Open Fields Lunch: Productive Habitats 2024 / HRC

The Productive Habitats Open Field Lunch 2024 invites EPFL scholars to critically examine the profound influence of companies in shaping urban environments over the last three centuries. Through their extractive activities and industrial dominance, corporations have not only molded cities, towns, and entire regions, but have also left an indelible mark on the spatial, environmental, and socio-political landscapes. 

This interdisciplinary dialogue, hosted by the Habitat Research Center, will explore both the decline and potential resurgence of these corporate-driven settlements. By investigating the relationships between market forces, corporate governance, and societal well-being, this event aims to offer fresh perspectives on the intersection of capitalism and the built environment.

At this occasion, we will welcome Prof. Víctor Muñoz Sanz from the Department of Urban Design at TU Delft (Netherlands) that will bring how Bata company built and administrated a "Networked utopia" of towns and settlements in different countries and production sites. 

Víctor Muñoz Sanz is an assistant professor of urban design at TU Delft, where he conceptualizes, leads and develops critical research on the architecture and urbanism of the past, present and future of work. His research looks at the interplay of the design of productive landscapes with technology and management, and aims to question the role of urban design in enabling new urban economies and inclusive forms of work. He is the author of the book Una Rápida Compañera (2024), and co-editor of  Habitat: Ecology Thinking in Architecture (2020),  Roadside Picnics: Encounters with the Uncanny (2022), and Automated Landscapes (2023). Víctor qualified as an architect at the School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM, 2006), and holds a master’s of architecture in urban design, with distinction, from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2011), and a PhD cum laude in architecture from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (2016).

 

 

Interested to present your research? Submit your contribution by sending a short abstract and title (max. 200 words) by 17 September to [email protected] and [email protected]. Presentations should be no longer than 12-15 minutes.