Ellipse Architecture

ellipsearchitecture

Architects EPFL

Avenue de la Gare 41
CH - 1003 Lausanne
Switzerland

info@ellipsearchitecture.ch
job@ellipsearchitecture.ch

  • Y + 41(0)79 390 75 92
  • M + 41(0)76 418 11 57

(...)team

(Yannick Claessens)
is the co-founder of ellipsearchitecture. Graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Msc Arch). He has been formed by international offices such as Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, SANAA in Tokyo and Roger Boltshauser in Zürich. He was a teaching assistant for Prof. Anja and Martin Fröhlich at EPFL.

(Mattia Pretolani)
is the co-founder of ellipsearchitecture. Graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Msc Arch) and University of Architecture of Venice (IUAV). He worked for LOCALARCHITECTURE in Lausanne, Sauerbruch Hutton in Berlin and Boltshauser Architekten in Zürich. He organized / curated the international workshops event EASA TOURIST 2019. He is currently active as Studio Director in the 1st year of architecture at EPFL for the laboratory ALICE.

(Marion Fonjallaz)
is an architect graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. She joined ellipsearchitecture in January 2022.
She is an EPFL lecturer for the UE course "DRAG(UE) Performativité et environnement construit".

(Vincent Luetto)
is a master architect student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He joined ellipsearchitecture in September 2020.

(Kyra Michel)
is an architect graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and from collège Universitaire Sciences Po Paris. She joined ellipsearchitecture in November 2022.
She is an EPFL lecturer for the UE course "DRAG(UE) Performativité et environnement construit".

(Arthur Prod'hom)
holds a bachelor degree in architecture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He joined ellipsearchitecture in August 2022.

(Thomas Theillaud)
is an apprentice draftsman (CFC). He joined ellipsearchitecture in September 2022.

(Nice people who have passed by)
Carole Depoorter
Antoine Iweins
Maud Nguyen Huynh
Raphaël Stäubli
Arno Wust
Adam El-Hamadeh
Riccardo Acquistapace
Vincent Luetto
Matteo Rezzonico
Kostantinos Dikaros

(...)architecture

(new)
Price winner, "Le cercle des oiseaux", International competition Lausanne-Jardins 2024, with En-dehors, Julien Mercier and Christophe Guberan.

(office)
Ellipsearchitecture is an architectural firm based in Lausanne and founded by Mattia Pretolani and Yannick Claessens in 2018. Both EPFL graduates, they are now active in teaching architecture. Throughout their career, they have been trained by local and international offices. Their practice is currently based in a Swiss and more broadly European context. In 2022, ellipsearchitecture is a finalist of the SwissArtAward

(ellipse + meta-)
Convinced that the parameters of a project are multiple, the ellipsis (...) or voluntary omission opens the field of interpretation and rejects the idea of ​​reducing the project to a single vision. Whether through experiences, references, or even sensitivities, the creative process is therefore inseparable from meta-content. The “Figures of the Negative” attempt to give substance to a context that is sometimes latent, but nonetheless present.

(transformation)
For ellipsearchitecture, the "new" does not exist. The architectural project is necessarily a process of transformation of a specific context. Whether material or theoretical. Architecture is an attitude towards the existing.
Architecture responds to or prefigures the transformation of lifestyles, which is why the relationship between the individual, the collective and the public is a parameter that precedes the form or the program.

(rammed earth)
Following their collaboration with Roger Bolsthauser on the Sitterwerk pavilion in St. Gallen, earthen architecture is a stated objective of ellipsearchitecture. Without being a prerogative, its ecological qualities make it a material of the future because it is 100% reusable and low in embodied energy.

(...)team

(Yannick Claessens)
is the co-founder of ellipsearchitecture. Graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Msc Arch). He has been formed by international offices such as Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, SANAA in Tokyo and Roger Boltshauser in Zürich. He was a teaching assistant for Prof. Anja and Martin Fröhlich at EPFL.

(Mattia Pretolani)
is the co-founder of ellipsearchitecture. Graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Msc Arch) and University of Architecture of Venice (IUAV). He worked for LOCALARCHITECTURE in Lausanne, Sauerbruch Hutton in Berlin and Boltshauser Architekten in Zürich. He organized / curated the international workshops event EASA TOURIST 2019. He is currently active as Studio Director in the 1st year of architecture at EPFL for the laboratory ALICE.

(Marion Fonjallaz)
is an architect graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. She joined ellipsearchitecture in January 2022.
She is an EPFL lecturer for the UE course "DRAG(UE) Performativité et environnement construit".

(Vincent Luetto)
is a master architect student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He joined ellipsearchitecture in September 2020.

(Kyra Michel)
is an architect graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and from collège Universitaire Sciences Po Paris. She joined ellipsearchitecture in November 2022.
She is an EPFL lecturer for the UE course "DRAG(UE) Performativité et environnement construit".

(Arthur Prod'hom)
holds a bachelor degree in architecture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He joined ellipsearchitecture in August 2022.

(Thomas Theillaud)
is an apprentice draftsman (CFC). He joined ellipsearchitecture in September 2022.

(Nice people who have passed by)
Carole Depoorter
Antoine Iweins
Maud Nguyen Huynh
Raphaël Stäubli
Arno Wust
Adam El-Hamadeh
Riccardo Acquistapace
Vincent Luetto
Matteo Rezzonico
Kostantinos Dikaros

(...)awards

(...)lectures

  • Lecture Series, Techne Tectonics, Mattia Pretolani, ALICE-Y1 2021-2022 EPFL, Lausanne
  • Lecture, Opus Terrae a glimpse on rammed earth, Mattia Pretolani, 26.10.2020, ALICE-Y1 EPFL, Lausanne
  • Moderation, Round table, Yannick Claessens & Camille Vallet, LUCERNE TALKS / Symposium on architecture pedagogy, 17.05.2019, HSLU Lucerne
  • Lecture, Pisé: Genèse et Réappropriation d’un Matériau, Yannick Claessens & Mattia Pretolani, 13.05.2019, Private, Lausanne
  • Lecture, Grà: dealing with the vernacular, Yannick Claessens & Mattia Pretolani, 05.04.2019, Laboratoire LAPIS EPFL, Lausanne
  • Lecture, Myths and Narrations in architecture, Yannick Claessens, 30.10.2018, Laboratoire EAST EPFL, Lausanne
  • Lecture, Figures of the Negative: Elements for an Architecture of Contradiction, Mattia Pretolani, 20.09.2018, Warsaw Under Costruction Festival - Neighbours, Kyiv, Ukraine
  • Lecture, Forms and Elements of the Negative in Architecture, Mattia Pretolani, 13.03.2018, Private, Lausanne

(...)publications