BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Memento EPFL// BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Architectures of Emergency / ALICE DTSTART:20251120T160000 DTSTAMP:20260530T105145Z UID:4ffe00b9fd4e290832c53b7d215a091e456767e6ae5d14fd7b596382 CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars DESCRIPTION:Estefania Mompean Botias\nArchitectures of Emergency \nSentin el Attentions and Relational Governance in a Rapidly Changing World\n\nWe are living in an age increasingly shaped by a continuous and constructed c ondition of emergency. Climate disruption\, systemic inequality\, forced d isplacement\, and ecological degradation are not anomalies but interwoven dynamics that define the present. Emergency has become foundational—an o rganizing framework that governs how we perceive\, inhabit\, and respond t o a changing world. Architectures of Emergency examines how emergency is n ot only managed but actively constructed—with the complicity of architec ture\, urbanism\, and design—as it is sensed\, spatialized\, and institu tionalized across scales.\n\nContemporary governance often frames emergenc ies as isolated\, urgent events to be managed through technocratic control . Such framings obscure the slow violence\, uneven vulnerabilities\, and e mbodied knowledge that shape how emergencies are lived and remembered. Eme rgency becomes a tool of abstraction\, implemented through protocols\, com mand centers\, and anticipatory infrastructures that seek to restore norma tive “order.” Architecture\, in this system\, risks becoming a passive executor of global scripts—producing climate-smart bunkers\, resilient masterplans\, and securitized zones devoid of care\, memory\, or participa tion.\n\nThis thesis draws from experiences in which architecture works ot herwise—becoming relation and care: a practice that empowers communities through situated knowledges\, shared vulnerabilities\, and collective att unements. It opens space for slower gestures and alternative imaginaries f or living with disturbance.\n\nThe thesis unfolds in two movements. The fi rst\, The Intrusion of Emergency\, traces a genealogy of architectures of emergency—laws\, command centers\, infrastructures\, and protocols—tha t institutionalize emergency as a spatial regime. The second\, Becoming-Em ergency\, invites us to recompose these architectures through feminist fig urations\, sentinel attentions\, and ecologies of care—toward softer\, s ituated\, and collective forms of spatial practice.\n\nThe research is gro unded in territories I have inhabited before and during the thesis—Murci a (Spain)\, Geneva (Switzerland)\, Brooklyn (USA)\, and Maroantsetra (Mada gascar)—shaped by lived encounters with flooding\, risk infrastructures\ , and activist counter-practices. These situated engagements inform a broa der framework: the Atlas of Inhabiting Emergency\, a collective cartograph ic methodology that traces shared vulnerabilities\, spatial resonances\, a nd practices of care across geographies. Together\, they form the foundati on for a transdisciplinary methodology grounded in place\, perception\, an d cohabitation.\n\nUnfolding as both a cartographic and choreographic inqu iry\, this research traces how infrastructures\, bodies\, and imaginaries navigate and are shaped by emergency. Through genealogical analysis and ex perimental design rituals\, it shows how alternative architectures surface in the fissures of emergency governance—architectures that attune rathe r than surveil\, and that govern through relation rather than control.\n\n Ultimately\, this research argues for a shift: from emergency as spectacle to emergency as method\; from containment to cohabitation\; from resilien ce to relational survival. It explores an open-ended spatial\, political a nd ethical practice for staying with the trouble of our time—a time shap ed by emergency. LOCATION:SG 1212 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SG%201212 https://epfl.zoom.u s/j/61749044521 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR