Awards for two Master Projects carried out at the LAST

The trend towards urban sprawl of the built environment in recent decades is incompatible with the search for long-term equilibrium underpinned by the principles of sustainability. In fact, urban sprawl not only requires the use of large amounts of land but also generates important environmental impacts, accompanied by socio-cultural disparities and higher infrastructural costs.

Given this fact, architectural design is expected to play a central role in the search for alternatives to redirect urban development inwards, to densify urban areas near public transport services and to generate sustainable construction methods.

In this optic, the master project developed by Jessica Ruffieux focused on exploring the creation of a modular, sustainable and evolutive infrastructure next to the Poya railway station in Fribourg, Switzerland. The approach demonstrates in particular the possibility to develop a new housing and activity pole and simultaneously to preserve an important green space. The supervising group who followed this Master Project was constituted of Prof. Emmanuel Rey (supervisor), Prof. Marilyne Andersen (professor), Didier Collin (teaching assistant) and Marco Rampini (expert).

The Master Project developed by Axelle Marchon consisted for its part in an exploration of the modalities favoring a better integration of sustainability into the peri-urban neighborhoods. The approach proposes a new type of building, which consists in an activator of sustainability, and concretely tests the concept in Neyruz, a peri-urban town in the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland. The supervision group who followed this Master Project was constituted of Prof. Emmanuel Rey (supervisor), Prof. Philippe Thalmann (professor), Raphael Schüll (teaching assistant) and Prof. Béatrice Mariolle (expert).