Lecture

Celebrating 20 Years of LaSUR: Interdisciplinary Innovations

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Description

This lecture celebrates the 20th anniversary of LaSUR, the Urban Sociology Laboratory at EPFL. The instructor discusses the laboratory's role in bridging urban sociology with architecture and engineering. They reflect on personal experiences, highlighting how LaSUR transformed their understanding of European sociology and facilitated interdisciplinary collaborations. The concept of 'ecotones' is introduced, representing the intersection of different ecosystems, which parallels LaSUR's position at the crossroads of social sciences, engineering, and architecture. The instructor emphasizes the laboratory's open approach to research and its importance as a platform for young researchers. The celebration aims to revisit past achievements and outline future aspirations for the next decade, focusing on the laboratory's commitment to interdisciplinary work and collaboration among architects, urban planners, engineers, and social scientists.

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Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to solve problems, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve systems. Modern engineering comprises many subfields which include designing and creating infrastructure, machinery, vehicles, electronics, materials, and energy. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application.

Territory

A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, i.e. an area that is under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state. As a subdivision, a territory in most countries is an organized division of an area that is controlled by a country but is not formally developed into, or incorporated into, a political unit of that country, which political units are of equal status to one another and are often referred to by words such as "provinces", "regions", or "states".

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Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks and their accessibility.

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage systems, pipelines, structural components of buildings, and railways. Civil engineering is traditionally broken into a number of sub-disciplines. It is considered the second-oldest engineering discipline after military engineering, and it is defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering.

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