On November 13 and 14, 2025 in Caen, P.U.I Normandie and CY Cergy Paris Université organized the "Create & Innovate" seminar for doctoral students. The seminar, part of the 6th edition of the Créativ' week, was dedicated to the emergence of innovative projects and raising awareness of business creation.

Alexis Desplats, a doctoral student at the ATE laboratory, has been awarded the First Prize for Innovation for his "Les petits moteurs" project! At a time when communes across France are massively renovating their school playgrounds, Les petits moteurs proposes to transform the energy generated by children's play into electricity. The kinetic energy produced by their movements becomes a green, low-carbon source to power lighting in playgrounds, toilets and playgrounds.

More information HERE

visual: © Séminaire "Créer & Innover

On Thursday, December 11, at 4:30 p.m. in the Jean Duminy lecture hall, the ATE laboratory is organizing a meeting with researcher Mourad Bouzar who will present the progress of his research under the title "Between heritage and rebuilding: building a school of architecture in a postcolonial context. Algeria (1962-1969): a review of the research." Mourad Bouzar is visiting the ATE laboratory for a research stay as part of the André Mandouze grant.

The discussion will be moderated by Marie Gaimard, researcher at the ATE laboratory.

Summary of presentation
This presentation provides an overview of research into architectural education in Algeria between 1962 and 1969, a period marked by the refounding of university institutions against a backdrop of vacancies for qualified teachers and managers. At the heart of this research was the École nationale d'architecture et des Beaux-arts d'Alger (ENABA), reopened in autumn 1962 on the foundations of the former École nationale des Beaux-arts, but without most of its teaching staff. Until 1969, however, its architecture department would train the country's leading architects, who would be entrusted with the structuring projects of the following decade.

Between heritage and refoundation, this seven-year interval was characterized by an influx of architects from France, Switzerland, Italy, Eastern Europe, Cambodia and Uruguay. This convergence of players, most of whom had no previous teaching experience and heterogeneous training and references, encouraged the transfer and confrontation of diverse teaching models, whose gradual hybridization would have a lasting impact on the training of architects in Algeria.

Initiated within the framework of the André Mandouze grant, the recent exploitation of the archives of the Service national de coopération (Service historique de la Défense - site de Vincennes), the Bureau de l'administration des Beaux-arts (Archives nationales - site de Pierrefitte-sur-Seine), and the Secrétariat d'État aux affaires algériennes (Archives diplomatiques - site de la Courneuve), should make it possible to fill the documentary gaps in the Algerian archives, which have been dispersed since the transfer of the architecture section to the École polytechnique d'architecture et d'urbanisme (EPAU) in 1970.

In order to question the transfer and hybridization of teaching models, the presentation puts into perspective the material extracted from these funds and that drawn from the administrative archives of the former ENABA in previous studies. As well as reconstructing the prosopography of these teaching cohorts, the research examines Franco-Algerian cultural transfers, particularly in the context of cooperation, and their hybridization in a post-colonial context. It proposes a discussion of these pedagogical legacies which, across seas and borders, structure the training of architects.

visual: Composition by Mourad Bouzar. Foreground: École Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Arch. Léon Claro and Jacques Darbeda). View from the terrace. Bromide photo, Jomone edition. Background: Le Journal d'Alger, June 2, 1960, page 1.
Fonds du Bureau de l'administration des Beaux-arts, Archives Nationales (site Pierrefitte-sur-Seine), call number: F/21/9159

From December 1, 2025 to December 19, 2025, the ATE laboratory is pleased to welcome researcher Mourad Bouzar, lecturer at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts d'Alger.

Mourad Bouzar is currently on a research visit as part of the André Mandouze grant. Hosted by ATE under the direction of Marie Gaimard, he is observing the transfer of architectural teaching models from France to Algeria, with a particular focus on the role of Technical Cooperation during the first post-independence decade. Since October 20, 2025, he has been conducting this research in the archives of the Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes site), the Archives Nationales (Pierrefitte-sur-Seine site) and the Centre des Archives diplomatiques (La Courneuve and Nantes sites).

A presentation of his work will be held on December 11, 2025 at 4:30 pm at ENSA Normandie (amphi Jean-Duminy).
More information HERE.

Mourad Bouzar
Trained as a landscape architect, Mourad Bouzar also holds a Master's degree in Arts and Art Sciences from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts d'Alger (2015) and a PhD in Art History from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (2022).

Following initial research into the appropriation of colonial-era social housing space in a postcolonial context, and a thesis studying the professional career of Swiss architect Jean-Jacques Deluz (1930-2009), his most recent research focuses on the transfer of architectural teaching models from Switzerland and France to Algeria. They question the processes that underpinned their hybridization between 1962 and 1988 in the Algerian field, at the École nationale d'architecture et des Beaux-arts (ENABA) and the École polytechnique d'architecture et d'urbanisme (EPAU).

Currently a lecturer at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts d'Alger, Mourad Bouzar is in charge of the space design and furniture workshops, as well as the history of architecture and descriptive geometry modules. Since 2023, he has been in charge of "Alger Archi XVI-XX", a research group that introduces students in the Bachelor's and Master's programs in space design to the creation of monographic files, while familiarizing them with the city's history, urban planning and architecture.

Since September 2024, he has been head of ARTI, ENSBA-Alger's startup incubator, and chairs the Commission de suivi méthodologique des mémoires et projets de fin d'études.

On Friday, December 12, at 2 p.m. in the Jean Duminy lecture hall, Miléna Koutani will defend her doctoral thesis entitled "Thoughts and praxis establishing the common good. A third way for urban alternatives."

This doctoral thesis was prepared in the ATE laboratory, under the supervision of Bruno PROTHprofessor, ENSA Normandie, ATE.

Jury member

Silvana Segapeli, University Professor, ENSA Saint-Etienne (Rapporteur)
Mathias Rollot, Senior Lecturer HDR, ENSA Grenoble (Rapporteur)
Catherine Deschamps, University Professor, ENSA Paris-La Villette (Examiner)
Florence Bouillon, Associate Professor, Université Paris 8 (Examiner)
Arnaud Le Marchand, Maître de conférences HDR, Université du Havre (Examiner)

A live webcast of the presentation can be viewed by clicking HERE.

Summary of thesis
Since the 2000s, the concept of the commons has come to dominate a number of disciplinary fields, and today goes beyond its initial framework, developed by the pioneering work of Elinor Ostrom. Characterized as co-activity between individuals within a collective, the commons also represents a third way in the production of space, beyond state action and market constraints. This doctoral research focuses on the work of the (faire-)commun, integrated into the urban and architectural field, where new cooperative, alternative and sometimes radical modes of living are being experimented with.
To do so, we draw on various fields of investigation in Seine-Maritime: the follow-up to the occupation of the Foyer Sainte-Marie by the Jardins Joyeux collective, linked to other past struggles and experiments underway 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 delve deeper into the stages of conditioning the common, 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 "interwoven self" within a collective action. At the heart of a movement of instituting resistance, these fields have revealed antagonistic interests in the territory, as they challenge the absolute right of ownership, granting prevalence to the social destination of a space, its access, use and mutualization. Against the backdrop of a new climate regime and the emergence of new enclosures, these conflict zones allow us to question our needs, desires and renunciations.
By defining the common and its architectural and urban implications on the one hand, and assessing its ramifications within alternative projects on the other, this research aims to analyze new forms of mutualistic, supportive and cooperative links, likely to give rise to, structure and stimulate unprecedented urban transformations.

More information HERE

visual : Occupation of the Bouillons Farm in 2015. Photo © Bouillons Terres d'Avenir

Until February 4, 2026, the ATE laboratory is launching a call for papers for study days on "Architecture and the commons: spaces and practices", to be held at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Normandie on May 28 and 29, 2026.

These study days aim to explore the ways in which the commons can transform the design, production and use of architectural and urban spaces, drawing on feedback from experience, fieldwork and theoretical analysis. The aim is to examine the critical and transformative potential of commoning practices in a context marked by climate emergencies, socio-economic inequalities and the expansion of new enclosures.

This symposium is co-organized by Alexis Desplats, Miléna Koutani and Léna Tullifer, PhD students at the ATE laboratory.

The deadline for submissions is February 4, 2026.

Details of the arguments, procedures and timetable can be found HERE. 

visual: Building a ZAD for children during the Festival des Bâtons dans les routes, 2023 © Miléna Koutani

October 29-31, Università IUAV di Venezia - Thuy-Trang Trinh, PhD student at the ATE laboratory, will be taking part in the 11th edition of the international doctoral seminar "Urbanism and Urbanization", to be held this year in Venice.

This year's theme is "Grounding the Transition in Urbanism and Urbanization. An Atlas Between Complexity and Contradiction". Thuy-Trang will present her doctoral research on Thursday, October 30, in the session "Built Environment and Living Spaces. Between Adaptive Reuse and Settlement Reorganization".

More information on the detailed program HERE.
More information on the 11th U&U PhD Seminar HERE.

visual: program details

Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 4pm, Maison de l'Université, Rouen Campus - France

Addressing the issue of cross-risks means coming to grips with the complexity of systemic and holistic approaches. Although architects claim a certain expertise in these ways of thinking, they lack the tools to rank the relative importance of phenomena, represent their couplings and assess the relevance of simplifications generally made implicitly. This paper proposes to draw up an initial map of the phenomena and issues that emerge from the architect's appropriation of multi-hazard concepts in their confrontation with the needs of socio-ecological transitions.

Royalty free visual

On November 3 & 4, 2025 , ENSA Clermont-Ferrand organizes the symposium "À l'épreuve des espaces incertains. Questioning landscapes and territories through the prism of sensitive experiences".

On this occasion, Miléna Koutani, a doctoral student at the ATE laboratory, will take part in the session "Between gardens and wasteland: political and sensitive ecologies". Her paper is entitled "Exploring the uncertainty of the commons: a graphic account of an urban struggle".

Find out more about the program HERE.

ENSA Clermont-Ferrand - 85 rue du Docteur Bousquet - 63100 Clermont-Ferrand

visuals from the "Testing uncertain spaces" symposium

On November 6 & 7, 2025, ENSA Paris-Belleville, in collaboration with the Politecnico of Turin, ENSA Toulouse and the Italian Cultural Institute of Paris, are organizing the international symposium "Architecture as a project for society. The teaching of Giancarlo De Carlo twenty years after his death". This colloquium is the first act of a larger event, articulated around an exhibition, to be inaugurated on November 6, and two cycles of conferences to be held in November and December 2025.

Valter Balducciresearcher at the ATE laboratory, will take part in Session IV "Places" with a talk entitled "Starting with children. Architecture and pedagogy in Giancarlo De Carlo's buildings for children".

Find out more about the program HERE.

Institut Culturel Italien de Paris - 50 rue de Varennes - 75007 Paris
ENSA Paris-Belleville - 60 bd de la Villette - 75019 Paris

image: Collegio del Colle, Urbino 1966 © Università Iuav di Venezia, Archivio Progetti, fondo Giancarlo De Carlo.

On November 25 & 26, 2025 , the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Normandie will host the international symposium "Habiter un littoral en mouvement. Forms, practices, representations" - Salle Juliette Billard in Ateliers du Parc

This symposium will analyze the transformations in built form, land use and ways of living on the coast from the 1970s to the present day, a pivotal period marked by the emergence of ecological issues and, above all, by the tangible effects of climate change: rising sea levels, more intense storms, accelerated erosion and increasing thermal stress.

The aim is to cross the contributions of scientific and operational disciplines, by combining theoretical reflection with feedback from experience. Combining the perspectives of ecology, geography, history and sociology on the one hand, and architecture, urban planning and landscape on the other, this symposium explores the ways in which coastal societies deal with environmental vulnerability, development policies and shoreline imaginaries.

The international symposium "Habiter un littoral en mouvement" is organized by the ATE laboratory.
Organizing committee and scientific coordination: Valter Balducci and Milena Guest
Scientific Committee: Eric Alonzo, Valter Balducci, Thomas Beillouin, Stéphane Costa, Milena Guest, Alexis Metzger, Anne Portnoï
with the support of the Ministère de la Culture, ENSA Normandie and the ATE laboratory

Download the program HERE
Download abstracts HERE
Find thecall for papers HERE

visual: Granville coastline, photo taken on February 23, 2024 © Valter Balducci, 2024