SESSION EPFL
Autumn 2022

Histories of Environments
Sébastien Marot

As a guiding principle that remains to be defined, the Transition can be critically confronted with broader Histories of Environments. The various and even very opposite hypotheses it contains are differentiated and deepened in a discussion format and from the presented materials. In particular, that of autonomy is discussed regarding to the so-called “secession” scenario in a renewed and radical approach of the suburban condition.

The historical look towards the representations of the architectural and urban theories aims to understand how and to what extent environmental concerns can influence and renew urban and territorial design. From a critical point of view, it also intends to question the very notion of “transition” under the prism of its antecedents in ecological thinking, facing also its limits and contradictions.