Join us for the presentation of “The Future of Humanitarian Design” (HUD), a four-year research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). HUD explores how architecture, technology, and political science can address the increasing challenges in humanitarian action. As humanitarian crises worsen, HUD combines diverse disciplines to co-design sociopolitical and architectural innovations for improved humanitarian practice. The project integrates high-level experts from organizations like Médecins sans Frontières, Terre des hommes, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Join our critical-pragmatic debate with guests from the Interior Architecture Department at HEAD – Genève, the University of Copenhagen, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Museum of the Red Cross, and the Geneva Graduate Institute.
A critical-pragmatic debate with:
Jonathan Luke Austin, University of Copenhagen
Gilles Carbonnier, International Committee of the Red Cross
Javier Fernández Contreras, HEAD – Genève
Pascal Hufschmid, International Museum of the Red Cross
Anna Leander, Geneva Graduate Institute
Jean Benoît Vetillard will present his latest work at HEAD – Genève’s Interior Architecture Department.
The projects developed by the Jean-Benoît Vétillard’s architecture studio have all begun or ended their life as drawings. Some are built, others are under construction. The studio questions the architectural design process as much as the built reality, explores the causes as much as the consequences, the path as much as the destination. It strives to treat the different scales of architecture, scenography and design, without any preconceived hierarchy.
To watch the full lecture, please click here.
Axelle Vertommen will present her latest work at HEAD – Genève’s Interior Architecture Department.
Axelle Vertommen is an interior architect and furniture designer from Antwerp.
As a freelance furniture designer, she focuses on detailing.
Her furniture pieces are characterized by the contrast in colours and materials.
She’s inspired by everyday objects and extraordinary architecture from modernism and postmodernism.
Join us to discover MAIA at HEAD – Geneva.
Javier Fernández Contreras, Head of the Department of Interior Architecture, will explain the program, its curriculum, teaching team and professional opportunities. You will also have the opportunity to exchange with students and graduates to learn more about student life at HEAD – Geneva and their path after graduation.
The Master of Arts in Interior Architecture (MAIA) is a two-year professional programme that views interior architecture at the intersection of space, ecology and contemporary society. Space design is seen as multidimensional, articulating the diversity of interior spaces, objects and media that configure reality on many paths and scales, from material to virtual, and from local to global.
The programme focuses on mastering the professional aspects of the project and studying the public, private and commercial spheres of contemporary interiors, with a focus on the contemporary paradigms of ecology, digital innovation and inclusiveness. The MAIA programme addresses both the responses to contemporary environmental and societal challenges (circular economy, carbon footprint, etc.) and the implications of new ecological paradigms (post-human, non-human, etc.) for interior architecture as a discipline in all its professional dimensions: space design, product design, new media, research, curatorial and editorial practices.
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“Bio-inclusive Design with Mycellium”
Mycelium, the reproductive part of fungi, has been used in design to assist in the fabrication of new bio-circular materials (myco-fabrication) for some years.
The experimental design and material research studio Aléa has expanded on this process by developing a unique method that utilizes mycelium and local waste substrates to grow objects in soil. Growing mycelium in soil, rather than in a sterile myco-fabrication lab, enables shared control with the organism and harnesses the potential of its regenerative capacities.
In this lecture, Miriam Josi and Stella Lee Prowse will provide an insight into their practice and current research project ‘Back to Dirt’ supported by FAIRE Paris and Pavillon d’Arsenal.
They will discuss the ethical considerations of working with living systems and how this inquiry can inform more reciprocal and integrated practices.
Miriam Josi (CH) and Stella Lee Prowse (AU) began exchanging ideas and working together during their studies in product design at Parsons New York. Bonded by their curiosity and tendency to find beauty in unexpected places, their practice explores growth, decay, waste, and material processes. They both completed a Master of Science in Nature Inspired Design at ENSCI – Les Ateliers in Paris.
Aléa’s work is situated at the intersections of design, biology and agriculture and aims to establish a deeper relationship between the natural and built environment. Their mission is to take a mindful approach to biodesign to avoid a trajectory of exploitation and control and to instead imagine new ways of making that interact, adapt and share control and benefits with the more-than-human.
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“Tsuchi-no-ie”
Possibilities of using earth in space design for new ecological paradigms
The experimental and pedagogical art project “Tsuchi-no-ie (Maison en terre) “ which construct an architectural space with earth in the campus of Kyoto City University of Arts has given us some hints for post-humanist art and design in the Cthulucene (Donna J. Haraway).
INOUE Akihiko is artist and designer. Since mid-1990s, as an artist and a professor of Kyoto City University of Arts, with interests in fundamental premises of human existence such as water, gravity, ground and roof, Akihiko Inoue has worked over several genres, including drawing, photography, site-specific installation as well as art-projects in the local context. He works and live in Kyoto.
2006-2007, Guest artist of Département arts plastiques, Université Paris 8.
2010, ”Trouble in Paradise / Meditation of Survival” , National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
2013, ”Antigravity”, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota
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“Time as material”
A building decays and needs care to fight against time and the environment in an attempt to stay preserved or be restored to its original state. Architects obsession are often with securing performance, guarantying no changes to the design. On the contrary, the garden around the building grows, adapts. Humidity, sunlight, bacteria, fungi and fauna are kept in a healthy balance and contribute to the development of a garden or a park which benefit consequently from and to a larger eco-system. There is no inside and outside anymore.
Charlotte Truwant is an architect and scientific assistant at ETHZ. She graduated from the Swiss federal institute of technology EPFL in 2006 . In 2013, she joined the faculty of Professor Harry Gugger at EPFL as a research assistant. There she was responsible for the publications “laba lessons” and research on environmental contextualism. In 2019, she joined the chair of Prof. Theriot at ETHZ. The framework of ETHZ allows her to deepen questions of territorial and social transformation by addressing the project scale through questions of economy, durability and performance.
In 2017 she co-founded together with Dries Rodet the architecture practice Truwant + Rodet + . The background of the two funding partners shaped by various international experiences in Switzerland, Belgium, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Brussel, and a residency in Japan re-enforced their curiosity and interest for broader fields of investigation such as scenography, landscape urbanism, exhibition, installation, furniture design, research and education. In 2017, they were awarded the Swiss Art Award for their project ‘A Pavilion’. Since 2018 they are developing the project ‘Fountain of Youth’ together with Fabian Marti for the Campus Santé in Lausanne. In 2019 they were part of the cross disciplinary research and design team to develop new tools and methodologies for the Dhaka Art Summit, an environmental approach towards exhibiting. In 2020 The office won the competition for the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris.
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