Recurring
Please Be Brief:
How to Craft Your Theoretical Statement, Win Friends, and Influence People

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RIOT organizes the theoretical statement semester (énoncé) as a seminar. It is both discussion-based and project-based. Students are expected to bring a thesis topic or direction to be discussed and will be requested to research to nourish this topic. While cases differ, fieldwork to sites and archives is encouraged. This class should equip students with the tools to articulate a research question, an argument, and informed responses on the role of economic, social, and political forces of space production. We also aim toward articulating a potential project brief for the second semester’s Master Thesis/Projet de Master.So, if we admit the identity-shattering posit that construction can never be sustainable, how to respond to housing needs? This studio intends to face the music.So, if we 

A continuous effort across the semester, the research runs parallel to class discussions, presentations, lectures, and recommended readings. We are interested in drawing as a contemporary research method, an approach that has garnered interest in recent years but has yet to acquire complete legitimacy in spatial research. So, if we admit the identity-shattering posit that construction can never be sustainable, how to respond to housing needs? This studio intends to face the music.Drawing challenges existing research methodology and allows for a certain amount of investigative freedom we hope to foster. We consider it an important part of the Theoretical Statement/Enoncé.

Master Students 2024

Laure Melati Dekoninck
Master Project: "The Warung: Living Sites for the Indonesian Diaspora," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "The Living Site: Embodied Collective Knowledge in Batak Indonesia," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

Maria Beatice Fenoglio
Master Project: "Temporary Sanctuaries. An Antifuture for the Church," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "A Leap of Faith: Towards Churches as Spaces of Alternative Value and Resistance," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: James Binning, Amy Perkins (Assemble)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

Mike Lerjen
Master's Project: "Architecture as Emotional Archive: Materializing Trans* Imaginaries through Bodies, Space, and Connections," Advisor: Dieter Dietz (ALICE)
Theoretical Statement: "Trans* Architecture, A Definition: A Dive Across Generations, to Uranus and Beyond," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Mentor EPFL: Gianna Ledermanm (LDM)

Yann Kozel
Master's Project: "Commons Platform: recentering Manufacturing and Leisure at Montreux’s ex-Menuiserie Modèle Held," Advisor: Dieter Dietz (ALICE)
Theoretical Statement: "Architecture for the Commons: Spatialities of Resource Processing and the Promise of Contemporary Collectivity," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Mentor EPFL: Capucine Legrand (DC)

Klea Ott
Master's Project: "Protocols for Individualism. Queer Cooperative Housing," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Beyond the Closet: A Queer Reappraisal of Individualism," Advisor: Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD)
Secondary Advisor: Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD)
Mentor EPFL: Constatinos Marcou (TPOD)

Catherine Juneau
Master's Project: "Reclaiming Plaza Hutchison. A Counter-project to State-led Gentrification in Parc-Extension, Montreal," Advisor: James Binning (Assemble)
Theoretical Statement: "Co-producing a Resilient and Just City: Civic Practices of Resourcefulness in Parc-Extension," Advisor: Yves Pedrazzini (LASUR)
Secondary Advisor: Yves Pedrazzini (LASUR)
Mentor EPFL: Summer Islam (RIOT)

Nathalie Marj
Master's Project: "Protocols for Beirut’s Unbuildable Lots. Designing Non-sectarian Spaces," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Untangling Beirut’s Sectarian Geographies Stories on Negotiating Commons," Advisor: Yves Pedrazzini (LASUR)
Secondary Advisor: Yves Pedrazzini (LASUR)
Mentor EPFL: Nagy Makhlouf  (RIOT/ ALICE)

Tiago Da Silva Teixeira
Master's Project: "Minergie and its Discontents. Innovative Strategies for Sustainable Building Renovation Beyond Labels," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Habiter les logements du capitalisme," Advisor: Luca Pattaroni (LASUR)
Secondary Advisor: Luca Pattaroni (LASUR)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

Anticipating Master Students 2025

Malak Abdelhady
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Break the Barriers," Advisor: Florence Bideau (CDH)
Secondary Advisor: Florence Bideau (CDH)
Mentor EPFL: Summer Islam (RIOT)

Felix Balling
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Rhizomic Powers Resisting Demolition, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Jo Taillieu (LIF)
Mentor EPFL: Summer Islam (RIOT)

Paulina Ornella Beron
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "On Matters of the Household: A Critique of the Second Nature of the Good Economy," Advisor: Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD)
Secondary Advisor: Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD)
Mentor EPFL:  Jolanda Devalle (TPOD)

David Gindroz
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Concrete, Growth, Capitalism. An Analysis of the Concrete Industry's Economic Cycle and its Impact on Territory in the Canton de Vaud," Advisor: Sarah Nichols (THEMA)
Secondary Advisor: Sarah Nichols (THEMA)
Mentor EPFL: Marion Moutal (THEMA)

Anna Hausel
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Rhizomic Home: A Hopeful, Feminist Reading of Nomadology in Architecture," Advisor: Dieter Dietz (ALICE)
Secondary Advisor: Dieter Dietz (ALICE)
Mentor EPFL: Claire Logoz (ALICE)

Hanna Lindenberg-Kappmeye & Isabel Grohe
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Jo Taillieu (LIF)
Theoretical Statement: "(Post-) Extraction Politics," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Mentor EPFL: Mattia Pretolani (LIF)

Nanda Nughara
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "A Space of Struggle and Resistance: The Urban Kampung as a Fragile Bastion Against the Colonial Ingrained Value of Progress," Advisor: Alfredo Thiermann (HITAM)
Secondary Advisor: Alfredo Thiermann (HITAM)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

Gabriel Ogbonna
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Corentin Fivet (SXL)
Theoretical Statement: "Competitions or the Myth of Freedom," Advisor: Sarah Nichols (THEMA)
Secondary Advisor: Sarah Nichols (THEMA)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

Carolina Pichler & Lalie Porteret
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Hands of Care and Repair: Shifting the Swiss Construction Industry towards Acknowledgement of their Bodies." Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Sarah Nichols (THEMA)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

Yasmine Sefraoui
Master's Project: Expected 2025, Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Theoretical Statement: "Unearthing Colonial Impacts on Moroccan Urbanization in the Context of Climate Change," Advisor: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT)
Secondary Advisor: Sarah Nichols (THEMA)
Mentor EPFL: Kathlyn Kao (RIOT)

|1| Image Source: Rahul Mehrota's Please Be Brief desk plank, 2022, Architectural Review, "Rahul Mehrotra to judge the AR Emerging awards 2022."