The workshop we have been conducting for the past four semesters explores new architectural practices in the contemporary metropolis, where climate, acceleration, deceleration shape our approaches. We focus on the preservation and transformation of ordinary heritage in order to adapt inherited buildings to the needs of a changing society, with the ambition of creating hybrid spaces that foster new practices and spatialities.

We are working in the Praille-Acacias-Vernet (PAV) area in Geneva, more specifically in the Grosselin district, an industrial territory destined to become the new heart of the city, at the cost of a radical transformation.

In the second semester of 2023/2024, students transformed the Tour Blavignac 10 into the Grand Genève Social Club, a hybrid place combining housing, productive spaces, and activities centered around shared facilities. In 2024/2025, the exploration focused on the industrial site at 12–20 Rue Baylon, questioning the coexistence of housing and work within a productive metropolitan environment. The building’s thickness was treated as a quality, used to create a service-oriented and productive urban infrastructure.

For the first semester of 2025/2026, the workshop focuses on Halle Bosson, Chemin de la Marbrerie 6, conceived as a covered yet open public space, a shared public asset that welcomes social life and embodies urbanity, diversity, and otherness, while offering free and accessible infrastructure.