Faculty position in Architectural Geometry and Digital Design

EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) invites applications for a faculty position in Architectural Geometry and Digital Design. The position in the institute of Architecture and the City is open at the level of Assistant Professor (tenure-track), in exceptional cases a higher rank (e.g., Associate Professor with tenure) might be considered.

The continuing climate crisis, rapid urbanization, and the threat of collapsing ecosystems create systemic challenges that architecture must address through coherent, progressive and inclusive visions and solutions that catalyze socio-ecological transitions within the built environment.

We seek a professor with a recognized intellectual footprint in architectural geometry and digital design. The appointee will expand existing practices of design and construction towards new methodologies and construction logistics that integrate manual craft, computational or AI-driven design, advanced geometric manipulation, and building information models (BIM), often in hybrid relationships, with a view to address the ecological urgency in the built environments. Aesthetic and morphological innovation should be paralleled by scholarship that theorizes and contextualizes transcalar digital approaches to design and production, and critically examines their value and impact in the architectural context, in the city, the profession and society at large.

The candidate is expected to have a strong commitment to excellence in education and teach architectural geometry and digital design at the bachelor’s, master’s and PhD level, and engage an encompassing view of geometry’s role in architecture and its evolution over time.

The new chair will conduct ground-breaking disciplinary and transdisciplinary research in architectural geometry and digital design in collaboration with related research areas in IA, ENAC and EPFL, and actively contribute to the strategic research clusters at ENAC in Digitalization, Climate Change and Sustainable Territories.       

The Institute of Architecture and the City at ENAC, EPFL is an internationally leading institution in architecture, urban and territorial design. It is one of the three university-level architecture schools in Switzerland. With its main campus located in Lausanne and its developing antennae in neighbouring cantons in Switzerland, EPFL is a growing and well-funded institution fostering excellence and diversity. It is well equipped with experimental and computational infrastructure and offers a fertile environment for research collaborations between different disciplines. The EPFL environment is multilingual and multicultural, with English serving as a common interface. EPFL offers internationally competitive start-up resources, salaries, and benefits.

The following documents are requested in PDF format: cover letter including a statement of motivation, curriculum vitae, publication list, concise statements of research vision and teaching interests (up to five pages for each), and the names and addresses (including e-mail) of at least three (for the rank of Assistant Professor) or five (for the rank of Associate Professor) references who have already agreed to supply a letter upon request. Applications should be uploaded to the EPFL recruitment website.

Formal evaluation of the applications will begin on March 1, 2023. The search will continue until the position is filled.

Further enquiries should be made to: Prof. Jeffrey Huang, Chair of the Search Committee, ArchiGeomDigitDesign@epfl.ch.

For additional information on EPFL, please consult: epfl.ch, enac.epfl.ch, ia.epfl.ch, sar.epfl.ch

EPFL is an equal opportunity employer and a family-friendly university that is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty. It strongly encourages women to apply.