They defended their doctorates at ATE...
- Antoine Apruzzese – Democracy in architecture. Architects' political engagement practices and conditions for a political theory of the discipline
- Carole Lemans - The potential of contemporary reed architecture
- Milena Koutani –Thoughts and praxis establishing the commons. A third way for urban alternatives
- Raphaël Rattier -Designing with timber today: A contribution to the renewal of contemporary architecture
- Damien Renault - Training local elected officials in architecture, or architecture as political education
- Cristina Sanchez-Algarra - Urban recipes for the European Capital of Culture label: from desired city to reinvented territory
Antoine Apruzzese
Democracy in architecture. Architects' political engagement practices and conditions for a political theory of the discipline
Date of defense: January 12, 2026
Thesis supervisor: Caroline MANIAQUE
Affiliated laboratory: Architecture Territoire Environnement (ENSA Normandie) / ED 556 HSRT
Funding: Ministry of Culture, BRAUP
Date of first thesis registration: 2021
Jury members
Laurent STALDER, Professor, ETH Zurich (Rapporteur)
Jean-Louis VIOLEAU, Professor, ENSA Nantes (Rapporteur)
Marco ASSENATO, Senior Lecturer, ENSA Paris-Malaquais (Examiner)
Sandra FIORI, Senior Lecturer, ENSA Lyon (Examiner)
Maëlle TESSIER, Professor, ENSA Nantes (Examiner)
Thesis summary
This thesis examines architects' political engagement in their practices and analyzes how this engagement allows us to question, and even redefine, the role of architects in contemporary society. The work seeks to show the potential and limitations of architecture—as a discipline, social practice, and process of environmental transformation—to engage with politics and bring about new, alternative, or experimental forms of democracy. The study focuses on different trajectories of architects' engagement and their inscription in spaces and territories, bringing into tension a thinking of autonomy, emancipation, and participation with that of the environment, resources, and the non-human. The thesis thus critically questions the capacity of architecture—as well as its potential singularity—to articulate the thinking of democracy with that of ecology.
Taking the "crisis of democracy" as its methodological starting point, the work analyzes the gap between the democratic ideal and the entirety of its practices, expressions, and daily performances. As part of the field of architectural research, it approaches democracy not as a philosophical-political ideal from which principles applicable to buildings can be derived, but as a theoretical object that emerges from architectural thought itself: from its methods, its epistemology, and its ability to formalize the spatial, material, and organizational dimensions of collective life. The thesis thus develops a conceptual framework for envisaging a "democracy of architecture" and places it in dialogue with political philosophy and sociology.
After establishing a definitional grammar of political engagement based on Elizabeth Anscombe's analytical theory of action, the research draws on two case studies: Atelier Bow-Wow (Tokyo) and Raumlabor (Berlin). The work analyzes their discourses—structured by the use of philosophical and political references such as Henri Lefebvre, Bruno Latour, Guy Debord, and the Situationists—as well as two specific architectural experiments: the reconstruction of the village of Momonoura and the Floating University project. By linking these practices to their unique contexts while identifying their convergences, the thesis offers a reflection on the transversality of a "democratic nature" specific to architectural practice.
Carole Lemans
The potential of contemporary reed architecture
Date of defense: December 2, 2022
Thesis supervisor: François Fleury
Affiliated laboratory: Architecture, Territory, Environment (ENSA Normandie) / ED 556 HSRT
Funding: Ministry of Culture, BRAUP
Date of initial thesis registration: 2019
Jury members
Arthur HELLOUIN DE MENIBUS, Doctor, Examiner
Ali LIMAM, Professor at INSA Lyon, Rapporteur
Jean-Baptiste MARIE, Professor at ENSA Clermont-Ferrand, Examiner
Soline NIVET, Professor at ENSA Paris Malaquais, Rapporteur
Thesis summary
This doctoral thesis in architecture examines the potential of the "reed" resource in contemporary architecture, taking into account the issues linked to the sector and its players, the constructive and performance dimensions, and the possible registers of expression.
First, the potential of contemporary thatch architecture is studied in relation to the distance taken with traditional thatch roofing forms and techniques. This is followed by a theoretical assessment of the material's limits and potential today, based in particular on observation of the Dutch context. These elements are then confronted with a set of contemporary achievements, apprehended on the one hand according to the morphological analysis of an extensive corpus, and on the other hand through a smaller number of case studies and the discourses that accompany them. The assumption that contemporary thatch architecture is ecological is only partially correct. The realization of its potential actually requires certain conditions in order to be ecologically effective.
The second part of this thesis is deliberately forward-looking, and proposes to investigate through experimentation the potential of reed architecture, and no longer thatch: can we make this material more ecological? It presents three project situations seeking to innovate with reed, two of which are specifically developed within the framework of the thesis. With a different level of reading on these experiments, we observe the influence of the level of knowledge, concerning reed and the thatching technique, on the performance of the design process.
The thesis observes and documents over a hundred buildings ranging from the 2000s to 2021. The field of study, mainly focused on France, also extends to Europe and, to a lesser extent, Japan, where the climate is more or less similar to that of France. As the current French thatching industry is poorly documented, field investigation through learning the practice of thatching is an important part of the knowledge contribution, leading today to the constitution of a network of reed actors.
Milena Koutani
Thoughts and praxis establishing the commons. A third way for urban alternatives
Date of defense: December 12, 2025
Thesis supervisor: Bruno PROTH
Affiliated laboratory: Architecture, Territory, Environment (ENSA Normandie) / ED 556 HSRT
Date of first thesis registration: 2020
Jury members
Silvana SEGAPELI, University Professor, ENSA Saint-Etienne (Rapporteur)
Mathias ROLLOT, Senior Lecturer, ENSA Grenoble (Rapporteur)
Catherine DESCHAMPS, University Professor, ENSA Paris-La Villette (Examiner)
Florence BOUILLON, Senior Lecturer, University of Paris 8 (Examiner)
Arnaud LE MARCHAND, Senior Lecturer, University of Le Havre (Examiner)
Thesis summary
Since the 2000s, the commons has become established in many disciplinary fields and now extends beyond its initial framework, developed by the pioneering work of Elinor Ostrom. While it is characterized as a co-activity between individuals within a collective, the commons also represents a third way in the production of space, beyond the action of the state and the constraints of the market. This doctoral research focuses on this work of the commons, integrated into the urban and architectural field, where new cooperative, alternative, and sometimes radical modes of living are being experimented with.
To do this, we draw on various fields of investigation in Seine-Maritime: monitoring the occupation of the Foyer Sainte-Marie by the Jardins Joyeux collective, linked to other past struggles and ongoing experiments in the Rouen metropolitan area (Ferme des Bouillons, Tiers-lieu du 40, and the Grenouille squat). The study of other structures, such as Hangar Zéro in Le Havre, has also enabled us to explore in greater depth the stages of conditioning the commons, in relation to a renewed right to the city: from the opening of a third space to the challenges of peer governance, via the definition, identification, and transformation of an "intertwined self" within collective action. At the heart of an institutional resistance movement, these areas have revealed conflicting interests in the territory, as they challenge the absolute right to property by giving precedence to the social purpose of a space, its access, its use, and its mutualization. In the context of a new climate regime and the emergence of new enclosures, these conflictual zones allow us to question our needs, desires, and renunciations.
By defining the commons and its architectural and urban implications on the one hand, and evaluating its ramifications within alternative projects on the other, this research aims to analyze new forms of mutualistic, solidarity-based, and cooperative relationships that are likely to give rise to, structure, and stimulate unprecedented urban transformations.
Raphaël Rattier
Designing with timber today: A contribution to the renewal of contemporary architecture
Defense date: October 14, 2024
Thesis supervisor: François Fleury
Affiliated laboratory: Architecture, Territory, Environment (ENSA Normandie) / ED 556 HSRT
Funding: Ministry of Culture, BRAUP / PNRMCB
Date of initial thesis registration: 2019
Jury members
Erwan HAMARD rapporteur, HDR research engineer, Gustave Eiffel University, GPEM
Nathalie TORNAY rapporteur, HDR lecturer, ENSA Toulouse, LRA
Valéry DIDELON examiner, professor, ENSA Normandie, ATE
Antonella MASTRORILLI examiner, professor, ENSAP Lille, LACTH
Steve GOODHEW examiner, professor, School of Art, Design and Architecture University of Plymouth
Estelle MORLÉ examiner, senior lecturer, ENSA Lyon, EVS-LAURE
François STREIFF examiner, consulting architect, Cotentin and Bessin Marshes Regional Nature Park
Thesis summary
This thesis looks at recent cob architecture in France and the UK, and how designers are adapting their practices to bring cob into their projects. It highlights the technique's potential not only to renew contemporary architecture, but also to transform the design process.
Since the 1990s, one of the most popular raw-earth construction techniques, bauge, has been re-emerging in contemporary architecture, but its forms and construction methods differ from those of traditional architecture. On the other hand, in spite of this revival, logs are struggling to make a real impact on the architectural landscape, and architects are frustrated to hear of "obstacles" to the use of a technique that is out of step with conventional construction. This research proposes a new reading of the available knowledge likely to inform the design and prescription of bauges, while questioning what this knowledge produces in terms of practices and singular architectures.
The corpus we've assembled - inscribed knowledge, testimonials from industry players, and recent buildings - is examined from three angles related to logs: that of phenomena, that of imaginaries, and that of practices. Cross-observations highlight the fragmentation of knowledge required to assess the technique's potential, a renewal of aesthetics in discourse and architectural production, capable of transforming the imaginary of timber more generally, and finally, a reappropriation of the power of the project manager in his conventional action, with a transformation of his relationship to the construction and to those involved on the site. These insights can help us to question certain paradigms of architectural design, at a time when the ecological and social challenges of construction are calling us to reconsider our model of society.
This thesis therefore offers a critical and situated catalog of knowledge on architecture and construction in logs, addressed to those who wish to design with this technique.
Damien Renault
Training local elected officials in architecture, or architecture as political education
Date of defense: October 5, 2023
Thesis supervisor: Caroline MANIAQUE
Affiliated laboratory: Architecture , Territory, Environment (ENSA Normandie) / ED 556 HSRT
Funding: Ministry of Culture, BRAUP
Date of first thesis registration: 2018
Jury members
Véronique BIAU, Chief Architect-Urban Planner of the State, ENSA Paris-La-Villette, LET-LAVUE, rapporteur
Pierre CAYE, Director of Research, ENS Ulm, Centre Jean-Pépin, rapporteur
Jean-Charles CHABANNE, University Professor, ENS Lyon, French Institute of Education, ECP, LIRDEF,examiner
Arnaud DUTHEIL, Architect,examiner
Marc FROCHAUX, Architect, examiner
Thesis summary
The proposal also responds to the initial political demand, presenting itself as a tool for improving (or didactizing) current architectural advisory and mediation practices, and for professionalizing advisors and mediators.
Finally, going beyond this demand, the survey allows us to consider architectural advisory, mediation and training as a means of political education for elected representatives.
Cristina Sanchez-Algarra
Urban recipes for the European Capital of Culture label: from desired city to reinvented territory
Defense date: December 12, 2024
Thesis supervisor: Bruno Proth
Co-supervisor: Dominique Dehais
Affiliated laboratory: Architecture Territoire Environnement (ENSA Normandie) / ED 556 HSRT
Funding: Region via the RIN 50% scheme and Métropole de Rouen Normandie
Date of first thesis registration: 2021
Jury members
Laurent DEVISME, rapporteur – Professor – Nantes University
Cristina MAZZONI, rapporteur – Professor – ENSA Paris-Belleville
Marc DUMONT, examiner – Professor – University of Lille
Françoise LUCCHINI, examiner – Senior Lecturer – University of Rouen Normandy
Elise PALOMARES, examiner – Professor – University of Rouen Normandy
Elsa VIVANT, examiner – Professor – École des Ponts Paristech
Thesis summary
This thesis analyzes the construction of French cities' bids for the European Capital of Culture label for the year 2028, up to the designation of Bourges in December 2023 after a heightened national competition. These bids are studied as initiatives capable of constructing narratives establishing the guidelines of urban production, this label being a tool exalting the prospective image of a city. The research explores the way in which the preparation of a cultural project of international scope enables us to reflect on the contemporary conditions of the process of making cities and their spaces, whether materially or socially conceived.
Complementing the urban studies focusing on the post-event legacy, and through the close-up analysis of nine candidate cities, and more specifically the finalists Bourges, Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier and Rouen, we explore the strategies for elaborating an allegedly federative discourse that nevertheless addresses a variety of audiences with divergent expectations. In this respect, the label is an edifying catalyst for analysis, insofar as we are also interested in the possible instrumentalization of this narrative which, by drawing on the symbolic power of art and culture to underpin certain political agendas, would contribute to pacifying tensions without overcoming partisan, territorial and social cleavages. Our study focuses on two subjects in particular: territorial construction and the urban strategy for hosting the event.
In a context marked by the interweaving of crises - territorial, economic and environmental - we question the paradigms perceptible in the bidding documents and the positioning of candidate cities in relation to contemporary urban issues. To do so, we focus on projects that are either disconnected from, or linked to, existing public policies and urban images and references, with the aim of verifying whether the concept of the "successful city", so dear to European discourse, translates into a single political, social, economic and urban response.