Final reviews of the RELIEFS URBAINS design studio
Reliefs urbains © EPFL / LAST / T. Beuret
The final reviews of Prof. Emmanuel Rey's studio took place at the end of May at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. It was an opportunity to discover the intense, original, and fruitful work of some thirty students who worked on designing a new neighborhood in the heights of Vevey. The guest experts on this occasion were Jean-Claude Frund, an architect from Neuchâtel, and Sibylle Kössler, an architect from Lausanne.
At a time of climate emergency and contraction of available resources, the architectural project has a central role in the search for alternatives to urban sprawl. It allows for the regeneration and densification of buildings near public transport and, more broadly, the inclusion of good construction practices within the transition dynamics toward a low-carbon society.
In the Swiss context, a large part of the urbanized areas is on slopes. This condition generates multiple challenges in terms of building and mobility. The implantation of buildings and the creation of public spaces are confronted with unavoidable questions regarding the relationship to the ground level and the minimization of soil excavation. In terms of mobility, it is a matter of rediscovering and revaluing electric transport techniques, specifically adapted to the slope, developed before the hegemony of the car.
Located on the heights of Vevey, the site chosen for the 2023-2024 studio is adjacent to an intermediate station of the Vevey - Chardonne - Mont-Pèlerin funicular. Currently occupied by derelict horticultural greenhouses and overlooking the Lavaux region, it is characterized by the quality of its views and the efficiency of its cable service. Somewhere between utopia and realism, it could be the setting for a new kind of ecological neighborhood, to be imagined on a slope already largely shaped by the hand of man
The RELIEFS URBAINS studio aim to explore, through the architectural project, the multiple issues, and potentialities of such a site. The studio emphasizes the question of intermediate housing, landscaping, and networking of public spaces according to the singular characteristics of the site.
The final reviews and exhibition of student projects within the studio are an integral part of the process of bringing together the work of all the architecture studios in an "End of Year Show", to be held on the EPFL campus from May 27 to June 7, 2024.