Studio MA1 (Rolli et Schürch)

AR-401(az) / 12 credits

Teacher(s): Rolli Rina Dorothea, Schürch Tiziano

Language: English

Withdrawal: It is not allowed to withdraw from this subject after the registration deadline.

Remark: Inscription faite par la section

Summary

The course explores how minimal architectural interventions can have a lasting impact through sensitivity to context, community, and place. Using Aurigeno in Valle Maggia as a case study, students develop proposals rooted in observation, care, and territorial acupuncture.

Content

How can architecture have an impact without being imposing?

Through precise observation, careful approach, and a profound engagement with each specific place, it becomes possible to create architectonical gestures that are reduced to the absolute essentials. It is about the smallest possible intervention - stripped down to its essence - that conserves resources yet remains powerful. Such an approach responds to the site itself, to its existing traces and potentials, and to the needs of its inhabitants.

This requires close attention and listening, as well as an understanding of the context as a built reality, in all its spatial, social, and cultural facets. At the core lies an attitude of care: only those who engage intensively with the local conditions and the needs of the inhabitants can develop interventions that achieve broad social acceptance and endure over time.

Such an approach can strengthen the resilience of a place. When future users see themselves reflected in the built environment, when the architectural intervention embeds itself in the layers of collective memory, architecture becomes part of the common ground. This generates care - concern, responsibility, and identification - from the inhabitants, who embrace the new addition, which in turn contributes to the project's longevity.

Thus, the much-discussed notion of sustainability in architecture today is not only ecological, material, or economic; it must also address the social and cultural rootedness of the intervention within its context. It questions how architects can listen attentively and plan with precision projects that achieve great impact through territorial acupuncture.

This semester, we will focus on the village of Aurigeno in the Valle Maggia in Ticino. It is a picturesque village facing the same challenges as many others: a shrinking and aging population. Consequently, public space, as an extension of the domestic sphere, becomes an even more crucial setting for social interaction.

We will engage deeply with Aurigeno - its residents, its history, its built fabric - in order to imagine together where these interactions could take place. At the same time, we will analyze the broader territorial scale and observe the smallest given details. We will investigate where potential for encounters already exists - often as missed opportunities - which we can reinterpret and transform into shared spaces that foster social exchange through territorial acupuncture.

During the semester, a lecture series featuring experts from various disciplines will offer diverse perspectives on the role of public space across time, society, and spatial coexistence.

The studio in the fall semester will be primarily led by Rina Rolli, with the assistance of Blerta Axhija.

Keywords

Observation / Care / Context / Dialogue / Collaboration / Minimal intervention / Architectural potential / Territorial acupuncture / Architectural encounters / Resilience / Collective memory / Public space / Domesticity of public realm / Social interaction / Sustainability / Local engagement / Peripheral territories / Aurigeno

Learning Prerequisites

Important concepts to start the course

Curiosity / Motivation / Listening skills / Empathy / Sensitivity / Responsiveness / Contextual awareness / Critical thinking / Self-reflection / Open-mindedness / Narrative thinking / Observational skills / Multiscalar thinking / Collaborative competence / Hand-drawing enthusiasm / Model making enthusiasm / Spatial imagination / Material intuition

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

Interpret existing spacial potential
Integrate contextual influences
Negotiate with local population
Synthesize territorial influences in detailed interventions
Propose self-initiated project
Contextualise spacial encounters
Sketch as tool of dialogue
Plan series of territorial acupuncture

Transversal skills

Use a work methodology appropriate to the task.
Negotiate effectively within the group.
Take account of the social and human dimensions of the engineering profession.
Demonstrate a capacity for creativity.
Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
Take feedback (critique) and respond in an appropriate manner.
Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.
Make an oral presentation.

Teaching methods

The semester follows a three-phase methodology: investigation, intuition, and intervention. Through these phases, students will engage with the site from multiple perspectives, gradually refining their proposals to the essential. Emphasis is placed on developing a deep, context-based understanding through observation and drawing. Agile methods will support the shift between ideas and scales, while handdrawing and model making serve as a tools to connect thinking and making. Students will work both individually and in groups, learning to collaborate, communicate, and navigate group dynamics as part of a creative process rooted in place.

Students will be supported through table discussions with the professor and assistant, a series of input lectures by experts from various fields followed by group discussions, and reviews featuring invited guests working on related topics in the discipline.

Expected student activities

Attendance and participation during all studio days, including reviews / Independent development of projects between studio weeks / Attendance and participation in all input lectures (held on studio days) / Attendance and participation in the study trip to Aurigeno, Valle Maggia (Friday, 19.09.2025, late afternoon to Monday, 22.09.2025, evening - public holiday!) - estimated cost: approx. CHF 400-450 per person / Model building, hand-drawing, photography, and digital drawings (all related costs to be covered individually by the students)

Assessment methods

The assessment will be based on the criteria set out in the official study plan and will reflect the three phases of the semester. Evaluation is continuous and considers all stages of the design process. The grade is divided as follows: 30% investigation - the ability to observe, understand, and represent the context in its complexity; 30% intuition - the capacity to translate identified moments of potential into a precise architectural concept between territory and detail, using appropriate tools; 30% intervention - the ability to concretize architectural qualities into a coherent proposal and to enrich the project through ongoing engagement with material and spatial realities. The remaining 10% will assess the student's personal development and design process throughout the semester.

Supervision

Office hours	Yes
Assistants	Yes
Forum	Yes

Resources

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

Yes

Notes/Handbook

A digital reader containing the course description, site information, references, and key texts will be provided to students.

Moodle Link

https://go.epfl.ch/AR-401_az

In the programs

Semester: Fall
Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
Subject examined: Studio MA1 (Rolli et Schürch)
Courses: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
Type: mandatory

Semester: Fall
Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
Subject examined: Studio MA1 (Rolli et Schürch)
Courses: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
Type: mandatory

Semester: Fall
Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
Subject examined: Studio MA1 (Rolli et Schürch)
Courses: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
Type: optional

Reference week

Légendes:

Lecture

Exercise, TP

Project, Lab, other

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