(Re)Claim Space, (Re)Build Networks. A Constellation of Interventions to Reclaim Public Space as a Place of Care

Léa Delessert

Switzerland, one of the world’s highest producers of waste per capita, has institutionalized waste management as an industry—one that privileges incineration, efficiency, and disappearance over responsibility, repair, and care. Waste, in this framework, is not a collective concern but a commodified residue—removed, erased, and rendered invisible by market-driven infrastructures. This project departs from a recognition that the built environment, and the systems that sustain it, function through forms of erasure: erasing waste, erasing responsibility, and ultimately erasing possibilities for alternative, care-based futures. Within this context, we ask: How can design engage with what has been systematically made invisible? The conceptual grounding of this work is inspired by Kathrin Böhm’s call, in The Social (Re)production of Architecture, to re-engage with processes we have severed from lived experience. Böhm emphasizes visibility, accessibility, and participation as conditions for collective agency. Taking Lausanne as a testing ground, this project proposes a constellation of interventions in public space—situated acts that aim to parasit the “take-make-waste” logic. Through site-specific explorations, three distinct situations have been identified—each revealing opportunities to weave fragmented chains of responsibility and restoring conditions for collective agency.

Files
Énoncé (PDF), Énoncé (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF)
LINKS
Team
Author(s):
Léa Delessert
Teacher(s):
Dieter Dietz, Florence Graezer Bideau, Claire Ana Logoz
Supervision team:
Dietz, Dieter (dir. pédagogique) ; Graezer Bideau, Florence (prof.) ; Logoz, Claire (mentor·e) ; Marinov, Marina (expert·e)
Professor in charge of the statement:
Graezer Bideau, Florence (EPFL CDH-DIR)
Unit:
ALICE, SAR
Infos
Year:
2025
Period:
Fall
Category:
Master Project
Document Type:
Image
Copyright:
CC BY Licence
Theoretical statement

Inhabited Territories: On Mapping Crisana’s Borderscape

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