Sophie Delhay (EPFL)
Sophie Delhay is an architect, professor, researcher and Head of the Architecture Section, in EPFL Lausanne, where she leads the Habitat Chair and the Domestic-city Lab. She began teaching in France, first at ENSA Nantes in 2008, then at ENSA Versailles since 2011. Practising in Paris, she has been awarded the Équerre d’argent Habitat and the Schelling Prize for the theoretical relevance of her housing projects. She sees Habitat as her primary field of exploration, a vital tool for transforming the world, and that questions the very essence of architecture in its most lively form.
Architecture is part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s educational programme, which is characterised by interdisciplinarity and a strong focus on science and technology. In this engineering-focused environment, EPFL Architecture distinguishes itself through a practical, project-based teaching approach in studio, which combines both technical and practical aspects with critical and cultural dimensions, placing particular emphasis on history and theory, art and representation, as well as the social sciences.
These disciplines situate architectural education within its technical, material, critical, and political dimensions, enabling it, through the shaping of space, to address social and environmental contemporary challenges.
Research, theory, and practice are inseparable, each nourishing the others in a transversal manner. Teaching is led both theorists and practitioners, who conduct their research within their own laboratories. As a result, their teaching is in constant renewal, directly engaged with contemporary issues, and remains both critical and alive.
Currently co-directed by two practicing architects engaged on the domestic dimension of architecture in both design and theory, Sophie Delhay as Director of Education and Pier Vittorio Aureli as Director of Research, the school places the question of domestic space, collective housing, and, more broadly, habitat at the core of its curriculum. This positioning situates architecture within both the long-term and contemporary conditions, whilst presenting a major challenge for future generations of architects.
