A serie of nocturnal thesis
HEAD – Genève
Developed as part of the Master of Arts in Interior Architecture (MAIA) at HEAD – Genève, this series of MA thesis explore the role of night in the construction of contemporary cities and societies, contesting the obliteration of night in the construction of the architectural discourse and agency.
Les nuits fantastiques. L’utopie du festival d’Avoriaz
Robin Delerce
This thesis focuses on the Avoriaz festival and attempts to highlight the dynamics that made it successful and then caused its decline. Despite strong media presence throughout its existence, the Avoriaz festival is now largely forgotten. For the 50th anniversary of the launch of the festival in 2023, this work provides an opportunity to reflect on the memory and legacy of this event. Created in 1973 to promote the resort, the Avoriaz International Fantasy Film Festival benefited from the emergence of a new generation of fantasy filmmakers, featuring the likes of Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, David Lynch, John Carpenter, George Miller, Luc Besson, David Cronenberg, James Cameron, Paul Verhoeven and Peter Jackson. All these filmmakers were able to benefit from the visibility offered by the festival in their early days. For two decades, it was a gateway for many fantasy fans of the time and largely contributed to the democratisation of the genre in France.
Technospace. The intangible elements comprising its architecture
Patrycja Pawlik
Techno and rave culture, which grew and flooded the world at the beginning of the 1990s, are the entry points for this study. The phenomenon of collective dancing, new formats of parties, music as a central actor, and wild appropriation of various places are just a few elements that constitute the history of raving. The story of Poland’s transformation after the fall of communism in 1989 and the growth of the techno scene serves as a main background for this thesis. Looking at the spatial development of techno venues from their illegal, underground beginnings to their commercialised mature phase, materialised in monstrous festivals and immersive interiors in techno clubs, this paper explores the current potential of these temporal environments, where body and dancing still play crucial roles for self-exploration and social belonging.
L’architecture au service du travail du sexe
Louise Plassard
What architecture best suits sex workers? Sex work takes place in a wide variety of places, from the street to the living room, the home and the hotel.Sex work has always been a component of our cities. Its spatial expressions reveal our social organisations and public policies. The architecture of the brothel reflects its regulations, but also a market of supply and demand, and the vision of its owners. It can be adorned with windows and revealed to the street. It can play on transparency or choose to be totally opaque and impermeable.
Architecture has an immediate impact and internalises the conditions of sex workers.
With this work I seek to discover the places of sex work in Geneva and their spatial organisation. First, I examine contemporary feminist currents in order to clarify the position I will adopt throughout the work. I examine the history of sex work through the spatial forms that have accompanied it at different times and in different places.
I then look at the situation in Geneva through three case studies. This is an opportunity, through interviews with those directly concerned, to identify a desirable horizon for the layout of a place that is designed to serve sex workers, for the practice of sex work. The ambition of my work is to think of places that can support the semantic shift from the “prostitute” to the “worker”, i.e. from active object to subject.
Head of the Department: Dr. Javier F. Contreras
Scientific Deputy: Valentina de Luigi
Photos : Guillaume Collignon, Pool Photos HEAD - Genève
