Design & Build Together - Connecting ENAC Students

Since its introduction in 2005, Design & Build together has matured into a cornerstone of the ENAC teaching syllabus. After having picked up momentum over the years, it has also gained support and enthusiasm from both students and professors.

Today, ENAC students first encounter the Design & Build Together program in their fourth semester in a semester-long module known as the “ENAC Week” and composed of two parts. The first part consists of an introductory course on Swiss law related to spatial development which is given to all future civil and environmental engineers and architects. For the second part the class splits into about a dozen groups to prepare for the week-long practical project that gives the module its name: the ENAC Week. In their sixth semester students are required to gain four credits by attending ENAC teaching units – interdisciplinary lectures and practical courses open to all ENAC students. At the graduate level those interested in pursuing interdisciplinary work are provided the option of pursuing ENAC semester and master's projects, working in mixed teams under the joint supervision of ENAC professors from the different institutes. And it doesn't stop there. Following graduation, students can work towards an interdisciplinary ENAC Ph.D.

According to Mrs. Barbara Tirone who coordinates the Design & Build Together project, the goal is to break down the barriers between ENAC's different programs and institutes. During the ENAC Week for instance, students from across the school are brought together, get to know each other, and learn to appreciate how different backgrounds can provide different solutions to the same problem - a valuable eye-opening experience that students can make early on in their curriculum. However these experiences come at a cost. Professors, post-docs, PhD students, and lecturers routinely have to put in an extra effort to develop projects that will stimulate interaction between their students, give them a theoretical background on a specific topic, and hands on experience on the field or at the design board.

This year in their 7th edition, the projects proposed for the ENAC Week ran the gamut from the large to the small to the seemingly tiny: drawing a mental map of a train line from Nyon to La Cure, designing a sustainable neighbourhood in an alpine resort village, rethinking the way we interact with our homes, all the way down to micro-architectural design. Students could choose projects to acquire different concrete techniques, such as detecting and dealing with radon in the built environment, effective 3D computational design of built structures, and diagnostic tools to evaluate the feasibility of engineering projects.

Mrs. Dominique von der Mühll participated in the organization of an ENAC week entitled “Mobility and the Public Space – Interdisciplinary Projects”. Students were asked to revisit the center of the town of Vallorbe, Vaud, to improve the quality of the public space by rethinking the way pedestrian and motorized traffic are directed through it. “This year it was great!”, said Mrs. von der Mühll, explaining that everything had fallen into place perfectly. The town chosen was just right: small enough to be manageable, but large enough to contain the complexity to make the project interesting. Local authorities including the mayor of Vallorbe contributed actively and enthusiastically, and the local public followed the project closely, participating whenever possible. Finally to put the cherry on the cake, the local authorities have shown interest in incorporating the students' findings in the urban planning of the town.

Active participation of the students is key to the success of the ENAC Weeks. Thankfully, perhaps because the projects chosen often provide a glimpse into their professional future, student participation has always been very high. Just like Mrs. von der Mühll, Mrs. Agnès Perreten, who participated in the organization of the project asking students to draw mental maps of the train line from Nyon to La Cure (both in Vaud), reported that the students were extremely motivated, regardless of their background. In case you were wondering, in this context a mental map is a graphic representation of the landmarks you pick up when you move through a landscape. Such active observation can be an important skill for those involved in spatial development, raising awareness regarding the effects of any type of structural intervention, e.g. a road or a building, on the perception of a landscape.

They may require a massive investment in terms of preparation, but the ENAC Weeks are unique in terms of the feedback they give. Barbara Tirone: “You never know how well the project will end up working out, but two years after an ENAC Week we organized in Naples, Italy, to rethink its historical center, students still talk to me about how much they learned and how much they enjoyed the trip.”