Théorie et critique du projet BA3 (Assemble)

AR-201(q) / 10 crédits

Enseignant(s): Binning James Donald Morley, Perkins Amy Faith

Langue: Anglais

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

Remark: Inscription faite par la section

Summary

This course explores how we can imagine, design, and demonstrate new models of affordable, low-impact living on agroecological farm sites in the UK. Drawing on local resources vernacular techniques and contemporary technologies to improve the living conditions of a new generation of farmers.

Content

Living in a Material World
Autumn 2025 - Spring 2026

 

Teaching Team
James Binning, james.binning@epfl.ch
Amy Perkins, amy.perkins@epfl.ch
Camille Sineau, camille.sineau@epfl.ch
Noémie Zurbriggen, noemie.zurbriggen@epfl.ch

Teaching language

This class is taught in English but French is supported where necessary.

 

Course description

Small agroecological farms offer a rich and rewarding way of life but rarely generate enough income to enable those who work on them to compete in the open housing market. Where affordable housing exists, it is often low quality or far from small farm sites. Housing supply in rural areas is constrained by planning restrictions and competition from recent arrivals, holiday lets, and second-home ownership.

Many small farm stewards are forced to live long-term in caravans and mobile homes designed for temporary use. These are often cold, damp, poorly insulated, and expensive to heat. Their construction makes them difficult to maintain or adapt, and they typically lack essential spaces such as storage, drying areas for active outdoor lives, and warm, dry offices. For those with caring responsibilities or plans to start families, such housing is particularly inadequate. This situation is incompatible with the regenerative values at the heart of agroecological farming, which aims to care for land and ecosystems while cycling and stewarding resources responsibly.

This course explores how we might imagine, design, and demonstrate new models of affordable, low-impact living on agroecological farm sites in the South of England. Our work will draw on locally available materials and resources, combining vernacular techniques with contemporary technologies to improve the conditions in which a new generation of skilled ecological farm workers are able to live and work.


The course is structured around three briefs across the year:
Winter Semester: Brief 1 & 2
Spring Semester: Brief 3

 

Brief 1: Learning from Examples
Students begin by researching historical and contemporary rural housing projects. Through
archival work and the production of drawings and models, we will explore and
examine the potential that these projects have to inform contemporary approaches
to living on the land and supporting ways of living as part of a system of agroecological production.

 

Brief 2: Good Translations
Students will investigate how materials and simple energy principles shape territories, economies, and ecologies. Through an understanding of locally available resources, historic vernacular building practices, and the application of a series of different energy principles, students will translate their precedent projects into characterful, low energy housing proposals that investigate the relationship between how we inhabit and use buildings and the performance of fabric.

 

Brief 3: Home Landing
This brief focuses on situating and adapting all the translated design proposals into robust, adaptable housing proposals for rural workers that can be applied across small agroecological farm sites. Emphasis is placed on using local resources, simple construction techniques, and low-energy strategies that explore the relationship between inhabitation, building use, and fabric performance. Students will consolidate their previous work into architectural frameworks that articulate clear spatial, material, and environmental principles, while remaining responsive to different contexts. The refined housing proposals from the previous brief will be located on selected UK agroecological farms and adapted to the realities of a particular site. The aim is to develop and demonstrate how these housing proposals function as both an architectural and territorial system, responsive to land, resources, energy, regulations, and community, while communicating its potential for adaptation and implementation by others.

Site
We will work in the South of the United Kingdom in a rural context, specifically agroecological small farm sites.

Study Trip
There will be one/two study trips including the opportunity to travel to the UK and/or in Switzerland.

 

Material & Travel Costs
A provisional budget ranging from 250 CHF to 450 CHF is to be considered for each study trip depending on destination. There will be some additional costs for workshops and materials, including the production of models that we are trying to reduce by mutualising expenses across the studio.

 

Keywords

  • Low Energy Construction
  • Natural Materials
  • Ecological Approaches
  • Community Housing
  • Hands-on Making and Experimentation
  • Collective Work

Learning Prerequisites

Important concepts to start the course

  • Competency in hand and computer drawing to scale
  • Accurate and efficient model-making and visualisation techniques
  • Careful and professional documentation and presentation of work
  • An interest and engagement in collaboration, collective work and the work of others in the group

Learning Outcomes

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

  • Apply and deploy a range of research skills
  • Formulate ideas, analysis, intention, questions
  • Realize complete assignments, complete models, drawings and 1-1 prototypes
  • Design spaces, structures, models, drawings, prototypes, buildings

Transversal skills

  • Communicate effectively with professionals from other disciplines.
  • Give feedback (critique) in an appropriate fashion.
  • Take responsibility for environmental impacts of her/ his actions and decisions.
  • Take feedback (critique) and respond in an appropriate manner.

Teaching methods

The studio places an emphasis on group work and collaborative practice. Students have the opportunity to develop their individual design skills as well as work in a variety of group sizes, throughout the year in response to the different phases of each Semester. The course is organised into a series of briefs that guide students from detailed precedent research, environmental, material and structural design, the design of a rural worker house and finally the detailed construction design. design development. Each semester is punctuated by workshops focusing on material exploration, construction techniques and investigative methods, as well as a study trip that support situated research and collective inquiry.

Expected student activities

Students will engage in both remote and situated research of a chosen place, including:

  • Archival and literature-based investigation
  • Walks, field visits, and presentations by local residents, workers, officials, and experts


They will further develop their ideas through:

  • Cultural and design research, leading to the production of large-scale study drawings and physical models
  • The development of complete architectural assignments, including drawings, models, and 1:1 prototypes

Students will also:

  • Document and collate their group and individual work carefully and professionally
  • Present their work to internal and external critics
  • Curate and contribute to the design and construction of a final exhibition

 

Assessment methods

The grades will be proportionately distributed over the briefs as follows:

  • Brief 1: 20%
  • Brief 2: 20%
  • Brief 3: 50%
  • Workshops & Overall Participation: 10%

Enquiry: Engagement in practice informed by comprehensive analysis and evaluation of diverse complex practices, concepts and theories

Knowledge: Critical analysis and synthesis of a range of practical, conceptual and technical knowledge(s)

Process: Experiment and critically evaluate methods, results and their implications in a range of complex and emergent situations

Communication: Articulation of criticality, clarity and depth. Communicating a diverse range of intentions, contexts, sources and arguments appropriate to your audiences

Realisation: Advancing the personal, professional and academic standards of production

Supervision

Office hours No
Assistants Yes

Resources

Ressources en bibliothèque

Dans les plans d'études

  • Semestre: Automne
  • Forme de l'examen: Pendant le semestre (session d'été)
  • Matière examinée: Théorie et critique du projet BA3, BA4 (Assemble)
  • Cours: 2 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines
  • Projet: 4 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines
  • Type: obligatoire

Semaine de référence

Lundi, 8h - 12h: Projet, labo, autre

Lundi, 14h - 16h: Projet, labo, autre

Lundi, 16h - 18h: Cours CE12

Mardi, 8h - 12h: Projet, labo, autre

Cours connexes

Résultats de graphsearch.epfl.ch.