AVIOLAT CHAPERON ESCOBAR Conversion of a building at chemin Guillaume Ritter in Fribourg At the bend of a tree-lined alley, the Ritter House emerges—white, slender, and seemingly roofless. Its tall vertical windows and protruding cornices create striking overlaps, while its double enfilade layout extends and revitalizes the existing structure. Cloaked in a timeless white veil, it becomes an open-ended symbol, inviting the most poetic associations of thought. Sébastien Chaperon is a Swiss architect who graduated from HES Fribourg in 2005. He has led projects at 0815 Architekten in Freiburg and Dreier Frenzel in Lausanne, including the Ecoquartier Jonction in Geneva. …

Acts of collective and reciprocal interaction for a resonant practice Negotiations take place between bodies, programs, materials, site, intentions, and gestures, to produce an active, collaborative work site. Planes infer horizons. The year culminates with rooms designed in response to the Riponne. Resonant architectures respond, transform, emerge, disappear, resurface. Sites regenerate.

BHSF Güterstrasse 8, Berne The transformation of the former warehouse of the Tobler Chocolate Factory is the geometrical and conceptual centre of the urban design for the site of the former waste incineration plant in the Holligen neighbourhood in Berne. The fundamental decision to preserve and convert this building represents an elementary approach to save resources while creating a new identity from the existing within the urban and architectural scale. Axel Humpert studied architecture at TU Graz and ETH Zurich. He graduated in architecture in 2004 and then worked for Meili, Peter Architekten in Zurich and Munich. Together with Benedikt …

11.03.25 - EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) has introduced a new master’s program in urban systems that will start this fall. The goal is to train experts who are capable of implementing sustainability-oriented approaches for urban planning and development. By rethinking their approach to managing and developing urban areas, city officials can play a role in responding to modern-day challenges such as climate change, the depletion of natural resources and the impact of manufacturing and other anthropogenic activities on the environment and human health. The goal of ENAC’s new master’s program in urban systems is to …

15.01.25 - URBES together with ENAC-IT4Research have developed an online platform for urban data visualization now displayed at the Datapoiesis exhibition in Venice The exhibition Datapoiesis organized by IUAV in Venice (Biblioteca Tolentini, 15.01-03.02.2025) investigates the use of the “graph” as a tool for modelling urban systems with the aim of anticipating, to some extent, their future evolution. The focus is on the application of such models, often inspired by morphogenetic principles and implemented through simulations using cellular automata, multi-agent systems, fractal geometry, etc., in a tradition that dates back at least to the 1970s. The data visualization platform created …

06.12.24 - How can we ensure a low-carbon economy by 2050? What kind of sustainable housing can be imagined? The winners of the 2024 Durabilis prize awarded by EPFL and UNIL suggest ways forward, while raising awareness of potential risks. The Durabilis Award annually recognizes student work with a strong sustainability component, achieving a grade above 5 out of 6. This year, five winners from EPFL and the University of Lausanne (UNIL) received a prize (CHF 1,000 for master's theses, 500 for the bachelor's thesis) for their exceptional projects, selected from 38 submissions. The ceremony took place on Thursday, November …

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.