Teaching through the studio, a research question?

The pedagogical practice of the studio has long been shared by different disciplines, in particular architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and design, while the recent dissemination of learning methods through the project or fieldwork makes new practices close to the studio abound in other academic disciplines.

On the other hand, the interdisciplinary detour has become a proactive way to renew the learning of the traditional studio, to bring out new methods that students will be able to disseminate during their future practice and to develop new skills at the crossroads of different expertise. These evolutions raise many questions, in particular those relating to the terms of the links between workshop and research.

Through an approach at different scales of intervention from the urban project to the constructive detail, the aim of Prof. Emmanuel Rey’s studio at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is to analyze, explore, and experiment sustainable architecture strategies allowing to reorient urban development inward and to generate sustainable construction methods.

More specifically, the studio has been developing since this academic year in close interaction with a research approach focusing on the reconciliation of the Rhone with the cities it crosses. Indeed, the regeneration of neglected areas into real sustainable fluvial neighborhoods goes hand in hand with the accentuation of their particular characteristics. Thus, the development of synergies between the workshop and the research allows here to develop an increased understanding of the issues related to the transformation of urban sites along the Rhone.