Water Designs:

Archizoom, Habitat Research Center and Lausanne Jardins are joining together to present, in early summer 2024, an exhibition entitled “Water Designs: l’eau dessine la ville”.

The recurring emergence of water-related questions in a range of disciplinary fields such as spatial design, political ecology, hydrology, social sciences, and humanities, demonstrates the evolving interest that this element plays in the discourse of urban planning. By offering an initial genealogy of water in territorial planning, the exhibition attempts to explore the complex history of this relationship, whose cultural, technical, political and economic perspectives vary according to the knowledge and fields from which it is observed.

The new questions raised today highlight the strong interconnections, both theoretical and practical, between water and contemporary urban and territorial projects.

The exhibition presents projects carried out at EPFL in the ENAC faculty and the works of Lausanne Jardins, together with explorations and reflections produced in a broader context. It will echo the cultural event Lausanne Jardins 2024, entitled “Between Water and Us”, which questions the strategic capacity of gardens to strengthen the resilience of contemporary cities and their ability to adapt to the challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity and finite resources.

Curated by Archizoom and Habitat Research Center, EPFL

Opening on Friday, June 14th at 6:30 p.m.
Address by Natacha Litzistorf, Mayor in charge of Housing, the Environment and Architecture.
Introduction to the exhibition by Professor Paola Viganò.
In the presence of the exhibition curators and the Lausanne Jardins 2024 teams.

Tuesday 02 July, 6 pm (fr) Guided tour of the exhibition

Tuesday 27 August, 6 pm (fr) Guided tour of the exhibition

Monday 23 September, 6.30pm (en) Lecture
by landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).