The first lecture in the “On collaborations” series took place on March 13, 2025. The French architect Sophie Delhay spoke about her projects and her research in the field of multi-storey residential construction. The video recording of the lecture is now available online.

Sophie Delhay

Sophie Delhay has been a professor and director at EPFL since 2024 and has run her own architecture firm in Paris since 2008. In 2022, she received the prestigious Schelling Architecture Prize. Among other things, Sophie Delhay researches all possible forms of multi-storey residential construction and has thus become a leader in the renewal of urban housing.

Lecture series «On collaborations»

With this year’s theme of the institute lectures “On collaborations”, we are looking at architecture as a collective act: Architecture is the result of negotiations, but also of coincidences, the unforeseen, tensions or synergies. Collaboration is a necessity and we need to work well together. But what happens when different interests meet?  When does collaboration become productive, when does it become complicated or when does it even fail? Where is the line between consensus and compromise? What does “good collaboration” mean – not only in the context of one’s own practice, but also in relation to collaboration with others and what impact does this collaboration have on the architecture that is created? 

In this semester, three architects, Sophie Delhay, Fosbury Architecture and Tom dePaor, will talk about their methods and experiences of collaboration – from the planned to the unplanned, the good and the bad, or challenging. The lectures don’t only dicsuss success stories, but also frictions, detours and the question of what collaboration really means.