The Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace (ALICE), affiliated with the School of Architecture at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, is an educational facility focusing on preparing students for the practice of architecture. To cultivate the ability to create or shape space, students must be confronted with an educational framework that prepares them for the field’s many practical challenges, from cultural, social, environmental, and physical concerns to working with the wide range of collaborators who must bring their creativity and expertise together in the design process.

The first volume in a four-part series on ALICE, this book focuses on how its innovative curriculum primes students to recognize the cultural practices embedded in the invention of space. Architectural spaces are conceived—and experienced—collectively within the incorporating culture. How can culture, together with a raft of competing concerns, be best translated in the design process? The book explores this and related questions through a fictional narrative, in essays and with two-hundred full-color illustrations.

ALICE plays a key role in the success one of Europe’s leading schools of architecture, and this book, together with the three other volumes in the series, provides an opportunity to explore the exceptional learning environment ALICE offers.