Living Archives: Navigating 50 Years of Architectural Innovation

The Living Archives serve as the official publication platform for EPFL Architecture, showcasing the rich tapestry of research and education conducted within its laboratories, groups, courses, and project studios. Developed in collaboration with ENAC IT4-Research, this innovative tool aligns with EPFL's strategy towards Open Science and Open Access, providing a comprehensive repository of architectural publications.

With a vast collection spanning 50 years of architectural projects, studies, and research, the Living Archives website offers users a seamless and intuitive browsing experience. The platform is designed to facilitate easy exploration and discovery, with robust filtering options allowing users to quickly find the projects they seek.

Empowering Users Through Intuitive Interaction

At the heart of the Living Archives website is a sophisticated yet user-friendly interface, designed to empower users to navigate the extensive collection with ease. Whether searching for a specific project or exploring curated collections, users can filter and refine their search criteria to find relevant content efficiently.

Students and graduate architects from EPFL can contribute to the Living Archives by uploading their projects via a streamlined multi-page form. This intuitive process ensures that new content is added seamlessly to the platform, enriching the collective knowledge base of EPFL Architecture.

One of the key features of the website is its single-page application (SPA) functionality, which provides a fluid and responsive user experience. Upon clicking on a project, users are presented with detailed information without experiencing latency, thanks to the seamless communication between the Django backend and frontend.

Transforming Exploration into Discovery

The homepage of the Living Archives website features a two-column structure, with the first column housing filtering options and the second column displaying a grid of projects and collections. Upon clicking on a project or collection, the second column seamlessly splits into resizable columns, allowing users to explore additional details and related content.

Whether browsing through individual projects or curated collections, users can effortlessly add items to their personal collection, facilitating personalized exploration and discovery. With smooth transitions and intuitive navigation, the Living Archives website transforms exploration into discovery, empowering users to uncover the rich history and innovation of EPFL Architecture.

The technology powering the Living Archives

EPFL Architecture Living Archives are built using Django and Django CMS.

All the contents are either imported throught a custom API client from Infoscience, EPFL's catalog of scientific publications, or directly uploaded by Architecture students and intermediary staff, using an ad-hoc content uploading process.

Videos are automatically uploaded and transcoded by EPFL's Mediaspace, based on Kaltura, and finally all the contents are fed into Elasticsearch, which provides the faceted and cross-linked search functionalities at the hearth of Living Archives user experience to the front-end, via a custom REST API.