Designing public spaces
Metropolenhaus, Berlin, bf studio architekten © Sebastian Wells
Sonia Curnier, post-doctoral fellow at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, was the guest of Prof. Emmanuel Rey’s studio at the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) to talk about different considerations between the built and the unbuilt in urban areas. Entitled “Concevoir l’espace public : influence du bâti sur la qualité de vie urbaine”, her lecture allowed students to discover the evolution of concepts and issues specific to the design of public spaces as well as examples of contemporary public places.
After studying architecture, Sonia Curnier obtained a PhD from the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in 2018 on the theme of contemporary public space as an object that earned her the EPFL distinction of the EDAR doctoral program as well as a special mention from the jury of the 2019 EPFL Doctoral Prize. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala and recently edited the 6th yearbook of the Landscape Architecture Europe series.
The lecture highlighted some issues inherent to the perception of quality of life within urban public spaces. To that end, it brought out the specific questions that design project of this type faces today in relation to the built environment: the relationship to the landscape, between empty and full spaces, to the first floor of buildings, or the dimensioning, and the diversity of needs in terms of use.
These multiple considerations resonate with the issues addressed in the RHODANIE URBAINE studio. The lecture has therefore enriched the theoretical corpus of the students with a view to changing these urban territories in transition.