Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Assistant professor of architectural and urban design, EPFL

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, urban designer, and assistant professor at EPFL, where she leads the RIOT design and research laboratory.

As an assistant professor of urban design at Harvard University from 2020, Malterre-Barthes started A Global Moratorium on New Construction, an initiative that interrogates current development protocols and provocatively argues for the suspension of all new building activity. 

Malterre-Barthes’ interests relate to urgent aspects of contemporary urbanisation, material extraction, climate emergency and social justice. She holds a PhD from ETH Zurich on the political economy of food systems and its influence on architecture and urban design, and is a founding member of two activist networks dedicated to equality in architecture.