“The goal is to prompt a rethink of our approach to construction”

Coffee in hand, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is ready to get down to work. An activist – “but not dogmatic” – architect, she joined EPFL in August 2022, transferring from Harvard University, where she was an assistant professor. For her, teaching at a public university matters: “Education isn’t a consumer good. At EPFL, I serve as an agent of the Swiss federal government, educating the next generation. That reflects my view of education and its values.”

Malterre-Barthes’ book, A Moratorium on New Construction, calls for the global construction industry to take a break and reflect on its impact in terms of environmental damage, resource depletion, and social injustice. This would enable stakeholders to reshape their priorities and redefine the architect’s role in society.

“People like to put others in boxes,” she says. “And since I advocate for a halt in new construction, they put me in the ‘opposed to everything’ box.” While she admits to being angry about “the state of the world today,” she also “channels that energy into something productive.” What keeps her going is her drive to make a positive impact. “Criticism can be useful, but you’ve also got to map out alternative paths.” Malterre-Barthes’ book is intended to serve as a provocation, drawing attention to the reflex of constructing more buildings and prompting readers to consider other possibilities.

Her moratorium primarily targets private-sector residential development, though it draws inspiration from past legal measures, such as the Clinton administration’s 1993 decision to suspend all federal construction projects except hospitals and schools. Malterre-Barthes also raises questions about the future of her profession – doesn’t serving the interests of property developers run counter to what it means to be an architect?

“It’s not simply a matter of saying ‘no new construction’ – instead, the real questions we need to ask are: What exactly are we building? How? For whom, for how long, and with what materials?” Malterre-Barthes dismantles the myth that erecting a new building will solve all our problems. “Some say there’s a housing crisis, and that we need to churn out more apartment buildings. But that’s not true! There are vacant and underutilized buildings, and many others are being demolished. That mindset stems from the financial interests of an industry that, behind the veneer of greenwashing, cares very little about our planet, its people, and the climate – an industry that serves as a political tool and a visible manifestation of power.”

When the pandemic hit, everything stopped except construction. “I was at Harvard at the time – a privileged white woman in academia telling everyone else to stop building things,” says Malterre-Barthes. “What was my legitimacy to speak up?” To initiate the conversation, she conducted panel discussions and workshops at Harvard, followed by similar events at EPFL. There, she set a challenge for students: find a way to house 30,000 additional people in Lausanne by 2030 without building anything new. The students investigated different types of home ownership, new ways of using existing structures, and the existing legislation to demonstrate how it could be done. Malterre-Barthes’ book – currently in its third edition – calls for both debate and a fresh look at the profession of architecture.

Beyond Corbusier

The fact that architecture can never be entirely neutral became clear to her early in her career. “The question arose when I was just getting started,” says Malterre-Barthes. “I was a student at the Marseille school of architecture in the early 2000s. The university was still in the shadow of Le Corbusier, with a modernist, rigid and not necessarily effective approach to teaching. I was fortunate to be able to widen my horizon.” She studied in Vienna through the Erasmus program, which opened her eyes to a different approach to learning. After obtaining her master’s degree, Malterre-Barthes moved to India to work in the studio of Balkrishna Doshi, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (i.e. the Nobel Prize of architecture) and a former collaborator of Le Corbusier, known for his modular, environmentally responsible housing projects.

So how did Malterre-Barthes become an activist? “It’s as if there were several hidden subterranean streams of interest in my mind, and they eventually came together and rose to the surface,” she explains. One such stream formed in 1996 when architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal were selected to renovate a square in Bordeaux. The duo, who went on to win the Pritzker Prize in 2021, stand out for their pragmatic, cost-efficient approach that maximizes space while respecting existing structures. “For the Bordeaux project, they recalculated the maintenance budget—design via an Excel spreadsheet,” says Malterre-Barthes. “They won the project by telling city officials to maintain properly the square that they already had! It was an inspiration to begin to question the construction imperative.” She continued to explore these ideas in her PhD thesis, focusing on the political economy of food systems and the competition between agriculture and the built environment—building up knowledge on systemic thinking.

“We conduct investigations”

When she started teaching, Malterre-Barthes first had to deconstruct what she’d learned over the years, as she realized there were huge problems in her field. “My approach is based on systems thinking and systemic critique—both of which are not discussed much in architecture and relate more to the work done by urban planners,” she says. “But I’m an urban designer, as well as an architect, which means I delve into law, too. The associated legal mechanisms ground my view of architecture – that is, an understanding of who the relevant parties are and what factors lead to new construction.” For instance, she discusses construction law with her students, covering topics from urban regulations to norms for building materials. “We uncovered that these standards are often indirectly written by the building-material manufacturers themselves,” says Malterre-Barthes. “So we conduct investigations with students to show that architecture isn’t only about buildings and how they’re designed, but also about the underlying financial and legal processes and the use of resources – through the extraction of raw materials and the consumption of land and energy – with major environmental and social impacts.”

“We have the students we deserve,” she says. “Since I run research-based design studios, my students can choose to study with our lab. Many have questions about our profession, aware of the role we play in a polluting, destructive industry. They want to know how they can reconcile their desire to make a positive impact with the reality of our work, which too often serves the interests of property developers. I don’t have all the answers— we explore these questions together in my studio. We examine today’s pressing climate-related, social, and political issues and look for ways to make a difference. That includes thinking about what can change in order to break free from the catastrophic mindset – the belief that crisis is inevitable. The goal is to prompt a rethink of our approach to construction and architectural culture, and to reshape our role as architects.”