EDAR Newsletter

nº 100

July-August 2025

EDAR WELCOMES

New PhD Students

EDAR is delighted to welcome the new PhD students:

Stéphane HUBER, who will start his research on the 1st of August 2025, at LASUR
Michelle SCHNEIDER, who will start her research on the 1st of September 2025, at SXL
Charlotte SCHAEBEN, who will start her research on the 1st of September 2025, at LASUR,

and wishes success in their studies.

PUBLIC THESIS DEFENSES

Tiago P. Borges (PhD student at EAST)

11 July 2025, 18:30 (CET)

The public defense of the doctoral thesis entitled "Neither House nor Garden. Greenhouses as domestic space and the question of climatic typology" will be held in SG Foyer (campus EPFL Ecublens). The thesis is completed under the supervision of Prof. Anja Fröhlich (EAST). To attend the public defense, please contact here.

Noélie Buntschu-Lecoanet (PhD student at LAB-U)

16 July 2025, 18:30 (CET)

The public defense of the doctoral thesis entitled "Towards an Atlas of a new gaze: exploring cartographic narratives of coinhabitabilities" will be held in SG Foyer (campus EPFL Ecublens). The thesis is completed under the supervision of Prof. Paola Viganó (LAB-U). To attend the public defense, please contact here.

AR-808 MOVEMENT MATTERS

Exploring Transitions in Architecture Research

The 2025 ETHZ/EPFL Summer School Movement Matters took place at the evocative setting of Passo del San Gottardo in Airolo on June 23-27, 2025. This interdisciplinary gathering explored the centrality of movement in spatial research, engaging with themes of identity, migration, material flows, and more-than-human mobilities.

Bringing together participants from diverse fields of architecture, urbanism, history and theory, and engineering, the program created a dynamic and nonhierarchical environment for peer-to-peer exchange. A series of hands-on workshops and discussions were led by invited guests from art, anthropology, architecture, and urban studies, offering perspectives on the politics and poetics of movement. The summer school was co-organized by PhD researchers Akshar Gajjar (THEMA) and Debasish Borah (gta, ETHZ).

EDAR COURSES

Fall 2025

EDAR is glad to announce the list of Courses for the upcoming Fall semester 2025. The EDAR Course book for the year 2025-2026 will be published at the beginning of August 2025.

AR-688 / 12.09.2025 – Vers des villes bioclimatiques ? Forum des Transitions urbaines 2025.

Emmanuel Rey, Martine Laprise

AR-616 / 09-10.10.2025 – Thesis Writing Workshop.

Gretchen Bakke, Lea Sgier

AR-667 / October 2025 – Rythmologies. Sociétés et territoires à l'épreuve.

Vincent Kaufmann

AR-602 / 03-04.11.2025 – Introduction to Research I.

Elena Cogato Lanza, Luca Pattaroni

18-20.11.2025 – Making the World Discrete. Workshop on Method.

Alfredo Thiermann, Xavier Nueno

AR-689 / November 2025 – Field Work – The Terrain, the Lab, the Archive.

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes

PUBLICATIONS

by EDAR PhD Students

Twice a year, EDAR Newsletter shares the list of publications by PhD students of our doctoral program. Here is the 11th edition with all the publications from January to June 2025. The alphabetical order refers to the surnames of EDAR PhD Students.

Have a nice reading!

Delgado Velasco, Marcela, and Vanessa Sattele Gunther. “Diseño y Tecnología: Navegando Futuros Inciertos.” In 40 años del posgrado en Diseño Industrial: Una visión retrospectiva y prospectiva del diseño en la UNAM, edited by Julio Frías Peña, 323–41. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2025. ISBN 978-607-30-9376-7.

Delgado, Marcela, and Jeffrey Huang. “Computing Cohabitation: A Framework for Indexing More‑Than‑Human Streetscapes.” InSIGraDi 2024 Biodigital Intelligent Systems: XXVIII International Conference of the Ibero‑American Society of Digital Graphics Proceedings, edited by Pablo C. Herrera, Paula Gómez, Alberto T. Estévez, and David A. Torreblanca‑Díaz, 273–282. Barcelona: iBAG‑UIC Barcelona / SIGraDi, 2024. ISBN 978‑9915‑9635‑2‑5.

Devalle, Jolanda, and Constantinos Marcou. “Bypassing Developers: An Interview with Plan Común on Self-Commissioned Housing.” Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 20 (May 2025). https://doi.org/10.63602/252051.

Devalle, Jolanda. “All About San Riemo: A Conversation with SUMMACUMFEMMER.” Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 18 (March 2025). http://doi.org/10.63602/251848.

Lerch, Mathias, Wenxiu Du, and Dorothee Beckendorff. “Internal Migration over the Course of Urbanization in Developing Countries.” Population and Development Review (May 2025). http://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70014.

Deng, Cynthia, Elif Erez‑Henderson, Thomas Stringer, and Christian Hart Nakarado. “Accounting for Other Lives in Life Cycle Assessment: A Case Study in Designed Reuse and Decay.” TechnologyIArchitecture + Design 9, no. 1 (June 2025): 203–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/24751448.2025.2476884

Giovanazzi, Theodora. “The Birth of Social Housing: The Scuole Grandi’s Collective Row Housing Blocks in 16th-Century Venice.”Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 21 (June 2025). https://doi.org/10.63602/252154.

Grangeot, Maxence, Malena Bastien-Masse, Corentin Fivet, and Stefana Parascho. “Large Concrete Rubble as a New Structural Construction Material: Opportunities and Digital Processes for Load-Bearing Walls.” Buildings 15, no. 9 (2025): 1437. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15091437.

Grangeot, Maxence, Maléna Bastien-Masse, Stefana Parascho, and Corentin Fivet. “Upcycling Concrete Rubble Into Masonry Walls: Design and Assessment of Two Prototypes Built With Digitally Augmented Tools.” In 4th Fib International Conference on Concrete Sustainability (ICCS2024), edited by Joaquim A. O. Barros, Vítor M. C. F. Cunha, Hélder S. Sousa, José C. Matos, and José M. Sena-Cruz, 324–31. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80724-4_40.

Guichot, Flore, and Maarten Van Acker. “Learning from Rural-Urban Stations: Strategies for Rail-Based Development in a Low-Density Flemish Landscape.” Journal of Landscape Architecture 19, no. 2 (2024): 68-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2024.2466338.

Marcou, Constantinos. "Un lit simple: Une interprétation queer de la maison de chambres." Translated by Léo Duca. Habitante 7 (2025): 83–117.

Peikert, Martin. “Strangers in Paradise: The Contribution of Foreign Offices in the Swiss Competition System.” Hochparterre-Wettbewerbe (2025). https://wettbewerbe.hochparterre.ch/wettbewerbe/ausgabe/hochparterre-wettbewerbe-22025/?no_cache=1&cHash=ca5f6c7ce02ca4bea70d2addd9d9b511.

Rames, Clément, Daniel Rhoads, Antoni Meseguer‑Artola, Sergi Lozano, Javier Borge‑Holthoefer, and Albert Solé‑Ribalta. “Trends and Drivers of Pedestrian Mobility in Barcelona: A Fine‑Grained Study across Its Commercial Tissue.” Cities 158 (2025): Article 105655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105655.

Singhvi, Ankita, Aristide Athanassiadis, and Claudia R. Binder. “Configurations for Circularity? A Scoping Review of Urban Planning Approaches in the Circular Economy Literature.” Urban Research & Practice (February 2025), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17535069.2025.2465961.

Singhvi, Ankita, Mikhail Sirenko, Aristide Athanassiadis, and Claudia R. Binder. “Mapping Operational and Embodied Emissions in Relation to Household and Ownership Profiles with Bottom‑Up Building Stock Analysis: The Case of Vaud, Switzerland.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 221 (July 2025): 108431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2025.108431.

Sivers, Maria, and Corentin Fivet. "Reuse Market Dynamics: Unlocking Building‑Component Reuse in European Construction." In a special issue of IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, June 2025. https://sbe.ethz.ch/.

Sivers, Maria, and Corentin Fivet. “Reuse of Doors in Switzerland and Germany: Market, Economic Challenges and Environmental Opportunities.” In Proceedings of the Sustainable Built Environment Conference, Zürich, Switzerland, June 2025. https://sbe.ethz.ch/.

Varela, Alejandro. Fricciones: Crónicas de un viaje de arquitectura [Friction: Chronicles of an Architecture Journey]. Montevideo: Editorial Forum, 2025. www.architecturalfrictions.com.

CALLS

Calls for participation

Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) and the Ecoparc Association, in partnership with the journal Tracés, announce a call for participation for the Forum des transitions urbaines, which will be held on September 12, 2025 in the Auditorium of Microcity, an EPFL branch in Neuchâtel. Entitled Towards bioclimatic cities ?, the biennial event will approach this crucial theme for our built environment from different angles. The Forum gathers researchers, practitioners, political decision-makers and public service managers interested in the transition and, more broadly, in the qualitative evolution of urban territories. This is reflected in the rich program of speakers, including Isabelle Bey (MeteoSwiss), Emilie Nault (CSD Ingénieurs), Clément Gaillard (Freio design climatique) Vincent Kempf (Ville de Sion), Olivier Philippe (agenceter), Tim Cousin (roofscapes), Philippe Rahm (Philippe Rahm architectes) and Emmanuel Rey (LAST/ Bauart) who will address the theme of bioclimatic cities from a variety of angles. The Forum will be held in French, and the participation is free for the EDAR doctoral students registered for the course AR-688 Vers des villes bioclimatiques ?. For registration and detailed information, please visit the link.

gta Institute (ETH Zurich) and CDHM (Geneva Graduate Institute) announce an international conference entitled Diplomatic Interiors: Spaces, Practices, and Infrastructures in Historical Perspective. The conference will take place on November 19-20 at ETH Zürich and on November 21 at the Geneva Graduate Institute, including a study visit to the Palace of Nations. This conference frames diplomatic interiors as environments for bilateral representation, intergovernmental collaboration, and negotiation. It invites scholars to investigate the technological, social, and material infrastructures that supported the working of these interiors, both symbolically and operationally. Contributions are expected to move beyond the design or inauguration of diplomatic buildings to consider interiors as a lens for exploring the evolving needs of diplomacy, including maintenance, technological adaptation, financing, the user perspective and hidden forms of labour. Abstracts of 300 words, along with a short bio of 100 words, are to be submitted to diplomaticinteriors@ethz.ch by July 31, 2025. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), the Swiss Institute (Rome), and the National University of Singapore Museum announce a call for papers for the symposium entitled Plant Histories, Plantation Architectures. This two-chapter symposium will be held in the Singapore Botanic Gardens on 29–30 January, 2026, and at the Swiss Institute (Rome) on 25–27 March, 2026. Plant Histories focuses on the stories that plants tell about the plantation system in monsoon Asia, while Plantation Architectures re-centers the plantation as a system not only rooted in colonial geographies but also within Europe itself. Contributions may explore how people use plants in/as architecture, plants that travel between places, ethnobotanical relationships on and around plantations, and the historical connections that shaped the environment, people, and architecture on plantations. Abstracts of 350 words, along with a short CV, are to be submitted to voyaging.vapors@usi.ch by August 31, 2025. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Calls for papers

Materia Arquitectura announces the call for papers for its new issue entitled Civicness. The issue focuses on civic buildings and invites contributions that critically interrogate civicness in the contemporary built environment. Submissions may address built projects, unbuilt visions, or broader frameworks of public architecture—especially in contexts of crisis, institutional change and emerging political prospect. Full papers up to 3,000 words are to be submitted through to materia.arquitectura@uss.cl by August 30, 2025. For detailed information, please visit the link.

International Journal of Architectural Research (IJAR) announces the call for papers for its special issue entitled Hybrid Practices: Practice/Design/Theory-Based Research in Architecture. This special issue examines the intersections of architectural practice, design, and theory as critical modes of research, articulating how hybrid methodologies generate new knowledge for pressing issues. Contributions are encouraged to develop hybrid constructions, models of theory and practice, and propositional work that open new and alternative pathways and to engage in speculative thinking about alternative futures, or how theoretical close readings bear on the facts and forms of climate change, or how extraction critique and typological readings generate alternative approaches to peripheral urbanisation. Full papers up to 10,000 words are to be submitted through the link by December 15, 2025. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Les Cahiers scientifiques internationaux Réseaux et Territoires (FLUX) announces the call for papers for its special issue entitled New Challenges for Rural Mobilities. This thematic issue seeks to develop a plural reading of spaces far from major urban centers and to examine the mobility issues facing rural communities today. More specifically, it sheds light on the particularities that characterize rural territories in terms of travel, but also the difficulties encountered by the populations that populate them and the forms of ingenuity (individual, collective, informal, institutional, technical, project-based, etc.) that develop there. Contributions are expected to cover the topics of the modalities of public innovation in rural areas, the diversity of daily mobility practices and experiences beyond the car, mobility issues through the lens of populations, and mobility infrastructure in rural areas. Abstracts of 4,000 characters in French or English are to be submitted to gaetan.mangin@gmail.com, elena.cogatolanza@epfl.ch, and vincent.kaufmann@epfl.ch by December 15, 2025. For detailed information, please visit the link.