialization began, they became essential to run factories and revolutionize the economy, thus shaping the urban landscape. For that reason, humans have always established their settlements near rivers and have diverted their natural course to adapt to their needs. However, as cities keep growing, rivers reclaim the space that they occupied. “Rivers are very complex …

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 …

11.06.26 - Two master's projects completed within the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) are among the winners of the 2026 FEB Distinction awarded by the Groupe spécialisé pour la conservation des ouvrages (GCO) of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA). The master's project "Racines urbaines", developed by Lucile Charamel, received an award, while Zélie Cortès' project, entitled "Canopé sociale", received an honorable mention. This distinction annually recognizes academic projects that address, in an exemplary manner, issues related to the management, adaptation, and conservation of existing buildings. Since its foundation in 1994, the GCO has provided an …

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 …

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.