EDAR Newsletter

nº 104

December 2025 – January 2026

EDAR WELCOMES

New PhD Students

EDAR is delighted to welcome the new PhD students:

Eva RUOF, who will start her research on the 1st of January 2026, at THEMA
Riccardo AQUISTAPACE, who will start his research on the 1st of January 2026, at LAPIS,

and wishes success in their studies.

PUBLIC THESIS DEFENSE

Flore Guichot (PhD student at LAB-U)

15 December 2025, 18:15 (CET)

The public defense of the doctoral thesis entitled "Constructing the metropolis : Transport and Urbanization in Transition in the Great Geneva" will be held in MED 0 1418 (campus EPFL Ecublens). The thesis is completed under the supervision of Prof. Paola Viganò and Prof. Vincent Kaufmann. To attend the public defense, please contact here.

EDAR THESIS DISTINCTION 2025

EDAR warmly congratulates the recipient of the 2025 Thesis Distinction – Barbara Lambec (SXL), Reuse potentials of building elements: learning from practices and synthesis of assessment methods. The motivation of the distinction was to award the ambition of the thesis to have an impact on operationalization, its engagement for a design culture in reuse, and the very high quality of the visual apparatus, which is essential for an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dissemination of the contents of this excellent research.

The Thesis Distinction was awarded during the Christmas Party-Assembly organised on December 1 by the EDAR staff together with CINQ, the PhD students' representative collective.

EDAR GENERAL SCHEDULE

Spring 2026

EDAR has set up a general schedule encompassing all doctoral courses and other events and activities organised by the doctoral program in 2026 Spring semester, which can be viewed through the link. Detailed information on individual courses will appear in the EDAR Course book, which is available through the link.

To view the database of external doctoral courses, please visit the link. The list is based on the current information and will be updated as more universities will publish their curricula in the coming weeks. In order to have the external courses counted towards the requirements of the EDAR program, please consult with Sandra Bottà in all cases.

10th LES RENCONTRES DE L'EDAR

Autonomy and Abstraction

The 10th edition of Les Rencontres de l’EDAR will be held on May 12-13 2026 in collaboration with the Institute of Architecture. Over two days, EDAR PhD students, supervisors, co-supervisors, and external guests will turn their attention to how doctoral research engages with two foundational dimensions of scholarly inquiry. Abstraction will be understood in the classical philosophical sense as the mental act of drawing a subject out of its contingent conditions in order to apprehend the universal principles that structure it. Autonomy will be introduced as the possibility for a discipline to examine itself according to its own internal laws, temporarily suspending external correlations.

Please SAVE THE DATE, detailed information will come soon!

EDAR ANNOUNCEMENT BOARD

A new board for announcements was placed in the corridor outside BP 2130. It will display information on courses and academic events organised by the EDAR. All laboratories and event organisers are encouraged to submit printed posters and flyers to Sandra Bottà for placement on the board.

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 12th edition with all the publications from July to December 2025. The alphabetical order refers to the surnames of EDAR PhD Students.

Have a nice reading!

Berrada, Reda. “Dwelling on Absence: Minor Architecture and the Project of Moroccan Habitat.” Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 24 (September 2025). https://burning.farm/essays/dwelling-on-absence.

Cattin, Clément, Martine Laprise, and Emmanuel Rey. “Revisiter l’urbanité dans la pente.” TRACÉS 3555 (July 2025): 20. https://www.espazium.ch/fr/actualites/revisiter-lurbanite-dans-la-pente.

Devalle, Jolanda. “Few and Simple Elements: Lauretta Vinciarelli, the Puglia Project, and the Idea of ‘Spatial Fabric’.” Burning Farm:A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 22 (July 2025). http://doi.org/10.63602/252256.

Devalle, Jolanda. “Housing as Housing: A Book Review.” Constructs: Journal of the Yale School of Architecture, Fall Issue (October 2025): 24.

Devalle, Jolanda. “What’s Wrong with the Rural House? Fascism and Myth in the Photography of Giuseppe Pagano.” Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 26 (November 2025). https://burning.farm/essays/whats-wrong-with-the-rural-house.

Devalle, Jolanda. “From Conch to Scaffold: Semper and Morris on Dwelling.” Log, no. 65: House and Home (Fall 2025).

Du, Wenxiu, Dorothee Beckendorff, and Mathias Lerch. “The Impact of Migration on Age Structure Conducive to Human Development across the Urban Hierarchy. Population and Development Review, November 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70033.

Fanciotti, Filippo. “Dinner for Threshers: Staging Rituals and Revolt in a Carpenter-Gothic Farmhouse.” Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 24 (September 2025). https://burning.farm/essays/the-last-supper-of-the-midwest.

Frigo, Giulia, Christian Zurbrügg, Gregory Giuliani, Ralph Hansmann, and Claudia R. Binder. “The Geography of Waste: Explaining the Spatial Variation of Litter and Dumpsites in Indonesia.” Environmental Challenges 21 (December 2025): 101345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2025.101345.

Grangeot, Maxence. “Material Paradoxes.” Domus, October 2025. https://www.shoped.it/shop/prodotto/domus-n-1105-ottobre-2025/.

Grangeot, Maxence. “Beyond Stone: Tectonics of Concrete Rubble Spolia.” Landskab (2025). https://shop.arkitektforeningen.dk/en/new/3189-l.html.

Grangeot, Maxence, Tiphaine Abenia. “Concrete Rubble Cookbook.” Accattone 9 (2025).

Grangeot, Maxence, Tanguy Auffret-Postel, Stefana Parascho, and Corentin Fivet. “New Tectonics of Concrete through Rubble Reuse.” In Structures and Architecture, 1st ed., edited by Mario Rinke and Marie Frier Hvejsel. CRC Press, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003658641-141.

Iweins, Antoine, Gianna Ledermann, Kyra Michel, and Noémie Zurbriggen. “Book Review: Bathla, Nitin (Ed.): Researching Otherwise: Pluriversal Methodologies for Landscape and Urban Studies.” Geographica Helvetica 80, no. 4 (2025): 335–37. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-335-2025.

Marcou, Constantinos. “Beds for Two: Joe Orton’s and Kenneth Halliwell’s Bedsit.” Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, no. 25 (October 2025). http://doi.org/10.63602/252561.

Sivers, Maria, and Corentin Fivet. “Unlocking the Circular Economy: The Reuse Viability Index for Predicting Building Component Reusability.” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 3140, no. 16 (2025): 162015. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/3140/16/162015.

Anisimov, Oleksandr, Yegor Vlasenko, Dominic Stead, and Maria Smirnova. “Caught Up Between War, Localism and EU Land Policy Regulations. Unravelling Local Land Use Decision-Making in Ukraine.” European Journal of Spatial Development 22, no. 3 (2025). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16635072.

CALLS

Calls for fellowships

The EPFL PhD Excellence Program announces a call for applications for the 2026 cohort. The fellowship is aimed at doctoral candidates interested in pursuing a career in a non-academic sector after their studies and it will complement their training as first-class scientists at EPFL by empowering them as engaged and active members of society and leaders of tomorrow. Applications are to be submitted by February 6, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Collegium Helveticum announces a call for submissions from all disciplines for ten-month residential early-career fellowships at post-doctoral level in Zürich. Each fellow will propose an interdisciplinary event centered on their work, contributing to the Collegium's academic and artistic program. The fellowship can be used to further develop an interdisciplinary proposal for a major grant, such as an ERC or SNSF Starting Grant, or an SNSF Ambizione Grant. Applications are to be submitted by February 12, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.

The EPFL Doc.Mobility grant announces a call for applications for research stays starting between June 1, 2026, and August 31, 2027. The grant provides financial support to doctoral candidates enrolled at EPFL who wish to enhance their scientific and professional profile through research stay abroad of 3 to 6 months. It enables PhD candidates to deepen their scientific knowledge, expand their professional network, and advance their thesis by working with a highly reputable research institution. Applications are to be submitted by March 1, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Calls for participation

Harvard Graduate School of Design announces a call for Cambridge Talks 2026, an annual conference organized by students of the PhD Program in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning. Entitled Surfacing, it invites scholars to consider the physical production of surfaces and their role in mediating our relationships with each other and with the environment. Paper topics may address histories of landscape and architectural construction sites, environmental costs of sourcing and fabricating surface materials, histories of representational media as surfaces, and histories of surface preservation. Abstracts of 300 words and CV are to be submitted through the link by January 2, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.

The SNSF-funded Responsible City research project announces a call for a conference entitled Whose Land, Whose Home, Whose Rent? Assembling property in Switzerland. It seeks to address this need for connecting researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, practitioners, and civil actors to examine how property operates in Switzerland. It welcomes contributions that focus on land, real estate and housing property in the context of the green transition. Abstracts of 300 words, are to be submitted through the link by January 10, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Calls for papers

Perspectives in Architecture and Urbanism invites papers for a new issue, entitled Architecture and Ethics of Care. The issue seeks to elaborate different ways in which architecture and urbanism are enhancing the caring maintenance of life worlds and environments. It invites contributions on the themes of ecological awareness as critical care for the planet, the city as a place of caring, and reconversions as strategies of care. Abstracts of 500 words are to be submitted to hilde.heynen@kuleuven.be by February 8, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.

Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand invites papers for a special issue on the theme of Civic. The issue seeks to historicise civic architecture and to situate and interrogate the usage of the term in architectural discourse and design practice across time periods and cultures. It invites scholars to reflect upon how "civic" connects citizens and their cities, and what can be gained from more fine-grained historical understanding of civic architecture for the present moment. Full papers are to be submitted to isabel.rousset@uts.edu.au and s.holden@uq.edu.au by March 29, 2026. For detailed information, please visit the link.